White screen on imac Possible Duplicate:
  Can't boot Mac, only shows a Folder with a Question Mark?

Can any one tell me what a white screen on an imac means? There is also a folder with a question mark flashing in the center of the screen. Does anyone know how to resolve this problem? Thanks!

According to Apple you should try a few options:
Check the mouse and keyboard

This issue might occur if a mouse or trackpad button is pressed during startup. Make sure the button isn't pressed.

If the issue persists, shut down your Mac with its power button, disconnect any external mouse and keyboard, then turn on your Mac with its power button. If the flashing question mark issue persists, reconnect the keyboard and mouse.

If your Mac still starts to a flashing question mark, follow the steps below. If any step resolves the issue, you don't need to continue to the next one.

Select your Mac OS X startup disk with Startup Manager by restarting and holding the Option key. After your Mac starts up, restart again to verify that the flashing question mark does not appear.

If the issue persists, insert your Mac OS X installation disc. Be sure to either use the disc that came with your Mac, or, if you installed a later Mac OS X version from disc, use the newer disc.

MacBook Air note: On a MacBook Air, there are two options for starting up from Mac OS X media: Either connect a MacBook Air SuperDrive to the MacBook Air via the USB port and restart the computer, holding down the C key during startup, or use Remote Install Mac OS X to startup from a system software DVD that's located on a partner computer. Once started up from Mac OS X media, skip to step 3.

Restart the computer, then hold the C key during startup.

From the Utilities menu, choose Disk Utility. Don't click Continue.

Select your Mac OS X disk (named "Macintosh HD" by default) in the left side of the Disk Utility window.

Click the First Aid tab.

Click Repair Disk to verify and repair any issues with your Mac OS X startup disk.

After repairing the disk, try to start up normally.
Important: If Disk Utility finds issues it cannot repair, you may need to back up as much of your data as possible (or use Time Machine to back up to a different disk), then erase the disk and reinstall Mac OS X.

If the issue persists, and Disk Utility didn't find any irreparable issues, quit Disk Utility, quit the Installer, select your disk when prompted, and restart.

If the issue continues, reset PRAM. Note: After resetting PRAM, if the computer starts up normally, reselect the startup disk in the Startup Disk preferences.

If none of these steps resolve the issue, start up from the Mac OS X Installation disc and reinstall Mac OS X.

From:
A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1440


Set program as default for all openable files on mac Is there a way to set a program as default, for all file types it can open? I know there is a setting for this in windows, but how can I do this on Mac? Or at least a menu where I can toggle all files that can be opened, like you can in windows?

1. Set as default
2. List of files

For those who may ask the question in the future, this thread has instructions.

Edit plist
Use an app such as RCDefaultApp

Cheers!


Use only the left option key as meta key in Terminal.app There's an option in Terminal.app -> Preferences -> Settings -> Keyboard but it allows me only to set both option keys as meta keys.
iTerm.app has such an option but don't like that application.

If you aren't totally set on using Terminal, I believe that iTerm2 has a setting to just use one of the option keys as meta. If you are, is there a setting to maybe use the Esc key as meta? I know that it's more convenient to use the option key, but the Esc key might be easier to set.


remove old drive from Time Machine backup My old HDD died, I restored data to a new one, but now I have two versions of backup: new and old
The name was MyVolume, in Time Machine I have now MyVolume and MyVolume1

I already tried tmutil addexclusion and exclusions in Time Machine options
I tried to rename my new HDD, tried to use another empty HDD with the same name
but this old backup is still there

How can I remove one of it?

I found a solution in this answer:
How can I delete Time Machine files using the commandline

I used /System/Library/Extensions/TMSafetyNet.kext/Contents/Helpers/bypass
and it worked for me


Cable required for extended screen I would like to use my MacBook Air as a extended screen for my iMac, both are running OSX 10.9.2 and both have lightning connectors. What lead should I buy?
Kind Regards

Apple does not allow Target Display Mode on anything but a few select iMac models. You can see the complete list on Apples's TDM Support Page.

There may be a third party solution but I am not aware of any.


Every link starts download in browser on my osx After cleaning my keyboard and track pad with and hot cloth (It was greasy), I'm not able to browse any links in Chrome, Safari on my mac book air with El Capitan osx.

When clicking any links on any website, it always starts an download with "download.html". I'm able to browse by right clicking on track-pad and choose "open in new tab", which is very annoying in the long run.

I have somehow managed to alter some config on my machine, but don't know what I have done.

I have tried to google this problem but I don't even succeed in asking the correct question, every result on google returns my with some irrelevant subjects.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

If your cleaning project stuck your Option key, such that Safari thinks it is always pressed, then any link you click on will download instead of open.

So, try wiggling or drying around your Option key?


How can I print this PDF and fill an A4 page? I have this PDF. It's a simple grid created in Pixelmator with lines every 500 pixels. I want to use it as a template for drawing over a Wacom tablet.

For some reason, no matter what I do, print preview won't display the full grid. I've tried changing scaling, etc to no avail.

The image is 2880 x 1800 (the resolution of my MacBook Pro Retina 15").

This seems like a really simple thing to do...

It is not really a glitch.

The accuracy of print preview depends on 2 factors.

One is the Printer it self.

Try changing printer type or select high print resolution (1200 DPi or more).

The second factor is the application showing the print preview.

If you for example use the Adobe Reader it shows much better print preview then Preview.app it self.

Example:


MacBook Pro 15" Retina Catalina mid 2014 QuickTime issues A few days ago I encountered the following problem: when pressing the spacebar to play an mp3-file from the desktop, I only heard the left speaker. Also through the headphones you only hear the left side. Now here comes the weird part: what you hear is a sum of the left and right channel of the stereo file! I made a file with a piano on the left and a bass on the right, and you hear them both from the left.

The strange thing is, that it only happens when QuickTime is playing the file. When I play the same audio through VLC, Logic Pro X or SoundStudio, it is in stereo.

At first I did all the obvious things. I checked the Audio/MIDI-settings, restarted, reset PRAM an SMC. Then I went to plan B: a complete rebuild. I formatted the disk and put back a TimeMachine backup. The problem persists. I did another new OS install, but now without formatting the drive, no change.

I tried everything I could come up with. The only thing I couldn't do was altering the routing of QuickTime/QuickLook with Terminal, because I don't know how to...

HELP!

If the problem only occurs in one application, then it's likely to be a problem with its settings, or some system setting that controls audio per-application.

Wiping the drive and then putting all the files back using Time Machine will leave you with an identical drive.

You may want to try deleting the file at:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX.plist

(i.e. in the User Library.)

... and then test the problem. If that doesn't work, you may want to restore this file to keep existing preferences.


My iPad is completely drained for almost 3 months I left my iPad 2 unused for almost 3 months because I don't have a charger and no one wanted to use it so it's stucked and unused. When I bought a new charger for my iPad and charged it, the battery sign shown up but no other movement happens. Is my iPad broken?

Keep your iPad charging for at least some hours and let's see if the battery can "wake up". Some of my old cellphones' battery only "wake up" after like one day of charging. Hope everything is alright, or you would need to have the battery replaced.


iPhone 4s Power Cable Compatibility Can I use an iPhone 4s power cable to charge any other mobile device?

Do any other mobile devices have a power connector similar to the iPhone 4s?

Can I use an iPhone 4s power cable to charge any other mobile device?

Short answer...YES you can

The cable is Apple's (legacy) 30 pin connector.

This cable is compatible with

iPhone 3G through 4s
iPad 1st through 3rd Generation
iPod (various generations)

Apple has a complete and official list of supported devices on their product page: Apple 30-pin to USB Cable


Why does BBC Radio Player fail in Safari on my Mac? Sorry this is a UK-only issue.

The BBC have a Flash-based player for their live radio on the following page:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_radio_fourfm

This works fine in Google Chrome on my Mac, but in Safari, the Flash elements in this page fail to load, and the radio does not play.

What could be causing this? Do other Safari users see it? How does one diagnose a Flash problem in a web-site?

I have no extensions, nor Safari plugins installed.

Clearing Safari's cookies fixed the problem!


ios Shortcuts: get index of selected list item In an iOS shortcut I can ask the user to select an item from a list, but how do I access the selected index?
I need that in order to get at the selected object in the case where I’ve already converted the objects into more presentable text for the action sheet.
Update:
What I really wanted was to customise the user-facing string representation of an item.

Based on the comments, this Apple Support site held the answer.  Use "Set Name" to get the value:

To set a custom name for an item that an action outputs, such as an
image in the Get Latest Photos action, place a Set Name action in
between the Get Latest Photos action and the Choose from List action.
When the shortcut is run, the custom name (rather than the default
name, such as “IMG_0365”) is applied to the image output from the Get
Latest Photos action.
If you use the Choose from List action with the Dictionary action, all
of the keys in the dictionary are displayed when you tap “Add new
item.” For each key you select, such as Number, Boolean, or Array, the
corresponding values are passed as output.


iPhone won’t install previously deleted default app I’ve been trying to reinstall some default apps I had previously deleted such as “Watch” and “Files” through the App Store however with all of them I get the message:

  Unable to install ‘app name’ Please try again later.

All other apps download fine, it’s just the default Apple apps that won’t install.

Try restarting your iPhone. Sometimes rebooting it , helps.


how can I change the default name of safari “print to pdf” documents? Saving prints of particular website to track changes.  Would like to change the name of the saved pdf file to reflect time*date when I did the pdf print instead of just the webpage name.  (e.g. XXDashboard-2017-10-12-13-02 )
TIA

I guess you could automate the job using an Automator script.
Automator is nbuilt right into Mac OSX, so you don't have to install anything.

Here is a tutorial on how to automate some tasks:
https://www.raywenderlich.com/58986/automator-for-mac-tutorial-and-examples


What is the case screw length and thread pitch for the 2010 MacBook 13" Model 7,1? I have a 2010 MacBook 13" Model 7,1. It has recently gotten some upgrades and one of the screws wandered off and was eaten by a grue.

What length and thread pitch are the eight screws holding the bottom panel on to the laptop body on this model?

These screws and panel are shown in this iFxit tutorial. I see that these are 4mm screws. I would like to know the screw size so that I can just order them as generic screws in my next McMaster-Carr delivery.

Metric screws are measured by the outside diameter of the threads, the spacing between threads and the length as in Ma-b X c. iFixit tells me the length is 4mm. So I have Ma-b X 4mm. I need to know a and b. I suspect that this may be a non-standard or atypical screw size.

You didn't mention which screw you lost.  It's important to know because there are a number of different screws specific to that model:

3 mm Phillips #0. (Head: 2.75 mm. dia.)
4 mm Phillips #0.  (Head: 2.75mm dia.)
6.25 mm Phillips #000. (Head: 4 mm. dia. x .5mm thick)
3.25 mm Phillips #000. (Head: 4 mm. dia. x 4mm thick)
11 mm Phillips #00, with Shank (2.2mm dia. x 2 mm len.) (Head: 3.2 mm. dia. x .5mm thick)
.25 mm Phillips #00, with Shank (2mm dia. x 3.75 mm len.) (Head: 3.2 mm. dia. x .5mm thick)
5.2 mm Phillips #00, with Shank (2.3mm dia. x 3.5 mm len.) (Head: 3.2 mm. dia. x .5mm thick)
11 mm Phillips#00 in the middle of the case. (Head: 5mm dia. x .75mm thick)
14.5 mm Phillips #00 (Head: 5mm dia. x .75mm thick)

Source:  ifixit.com

Your best bet is to browse through the repair guides on iFixit, identify the screw that you are missing then search for it online.  However, if it's just one screw, you will probably be just fine.


iTunes will not add some mp3 files I own several albums from the same band and want to import all of the .mp3 files into iTunes (v. 12.0.1.26). However, iTunes will not add a few songs from 3 of the albums. All of the other songs were imported without a problem except for these few.

I have tried using "Automatically Add to iTunes" in Finder as well as "Add to Library..." in iTunes for these files. When attempting the former, the files are placed in the "Not Added" sub-folder. With the latter, nothing happens (I check by going to My Music => Songs and sort by Date Added to see if any new files show up regardless of expected ID3 information).

The problem files play normally with Quicktime and VLC player.

My Mac is caught up on all software updates.

Thank you in advance for your support!

You can try to fix your mp3 file, there are some great software for that.

  MP3val is a small, high-speed, free software tool for checking MPEG
  audio files' integrity. It can be useful for finding corrupted files
  (e.g. incompletely downloaded, truncated, containing garbage). MP3val
  is also able to fix most of the problems. Being a multiplatform
  application, MP3val can be runned both under Windows and under Linux
  (or BSD).

Src : http://mp3val.sourceforge.net

I don't really know if it's because your mp3 files are broken, but it's possible. Perhaps QuickTime and VLC are more permissive than iTunes...


What extension is this? I was watching a programming video on YouTube and the instructor had the extension below installed. It looks very useful – instead of just showing open apps, it shows a wide range of default and customizable items.  Does anyone know what it is?


Lion upgrade from Mac App store seems to have frozen I am trying to upgrade to Lion from Snow Leopard. After beginning the download/install process from the Mac App store everything seemed normal. However after about 20 minutes my entire MBP is frozen. Trackpad and keyboard do nothing, and the mouse pointer is not visible on the screen.

The screen is stuck at where it was before: looking at the Lion page in the Mac app store.

It's now been about 15-20 minutes of waiting at the frozen screen. Is it safe to restart the computer and start the process anew?

Although it says Install the Mac App Store just downloads the Installer. Therefore, if you didn't run the Installer, the MBP froze while downloading, so it is safe to restart the computer and process with it.


Why do my most recent iTunes music purchases not sync to my iPhone? For some reason, the last 15 songs or so that I've downloaded won't sync to my iPhone. I've tried:

Removing all music by unchecking "Sync Music" (didn't actually remove the music for some reason) and then re-adding it.
Putting those 15 songs in a playlist and syncing only those 15 songs.
Rebooting the iPhone.
Rebooting the computer.

Nothing has worked so far. Has anyone experienced this and found a solution?

Note:

The computer is a Fall 2013 Macbook Pro 13-Inch running OS X 10.9.1 with the latest version of iTunes installed. The iPhone is an iPhone 5S running iOS 7.0.4.

I had this exact same problem and found the answer I was looking for within one of the Apple communities. Simply go into iTunes store and scroll right to the very bottom. There amongst the small print you'll see an option for purchased. Click on there and you will see a list of all songs/albums and you can choose to either download all or individual tracks. Once downloaded they appear in your library as normal. Don't ask me why they don't appear straight away, but this resolves the problem of those not transferring when syncing


Run script through launch agent is failed I try to run the next script through LaunchAgent:

on run argv
    set current_path to POSIX path of ((path to me as text) & "::")
    set common to load script (current_path & "common.scpt")
    set screenSharingApp to "Screen Sharing"

    try
        if application screenSharingApp is running then do shell script "killall '" & screenSharingApp & "'"
    end try
    repeat until application screenSharingApp is not running
        delay 0.1
    end repeat

    tell application screenSharingApp
        launch
        activate
    end tell

end run

But always I get this error: execution error: Screen Sharing got an error: Application isn’t running. (-600)

If I run the same script through Script Editor or Terminal is running OK.

What can it be? Why does it not work?

My plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.myapp</string>
        <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
        <string>/Users/user1/Desktop/stderr.log</string>
        <key>StandardOutPath</key>
        <string>/Users/user1/Desktop/stdout.log</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>/usr/bin/osascript</string>
            <string>/Users/user1/Desktop/1.scpt</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
        <key>StartInterval</key>
        <integer>300</integer>
    </dict>
</plist>

My recommendations:

Move anything to neutral ground:

This removes the launch agent from the launchd database:

sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchAgents/com.myapp.plist
sudo launchctl remove com.myapp

Move the .scpt file:

sudo mv ~/Desktop/common.scpt /usr/local/bin/

Remove unneeded std* files:

rm ~/Desktop/stdout.log
rm ~/Desktop/stderr.log

Modify /Library/LaunchAgents/com.myapp.plist with sudo nano /Library/LaunchAgents/com.myapp.plist accordingly:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Disabled</key>
    <false/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.myapp</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/osascript</string>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/common.scpt</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/com.myapp.stderr</string>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/com.myapp.stdout</string>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>300</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

Increase application kill check delay in the script:

 ...
 repeat until application screenSharingApp is not running
     delay 0.5
 end repeat
 ...

Load the plist:

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchAgents/com.myapp.plist

Check that no older "Screen Sharing" app is present on another volume and linked in the launch services database!


MBP Folder/Question mark icon, but boots ok with Option key I have a 2012 classic MacBook Pro that crashed the other day when waking from sleep. On reboot, I got the dreaded missing boot volume indicator. Rebooting with the option key showed no available boot partitions.

I reset NVRAM (and just for kicks the SMC). This had no effect.

Booting into Internet Recovery showed no obvious problems in Disk Utility: the drive (an aftermarket SSD installed years ago) was there and tested just fine. First aid on the disk did not fix the boot issue. When trying to select a startup disk, the internal drive was not on the list. From terminal, I could navigate the drive just fine and copy files, no problem.

I reinstalled MacOS. During the setup process, the machine rebooted and when it did, I got the same missing boot volume indicator. Rebooting holding the Option key, however, showed the boot drive. I selected Macintosh HD and Setup continued. The machine was fine. However, overnight it did not go to sleep properly after copying some additional files and the battery drained to 0. On waking up, I again got the missing boot volume icon. Rebooting with option held down shows the internal SSD and the machine boots fine.

So, how can I get my MacBook Pro to correctly and automatically boot off of the internal hard drive every time without having to hold down the option key? The computer is shared, and not everybody who uses it is going to remember to do that.

It may be worth you resetting your NVRAM.

Resetting the NVRAM

Here’s how to reset the NVRAM on your MBP:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shutdown, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then press the
command option P R keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again (i.e. a 2nd time) and you’ve heard the startup chime twice.
Let go of the keys and let your MBP reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc). As a minimum I would check your Startup Disk settings.


How to get sound to headphones through my USB speakers vs. the internal speakers? I have AKG headphones with a USB or dual prong jack that I want to use with my MacBook Air. I can plug them into the USB port but how can I get the sound to come through the headphones instead of the laptop speaker?

It sounds like you don't have your sound input configured correctly. Have you tried going into System Preference > Sound and changing the Output device?

Another (easier) option is to Option ⌥ -click the sound menulet in the menubar, which will bring up an Input/Output device selection menu (10.6 and later).


Increasing The Size Of The Mouse Pointer In OS X Mavericks? Is there a way to change the size of the mouse pointer to make it easier to see, as sometimes when "surfing", I find it smaller than it needs to be on the screen ?

Check out Accessibility options in Preferences:


Pair my Apple Watch back to my iPhone My iPhone and Apple Watch were paired but the iPhone went in for repairs.

On return, the pairing to my Watch was broken. Now I want to re-pair the Watch without losing my exercise data gathered for past 2 weeks.

How can I pair these two devices without losing my exercise data?

Your Apple Watch will only upload that data to the paired iPhone. Check whether the watch shows up in the "Watch" app on your iPhone. If it does, you may be able to get them talking again by going to the Bluetooth settings, tapping the "circle i" and connecting the watch again. If so, they will sync and all is well.

If not, retrieving your last 2 weeks of data is not possible since pairing with another phone will cause the loss of the data on the phone.


playing a podcast in i tunes with OS 10.8.5 I have put a podcast in my podcasts folder in i-tunes media.   How do I get i-tunes to see it so that I can play the podcast

You can press CMD+O and choose it from that folder directly in iTunes.

The easiest way to add stuff generally to iTunes I think is to drag and drop your podcast/music file/folder on the itunes icon.


What color space is iPhone's 7 "Wide color display (P3)" Newest iPhone 7 claims to have "Wide color display (P3)". What exactly is this, a color space? Could this be Adobe RGB, or just a different space created by apple?

How does it compare to sRBG and Adobe RBG?

Ok I've found it. It's DCI-P3 standard:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/09/09/apples-wide-color-screen-on-the-iphone-7-will-lead-to-more-faithful-color-reproduction

Most modern android smartphones are already able to display the circle inside the red square, but probably are converting Adobe RGB or DCI-P3 color space to sRBG instead of displaying correctly the original one.

Comparison sRGB vs Adobe RGB vs DCI-P3:


How can I stop Calendar auto-complete from suggesting my ex? After a divorce, I'd so much like MacOS (10.13)'s Calendar (10, 2195.4.3) to stop suggesting "Dinner with ----" every time I start typing "Dinner" and reminding me each time I want to do something that I did it with someone else for decades.

I haven't found a way to tell Calendar to stop, and I also haven't figured out how to remove all previous invites with their name. All approaches welcome short of dating someone with the same name.

Create a new calendar, delete the old one?


OS X PHP — dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/lib/libpq.5.dylib What is the problem with my Mac's default PHP? Whenever I do php -version, it shows the following file missing information. How can I fix this problem?

Symlink libpq.5.3 to libpq.5:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libpq.5.3.dylib /usr/lib/libpq.5.dylib

Make a backup first.


Force mounting an external disk that is not recognized I recently bought a 4 TB naked (no enclosure) external hard drive that I mount via a Newer Tech dock (the ones where you insert the naked drive like bread in a toaster) and is connected to my MacBook pro via FireWire 800.

About a month later I wanted to use the drive and it would not mount.

Disk Utility reports that it is "Not Mounted".

When I connect the drive I get this:

  The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.

So I tried terminal commands like:

diskutil list

which yelds this:

I also tried:

mount force /dev/disk3

and got:

mount: You must specify a filesystem type with -t.

and then:

mount force -t Apple_HFS /dev/disk3

which outputs:

usage: mount [-dfruvw] [-o options] [-t external_type] special node
   mount [-adfruvw] [-t external_type]
   mount [-dfruvw] special | node

I also tried:

diskutil repairVolume /dev/disk3

which gives back:

Error starting file system repair for disk3: Unrecognized file system (-69846)

and finally:

sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk3

which returns:

I am at a loss, can anyone give me some advice on how to mount this drive?

Just when I was about to give up, format the drive and lose my data, somehow I was able to fix the drive so I am posting what exactly I did in terminal for the benefit of other people who might come across this post and have the same problem. I hope this will be helpful to somebody:

Admins-MacBook-Pro:~ admin$ diskutil mount /dev/disk3
Volume on disk3 failed to mount; if it has a partitioning scheme, use "diskutil mountDisk"
If the volume is damaged, try the "readOnly" option
If the volume is an APFS Volume, try the "diskutil apfs unlockVolume" verb
Admins-MacBook-Pro:~ admin$ mount force /dev/disk3
mount: You must specify a filesystem type with -t.
Admins-MacBook-Pro:~ admin$ mount -t /dev/disk3
Admins-MacBook-Pro:~ admin$ mount force -t /dev/disk3
usage: mount [-dfruvw] [-o options] [-t external_type] special node
       mount [-adfruvw] [-t external_type]
       mount [-dfruvw] special | node
Admins-MacBook-Pro:~ admin$ mount -t force /dev/disk3
usage: mount [-dfruvw] [-o options] [-t external_type] special node
       mount [-adfruvw] [-t external_type]
       mount [-dfruvw] special | node
Admins-MacBook-Pro:~ admin$ diskutil verifyDisk /dev/disk3
Nonexistent, unknown, or damaged partition map scheme
If you are sure this disk contains a (damaged) APM, MBR, or GPT partition
scheme, you might be able to repair it with "diskutil repairDisk /dev/disk3"
Admins-MacBook-Pro:~ admin$ diskutil repairDisk /dev/disk3
Nonexistent, unknown, or damaged partition map scheme
If you are sure this disk contains a (damaged) APM, MBR, or GPT partition map,
you can hereby try to repair it enough to be recognized as a map; another
"diskutil repairDisk /dev/disk3" might then be necessary for further repairs
Proceed? (y/N) y
Partition map repair complete; you might now want to repeat the
verifyDisk or repairDisk verbs to perform further checks and repairs
Admins-MacBook-Pro:~ admin$ diskutil repairDisk /dev/disk3
Repairing the partition map might erase disk3s1, proceed? (y/N) y
Started partition map repair on disk3
Checking prerequisites
Checking the partition list
Adjusting partition map to fit whole disk as required
Checking for an EFI system partition
Checking the EFI system partition's size
Checking the EFI system partition's file system
Checking the EFI system partition's folder content
Checking all HFS data partition loader spaces
Checking booter partitions
Reviewing boot support loaders
Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions
Updating Windows boot.ini files as required
The partition map appears to be OK
Finished partition map repair on disk3
Admins-MacBook-Pro:~ admin$

Since I've tried pretty much every terminal line under the sun, I think the key was the sequence in which this worked, which was:

mount -t /dev/disk3
mount force -t /dev/disk3
diskutil verifyDisk /dev/disk3
diskutil repairDisk /dev/disk3
diskutil repairDisk /dev/disk3

When I heard tried to verifyDisk and repairDisk a few days ago it had not worked but somehow with this sequence it was able to repair the partition map

Thank you to all of you guys who have tried to help me with this.
I am glad to have my data back ;)


How to fix "Webmail is turned off. You can turn it on by using the Server app on the server." on Lion Server? I am trying to enable webmail for my Mac OS X Lion Server (10.7). I have enable both the Web and Mail services in the Server application, and have checked the box for WebMail under the Mail service.

However when I try to browse to https://localhost/webmail, https://127.0.0.1/webmail, or https://myservername/webmail I get the message "Webmail is turned off. You can turn it on by using the Server app on the server."

How can I get webmail to work?

According to Macgasm...

  There are still the same options, excluding the option for webmail, which has been removed. With the increase in use of iOS based devices, like the iPod touch, iPhone and iPad, all of which have the built-in Mail.app client, it’s possible that the use of web-based mail clients is rapidly decreasing. For me at least, the use of the web interfaces for my myriad of mail accounts is almost entirely non-existent. I cannot remember the last time that I logged into a web-based mail client to check my email. It only seems like a natural progression of the OS to remove a little-used feature. So, it’s not too surprising that Apple has removed any web-based mail client in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Server, likely preferring that users access mail services either via Mail.app on their iOS device or via Mail.app on their Mac.

Screenshot from Lion Server:

Screenshot from Mountain Lion Server:


Is there a keyboard shortcut for Don't Save? One thing I do a lot is Command ⌘-Tab over to TextEdit, jot down some notes, and then decide to throw them away.  I can close the window with ⌘-W, but is there a way to not-save it from just the keyboard?

Escape simply cancels the close. ⌘-D takes the file-picker to the Desktop (and I thought this used to work, pre-Lion, but maybe I'm just imagining it).

Is there a keyboard shortcut for Don't Save, short of turning on Full Keyboard Access?

The default shortcut was changed to ⌘⌫ on Lion.

You can change it back to ⌘D with defaults write -g NSSavePanelStandardDesktopShortcutOnly -bool true. It won't affect some applications like TextEdit though.


Safari is not showing style sheets For some reason, starting yesterday, Safari will not show ANY style sheets for any webpage I visit.  I updated today to Safari 5.0.5 thinking that might help, but it didn't.

I restarted, and that didn't help either.  Here's an example of what it looks like:

I am not running extensions or any custom style sheets.  I did notice something odd with the extensions section of the safari preferences:

Any ideas / suggestions?

You could try recreating your Safari Preferences plist:

Quit Safari.
Open Finder -> Library -> Preferences
Move com.apple.Safari.plist to your Desktop.
Open Safari.


Finder. No folder icon after upgrade to 10.10.3 After upgrade there is no folder icon in Finder:

Does somebody have problem like this? Could you maybe help me with some advice?

PS. Everything is ok with list view option in Finder.

Try killall -KILL Finder in Terminal. Usually clears up graphical glitches.

Try resetting Finder preferences. Run these commands in Terminal:

rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
killall -KILL Finder

Note that you will have to redo any Finder preferences you had set.

If that doesn't work, follow these steps to reset the Icon Services cache:

sudo find /private/var/folders/ \
-name com.apple.dock.iconcache -exec rm {} \;

sudo find /private/var/folders/ \
-name com.apple.iconservices -exec rm -rf {} \;

sudo rm -rf /Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store

killall -KILL Dock
killall -KILL Finder

After the first command, it will prompt you for a password. Enter your login password.


Access applications and their folders from terminal I have a folder that I want to init with git, but to do that I have to 'navigate' to that folder using cd. The problem is when I write cd Applications, that folder is empty and I cannot go into following folders.

The path I want to access is /Application/MAMP/htdocs.

I am using OS X 10.8.2.

If the current directory is ~/, cd Applications goes to ~/Applications/ (which doesn't exist by default, but I guess you have an empty folder there). Try adding a slash to the start: cd /Applications/.


Notes deleted after updating to Yosemite My notes have been deleted after updating the OS on my Macbook Pro from Lion to Yosemite. How can I recover them?

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011)

This worked for me.

Go to Finder.
Applications.
System Preferences.
iCloud.
Tick the "Notes" box.


Testing an iOS app using Appium without paid Developer account I am very new to iOS - I am an android person, and I have been given an app to test which is already installed in our iphone. I am using appium as a testing tool. Is it required for me to have a developer account - paid - just to be able to test apps on a real device?

I don't know the rules of Appium, or if it's relevant to this question, but you don't need a paid developer account to test on a real device.  You can develop apps and deploy them to your own real device, for example, without paying Apple.

You only need a paid account if you want the app in the App Store or deployed in any enterprise program.)

Per Apple:

  If you’re looking to develop apps for Apple platforms, download the
  Xcode developer tools, SDKs, and resources for free on the downloads
  page. Program membership is not required. If you don’t already
  have an Apple ID, you can create one here.

  Apple Developer Program.
  If you’re an individual or sole proprietor/single person business interested in creating apps for distribution on the App Store
  for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch, enroll in the Apple Developer
  Program. Membership includes access to beta OS releases, advanced app
  capabilities, and tools to develop, test, and distribute apps and
  Safari extensions. Developers enrolled as individuals will sell apps
  on the App Store using their personal name.


Trusting my computer with my iPhone no longer unlocks it for access (iPhone 5 w/iOS10, and Mac OSX 10.7.5) Ever since I upgraded to iOS10 my computer doesn't recognize when my iPhone "trusts" my computer. My computer recognizes the device, but it's not allowed to access it.

In Image Capture: Please unlock iPhone

In iTunes: iTunes could not connect to the iPhone because an invalid response was received from the device.

In XCode: Received an unexpected response from the device. Please check your setup and try again. (0xE8000013).

How do I get my computer to recognize my iPhone is unlocked and trusts the computer?

I am using Mac OSX 10.7.5, and I have an iPhone 5 with iOS10. I refuse to upgrade my OS to fix this problem, because if upgrading my old iPhone hardware to new software was any indication, all it will do is slow it down. My computer is a 2011 MacBook Air.

It appears the contents of

/var/db/lockdown

a folder on your mac, are corrupt.

First, unplug your iPhone or iPad.

Quit any apps that try to communicate with the iDevice e.g. Photos, Image Capture, iTunes, PhoneView, iMazing, iFunbox or Dropbox.

Delete the files within /var/db/lockdown/ (not the folder).

Plug your iDevice back in.

The “Trust this computer?” dialog box should appear. Tap Trust on your iDevice.

The operating system should create new .plist files in the lockdown folder. Try reopening one of the apps that had the error.


Camera not working iPhone 5s My camera is not working, it just shows a black screen when I turn it on. Snapchat and instagram cameras aren't working as well.
In the restrictions the camera app was not restricted and still it's not working.
Can anyone help me out?

If the affected apps have permission to use the camera, try to force the iPhone to restart: hold down the Home Button and the Power Button at the same time until you see the Apple logo (about 10 seconds).


Randomize Alert Sound Effect in Mac OS Is there any way to randomize the alert sound effect in Mac OS? In system prefs I am able to select which sound effect I want to hear. Is there a way for the system to choose a random sound each time?

This isn't built into macOS so this is something you are going to have to script and do a bit of customization.  You will need the following:

Custom location for your sound
Script to randomize the sound
launchd plist to run the script at a set interval

Custom Location for Sound

System sounds are in the /System/Library/Sounds directory which I don't recommend attempting to modify.  You can copy them to ~/Libary/Sounds or another custom directory of your choosing.  This way, you can add your own custom sounds without interfering with the System sounds themselves.

Script to Randomize Soundfile

The script below will generate a random number between 0 and the number of files you have in your sound directory.  It will then create an array of all the file names and then select a random filename (array element) which it will then copy that file to another file called CustomAlert.aif.  You can customize the filename and path to suit your needs.

#!/bin/bash
#
# script filename:  randomAlert.sh

#User Defined Variables
  sdir="/Users/foobar/test"
  sfname="CustomAlert.aif"

#Remove Custom Alert Sound if already Exists

  if [ -f ${sdir}/${sfname} ]; then
    rm -f ${sdir}/${sfname}
  fi

#Get Number of Files in Directory
  numfiles=(*)
  numfiles=${#numfiles[@]}

#Generate Random Number
  rnum=$(( $RANDOM % ${numfiles}  + 0 ))

#Put names of files into array
  fnames=(*)

#Copy file to Alert Sound File
  cp ${sdir}/${fnames[${rnum}]} ${sdir}/${sfname}

exit

Make sure the script's permissions is set to allow execution:

chmod +x randomAlert.sh

Finally, make sure the script is in a "safe" location (a folder in your home directory is always a good place)

Launchd plist

To have the script run, you need to use the launchd service.  The plist can go in any one of 3 locations:

~/Library/LaunchAgents - For just one user, run as the user (i.e. yourself)
/Library/LaunchAgents - For all users, run as the user
/Library/LaunchDaemons - As a system daemon (run as root)

I recommend either of the first two; it doesn't make sense to run as a system daemon.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
  "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.user.randomSound</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/USERNAME/Path_to_Scripts/randomAlert.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <array>
    <dict>
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>00</integer>
        <key>Minute</key>
        <integer>00</integer>
    </dict>

</dict>
</plist>

Once you have copied it to the appropriate directory, you need to launch it with launchctl

launchctl load com.user.randomSound.plist

Set your Alert Sound to the Custom File

In your settings, set the alert to CustomAlert.aif.  Even though the sound will change, the name of the file will stay the same.

That's it!  Every 24 hours, your script will kick off and set a new random alert sound.


How can I create an entry in the /Applications folder that runs a command in the terminal? I would like to have an item in the /Applications folder that will open a new terminal window and run a specific command inside. How can I create this?

Use Automator which Apple made part of OSX..

Create a workflow

In the workflow choose Utilities/Run Shell Script

Save as changing the File format to application - this will give a .app and choose the directory to be /Applications

EDIT to show the output.
The workflow need sto consist of three steps

1) Text->Create New TextEdit Document
2) The Utilities/Run Shell Script
3) Text->Set Contents of Textedit Document


Performance of Numbers 3.0 for large calculation sheet When I used previous versions of Numbers to work with files containing a lot of large formulas, the performance of many actions were slow, including scrolling.  Can you comment how about the latest software update from Apple?

I just purchased and tried out Numbers 3.0, and Apple definitely improved the calculation process, as my sheets using large formulas already perform much faster. Performance is better.


Mobile Safari with thumbnail view with iOS 5 Can I get my Mobile Safari thumbnail view back after I upgraded to iOS 5?

Sorry no, unless you jailbreak and install GridTabs

Basically, the grid view was replaced by the new tabs in Mobile Safari in iOS 5


What are the .mbox files in ~/Library/Mail/Mail Lost+Found/Mailboxes in Mail.app 5.0 (Lion)? When I upgraded to Lion, Mail.app 5.0 created a directory ~/Library/Mail/Mail Lost+Found. There were a couple of outdated bundles, which seems logical. But there is also a Mailboxes directory that has a lot (~30-40) .mbox files. Here is the contents of one of those files:

total used in directory 224 available 282057236
drwxr-xr-x   6 kmm  kmm     204 Aug  1 15:55 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 kmm  kmm     578 Aug  2 08:47 ..
-rw-rw-r--   1 kmm  kmm       0 Nov  6  2007 .index.ready
-rw-rw-r--   1 kmm  kmm  109793 Nov  6  2007 Incoming_Mail
-rw-rw-r--   1 kmm  kmm    1860 Nov  6  2007 Incoming_Table_of_Contents
-rw-rw-r--   1 kmm  kmm       0 Nov  6  2007 mbox.SKindex.isValid

Is it safe to delete these files? I haven't opened them all to determine if any contains actual messages. The few I have opened have not.

They only occupy 9.5 mb in total, which isn't much, admittedly. But I have something against cruft hanging around when it's not needed.

This folder is created by Mail when updating to Lion. I don't think it indicates any problems with a forced shutdown. It's just a place to store the old files after Mail has migrated to its new folder structure in the ~/Library/Mail/V2 folder. If the update is successful, you shouldn't need anything in this folder, except perhaps the contents of the Bundles folder if you want to re-install any plug-ins.


What is the quickest way to unmute the phone app on a locked iPhone? I use my iPhone to connect to conference calls at work. Frequently I'll need to speak up, with little notice. But it takes me upwards of three seconds to be able to unmute to speak:

Click home button to bring up lock screen.
Use fingerprint to unlock phone.
Hit green bar at the top to get into the current call.
Hit "Hide" on the keypad if it's up.
Finally, hit mute button to unmute.

I have Googled around and not found any sort of shortcut here. Even the ear buds lack any sort of unmute feature. My workaround has been to sit there and fiddle with the phone screen for the whole call so it doesn't lock itself.

What can I do to improve this situation?

I've struggled with the same for years--and just discovered an easier way.  Tap the home or power button to get to the lock screen, or on the iPhone 6s or 7 just pick the phone up so the screen "wakes up".

You'll see the phone number you're dialed into and the current call time in mm:ss at the top of the screen.  TAP THE PHONE NUMBER and you'll get the mute/keypad/speaker/add call screen, all without unlocking the phone.


Update process confusion! I have spent the last few days trying to figure out exatly what the impact is with changing country and card details on my Apple ID to a new location.

I changed from Ireland to the UK, and then I realised all my purchases were no longer in the 'apps in the cloud' section meaning I couldn't redownload easily!

I subsequently talked to senior advisors in Apple and they informed me it was not a big deal and I could download the apps i've paid for already in the Irish store for free. (including both the  Mac App store and iTunes store/iOS store)

So all though not great I was happy enough with this solution, while I live in the UK I can redownload what I need for free on demand and when I move back to Ireland I can change it back and all my purchases will be there again, they also confirmed it doesn't affect other Apple ID services like iCloud.

Updates are still confsuing me though, I was told that iOS devices would recognise updates and show new updates in the store (which they do!)
I was also told that iTunes would not allow updates of apps purchased in the old store but I could sync back updates done on my iOS devices... This was the case until I installed iTunes 11.0.4 tonight when for some reason it let me update all my apps in iTunes with no problem?!

So my question, did something change in 11.0.4 and now I can get updates for alll apps (old store and new in iTunes)?

and what about Mac App store - will I get updates for my apps from the old store in that?

Thanks!

If you change your region for your Apple ID and iTunes store account, there is no guarantee that the apps you had paid for and downloaded will still be downloadable since you are literally shopping in a different store with different app availability.

Now, common apps like Evernote and Apple's apps are generally available in all of the countries, but many smaller developers focus on one or two countries and the switching process can mean you lose apps.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1311

Is there a specific app you have found that is available on the new store, yet your account will not download? If so, I would contact the App Store support team to ensure your switch was properly executed on the server side.

http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/account/

Look for the icon like below that's about 2/3 of the way down the page currently.

It's possible they are rolling out changes in preparation for the announced iOS 7 changes where moving VPP purchases becomes easier or perhaps it's just a bug. One thing's for sure, not everything that changes gets announced, is permanent or immune from a rollback if it doesn't work as planned.


Create a font for use with the Japanese keyboard Is it possible to create a Japanese-style font for use with the Japanese keyboard layout, where I type two letters or a vowel, for example ba, and it converts it into a glyph?

EDIT: Clarification. I want it to act just like the Japanese input source, but use my own glyphs.

EDIT 2: Renaming the question to make it more clear.

The conversion of letters into glyphs is done by the keyboard, not by the font.  So there is no need to create a font, unless you want to generate glyphs not in Unicode.  If you want to type two letters and have it turned into an already existing glyph, there are lots of ways, including:

use the US keyboard and make entries in the replacement grid of system prefs/keyboard/text.
create a custom keyboard layout with the Ukelele or Karabiner apps.
create a custom input method as mentioned in OS X: Create and use your own input source

If you want to duplicate the mechanism of the Japanese keyboard, you will need to examine the workings of system/library/input methods/JapaneseIM.app

If you want to create a font with custom glyphs, there are various apps for that like Fontlab, Fontforge, Robofont, Type, and Glyphs.  Whether or not you can make the Japanese IM use a custom font to generate your custom glyphs you would have to test -- I have not seen this done by anyone before.


"Swift Programming Language" iBook Not Updating I've recently been researching Swift development as I have grown tired of Objective-C. However, the book I am reading (Apple's official guide) will not update to the latest version on my Mac. It updates fine on my iPhone, but it still has the same version from June that I initially downloaded on my Mac. Is there any way to update it?

I have tried deleting and re-downloading the book, and there is still no update option from the Downloads menu. I tried viewing in the iBooks Store—there is definitely a new version available. When I have iBooks check for available downloads, it says that I have downloaded all Updates and Purchases. Suggestions?

You should be able to download a fresh copy by right-clicking on the book and selecting Delete. Then once the delete is complete, right-clicking and choosing Download "The Swift Programming Language".

Alternatively...

All books downloaded through iBooks are stored in the following folder.

/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books

On both my Macs the Swift Programming Language book is contained in a folder called 881256329.epub. You can confirm this is the same on your Mac by checking the iTunesMetadata.plist file in that folder. You should see the book title towards the end of the file.

Close iBooks and delete this folder.

Then open iBooks again and try to open the book. iBooks will tell you This book can't be found. The original file can't be found. Then if you try to access the book again, iBooks will download a fresh copy.


OS X 10.10.4 update on 2009 Mac Pro: stuck at "Missing bluetooth controller transport" on boot I have an early-2009 Mac Pro at work that had 10.10.3 on it. I attempted to update it (using the cached update on the local OS X update server) to 10.10.4 but, after boot, it got stuck on the grey screen with the progress bar at 50%.

Rebooting in verbose mode shows "Missing bluetooth controller transport".

Internet searches suggest that this is GPU related and also Hackintosh related. The latter is not in my case because this is a genuine Mac Pro.

I tried anyway booting into single-user-mode and following the suggestions of moving the Apple Intel HD graphics drivers out of place and touching the Extensions folder. This did not solve the issue.

This computer has two Nvidia GeForce GT 120 cards in it, though only one is actively used.

So: how do I fix it short of reinstalling the OS?

I'd certainly try it with only one of the GPUs in there, try swapping over if no joy.

I'd also be tempted to run the "standard toolkit" assuming you can get into the OS fully, though the first can be done from the Recovery partition…

Reset the SMC
Shut down the computer.  Unplug the mains power from the back & leave for 15 seconds. Plug back in & wait another 5. Boot.
Reset the NVRAM
At the boot chimes, hold  Cmd ⌘   Opt ⌥   P   R
Keep holding all 4 keys until you hear the chimes again, then release.
Fix permissions, Verify & if necessary Repair disk, using Disk Utility, from Recovery if you still can't fully boot -
 Cmd ⌘   R  at the chimes.

If that does allow you to boot…

Reset Home folder permissions & ACLs using OnyX  - Maintenance tab/permissions, tick the box at the top then Execute.
Update to 10.10.5 using the 10.10.5 combo update, not the delta from App Store

Being a Mac Pro you always have the option of just dropping in a new drive & putting a clean OS on there, from which you can poke & prod at the other drive with impunity.
There's also, of course, the option of then migrating a Time Machine backup to that new drive & simply discarding or repurposing the old one.


How do I "Get Info" from the command line? Related to this question: https://superuser.com/q/514528/90435

Via http://osxdaily.com/2010/10/12/find-out-where-a-file-was-downloaded-from/ I find out that you can use 'get info' though Finder to find out where a file was downloaded from.

For example -

Now - my question is - can I get the same information from the command line?

mdls lists the metadata attributes of a given file. Try this:

mdls -name kMDItemWhereFroms filename


External drive APFS encryption secure? I just erased a newly purchased external USB disk using the Disk Utility program and set it to use the file system APFS Encrypted. I entered a strong password and the whole process took about a minute, then the device was supposedly encrypted and ready for use.

I noted that APFS encryption uses AES-128 which seems good, but the fact that the formatting only took a minute seems weird. Using encryption software like TrueCrypt, to safely prepare a new device takes hours, even days, just to fill the disk with random data before any valuable data is saved onto the device. For this reason, I am concerned that my APFS encrypted device is not secure enough.

Are my concerns legitimate or have I misunderstood something here?

Did you click click Security Options, and use the slider to set how any times the data should be erased?

Writing over the disk is to stop old files from being accessible.

The time to encrypt a disk depends mostly on how many files need to be encrypted and it they old files should be overwritten.
As it is a new drive there won't be a lot of files to convert.


How can I control ringer volume? I needed an app that would control the ringer volume of an iPhone. According to a developer I have been talking to, this is all good and possible on an Android phone but not on iOS. I just wanted to confirm if this is the case that it is not possible in iOS?

If not, then is there a way around controlling the ringer settings? I'm not into developing iOS apps yet so I personally have no clue.

You can use Assistive Touch, which can be enabled in Settings > General > Accessibility to trigger Hardware Buttons.

If you're asking from a developer perspective you should ask in Stack Overflow.


Successful brew install iftop still shows "sudo iftop: command not found" I have reinstalled iftop and still command not found. out of ideas.

I had to add /usr/local/sbin to /etc/paths. But that add does nothing if you do not close and reopen terminal. Terminal apparently loads paths when it opens, but does not see new changes while open.

sudo nano /etc/paths
Then add the path /usr/local/sbin, Ctrl-O to save, Ctrl-X to close
Restart Terminal (or just open a new tab), then run sudo iftop


iTunes home sharing videos with iOS 10.2 TV app I have videos in iTunes on my Mac desktop (in the TV Shows and Movies sections) that are shared using Home Sharing with my Apple ID. Home sharing is turned on and working; I can watch the videos on my Apple TV.

I used to use Apple's Videos app to watch on my iPhone. As of iOS 10.2, Videos seems to be gone, nominally replaced with TV. Apple's instructions for Home Sharing, published Dec 6, 2016, refer to Videos and don't mention TV at all.

I don't see any obvious way to watch shared videos with the TV app. I went to its Settings pane and signed out of my Apple ID and back in, but still nothing. The Settings pane does explicitly list Home Sharing, which suggests that it should be possible, but I am stumped.

How can I watch videos shared from iTunes using Home Sharing on my iPhone with iOS 10.2?

The TV app will show all iTunes libraries that are shared under the same Home Sharing account right on the "front page"

When you start the app, you should be on the "Library" tab (check tab at bottom, you have "Library", "Watch Now", "Store" and "Search").

Your home sharing libraries will be listed on the Library page, you have  "TV Shows", "Movies" and then the name of your library, with the name you picked in iTunes' General Preferences, Library Name. If you have more than one iTunes instance running on your network, and they're all shared on the same account, they will all show up there.


Constant script/application for shared drive checking/mounting I'm wondering where's a good place to start for this problem. I believe it might be achieved using apple script but admittedly I don't know its capabilities.

Scenario: I have a NAS which I log in to using Finder. Once logged in there are two folders on the NAS, when I click one of the folders "SNAS" it mounts it on root (i.e., if I CMD+UP ARROW to the top, it's listed next to other drives). I then drag it into my favourites list.

When the Mac is rebooted the connection and favourite is lost and I have to repeat the process.

I want a script to run automatically on each boot, and then periodically (say, every 30 seconds or so). The script should check if the NAS is logged in, if not, log in to it. Check if the folder/drive is mounted, if not, mount it. Then check if it's on the list of favourites, and if not, favourite it.

In effect automatically logging in, mounting, and favouriting the NAS folder/drive each time.

Happy to do the leg work on the script but if anyone has a suggestion for where to start/language to use/or even possibly a dedicated application that would be great as I can't find anything for the niche request on searches

I've attached a run of images showing the current steps being taken.

OS details: macOS Sierra 10.12.1 (16B2555)

You can do this in the shell.

Launch a Terminal, then run:

mount

Find the line with your volume, and grab the first part up until the space.
It should look something like:

//warren@10.0.15.2/Shared%20Network%20Volume

Thats username@IP_OF_NAS/VolumeName

Now here is the script, save it as "remount.sh"

#!/bin/bash

date
mounted=$(/sbin/mount | grep -c "VOLUMENAME")
if [ $mounted -eq 0 ]; then
   ping -q -c 2 -t 1 IP_ADDRESS > /dev/null 2>&1
   if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
      if [ ! -d "/Volumes/VOLUMENAME" ]; then
         mkdir "/Volumes/VOLUMENAME"
         chown LOCALLOGIN:staff "/Volumes/VOLUMENAME"
      fi
     su LOCALLOGIN -c "/sbin/mount -t afp afp://YOURLOGIN:PASSWORD@IP_ADDRESS/VOLUMENAME /Volumes/VOLUMENAME"
   fi
else
   echo "Already mounted"

fi

You need to change the variables in all CAPS above.

YOURLOGIN (Your login on the NAS)
PASSWORD (Your password on the NAS)
LOCALLOGIN (Your local login on the MAC machine)
IP_ADDRESS (the IP ADDRESS of the NAS)
VOLUMENAME (The Volume Name on the NAS)

Unmount the network volume that you previously mounted, then run:

chmod 755 remount.sh
sudo ./remount.sh

Make sure this mounts the volume OK.  It worked fine on my MacBook running Sierra against an Apple Time Capsule.

Now if all is well, we add it to cron to run it as root (sudo) every 15 minutes.

sudo crontab -e

Add something like this (season to taste):

*/15 * * * * /Users/warren/remount.sh >> /Users/warren/remount.log 2>&1

You'll note I saved the script in my home directory.  If you are tidy, you probably don't want to save it there.

Dismount the volume, and wait 15 minutes and see if it reappears.  If not, look at the log file to see whats up.


How do I remove a Wi-Fi sync with a laptop that I no longer have in my possession? I have a first generation iPad with many documents in iBooks. This iPad is still synchronized with a laptop that is no longer in my possession. This means I can't sync to my new laptop over Wi-Fi. How do I remove the Wi-Fi sync connection to my old laptop?

If you're only worried about losing items purchased through iTunes on the Apple ID you're currently using, like iBooks, then this will work:

Make sure you're logged into iTunes with your Apple ID. (The one you made all of your purchases with.)
Sync the iPad to your new computer. Yes, the existing content will be deleted.
From within iTunes, navigate to the iTunes Store. In a column to the right, you will see a link (under the heading, "Quick Links" that says, "Purchased." Click on that link.
The new store page that will be displayed is broken down into sections, which you'll see across the top (Music, Movies, TV Shows, Apps, Books). You should be able to re-download any content you previously purchased, including books. I just tested this by deleting a book I previously purchased, and I was able to re-download it this way.


How do I rename desktops in Mountain Lion? It seems that Apple doesn't provide a way to rename desktops from the default "Desktop 1", etc. Renaming desktops would be great for my workflow.

Does anyone know how to do this manually or with a third-party app?

If an application is in full screen mode in a given space, that space will have the application's name under it when it is displayed via Mission Control (and you put your mouse cursor over the desktop). Otherwise, I do not believe that there is a way to rename them.


How do I whitelist a domain in iOS restrictions web filter? Turning on iOS restrictions (Settings - General - Restrictions) and the web filter inside (probably "Websites - Restrict adult content" or something similar in English), I tried whitelisting wikipedia.org but the whitelist doesn't seem to work. For instance, the page "https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-based_access_control" is still blocked.

I tried whitelisting *.wikipedia.org/*. It still doesn't work, and I can't find any instructions on how to format the entries.

How do I exclude a specific domain from being filtered?

With respect, please refrain from non-answers such as "just turn off restrictions" or suggesting unrealistic solutions like "you have to enter every possible subdomain by hand without using wildcards".

Iphone 5 running Ios 8.4

According to Andreas, he recently tried it again and it works fine now. But here's a somehwhat comprehensive answer anyways:

There are two ways to whitelist a website:

From Safari: When you try to access a website and it gets blocked, tap "Allow Access" and then the restrictions passcode.
From Settings: Go to Settings > General > Restrictions > Enter the passcode. Then go to the Safari settings. There, add your website to "Always allow" list. In your case, adding "wikipedia.org" would be enough.

Unfortunately, there are no ways to add wildcards like "*.google.*", which is what I need and why I ended up here.

Note: If the website you are trying to whitelist is in the Never Allow list, then remove first from that list. Otherwise whatever you do, that website will still get blocked since the Never Allow list trumps the Always Allow list.

About Domains and Subdomains:
Domains trump subdomains. In other words, if apple.com is on the blacklist, all subdomains, like developer.apple.com for example, will also be blocked.

On the other hand, if developer.apple.com is on the blacklist, but not apple.com, then only the former will be blocked and the latter would still be accessible.


How do I combine a JPEG and MOV into a Live Photo? I received a Live Photo in the form of a JPEG and MOV files. How do I combine the two into a proper Live Photo that I can use on my lock screen?

Have you tried adding both files to Photos on a Mac? In a quick test I did, Photos (v2.0) seems to recognize that the files belong together and shows them as a single Live Photo. I found you don't even have to add the files at the same time for this to work. The test I did involved simply taking a Live Photo on my iPhone, copying it to my Mac using Image Capture (which results in a separate JPG and MOV file), and then importing these files into Photos.

A few caveats though:

I’m not sure how Photos recognizes that the files belong together. Presumably this is based on some piece of metadata in the files. If the files you received have been processed in any way, this piece of metadata may have been lost.
In my quick test, I only got this to work with Photos on Mac. I also tried this with Photos on my iPad (iOS 10.3.3), but I wound up with a photo and a movie, rather than a single Live Photo. Once you have the two files on a Mac as a single Live Photo though, you should be able to transfer it as such to an iOS device using AirDrop or some other means like iCloud Photo Sharing.


How to remove launchpad icon of broken application I installed gimp from macports and uninstalled it (port uninstall gimp) when I found its not well maintained as gimp released its native mac build. But the gimp icon in launchpad didn't go away. How can I force remove the gimp's leftover launchpad icon? I tried moving it to trash and failed. I also tried to wiggle the launchpad icons to click on the 'x' mark but I didn't find 'x' mark on it. OSX 10.9.2 MacBook Air.

Launchpad Manager

Launchpad Manager will allow you to delete any app from your Launchpad. Just open it, select GIMP and ⌘⌫.


Is there a way to limit which installed apps a macOS user can use? If so, how? I'm interested in having two users on my MacBook, but restrict some apps from being used by one of them. Is there a way to block apps from being used by another user of the same Mac? Or maybe whitelist some apps that can be used and restrict all others? (Which would have the same end result.)

I'm a remote worker and I don't have strict hours, it's incredibly easy to get distracted while working. Procrastination is a real issue, and I would like to create one user that could only access work-related apps.

I imagine I can sort of improvise a solution to this using Screen Time restrictions on my main user, but that's a bit too finicky. The ideal solution would be for me to have a Work user and be really strict about which apps this user can and can't access.

Is this possible? If so, how?

I'm also open to using any kind of 3rd-party software that can help me achieve something close to this.

You can consider moving all non-work related apps away from the /Applications directory, which are automatically made available to all the users on the computer.

A common approach is to create an Applications directory in a user's home home directory. This way, the apps installed in ~/Applications are only accessible to the user and not system wide.

The apps residing in ~/Applications would work in the exact same way as if they were residing on /Applications. There would be no difference in using them whatsoever. macOS apps are generally distributed as .app bundles. You can execute a .app bundle from any location in macOS. So, the exact location of where a bundle is located doesn't generally matter when it comes to using the app.

This approach works on any release of macOS, not just macOS Catalina.


Not able to open a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) SSD disk in Boot Camp I have installed the full version of Paragon's HFS+. I am fully able to read/write files from the partition that boots OS X, but not an external SSD with the same format.

I get the "pling" sound when I connect it, and I find it in Disk Management (though the format of the disk is not recognized). When following the Help from HFS+, I am not able to complete Step 2:

  Call the popup menu for a HFS+/HFSX volume (right click of the
  mouse button), then select Change Drive Letter and Paths…

The "Change Drive Letter and Paths" option is grey and unclickable. The only thing I can click on is "Delete volume" or "Help".

Does anyone know what I can do to access the external SSD from Boot Camp?

diskutil cs list:

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 4B2BB594-30B4-44EF-B948-B6CFCF9C306F
    =========================================================
    Name:         Macintosh HD
    Status:       Online
    Size:         120473067520 B (120.5 GB)
    Free Space:   12652544 B (12.7 MB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume 3DE0D8BA-2D65-4BDC-873E-8DB03D9D89E6
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk1s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     120473067520 B (120.5 GB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family 86D3701B-9522-409A-BFE1-BD65C802DEAB
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Status:       Unlocked
        Encryption Type:         None
        Conversion Status:       NoConversion
        Conversion Direction:    -none-
        Has Encrypted Extents:   No
        Fully Secure:            No
        Passphrase Required:     No
        |
        +-> Logical Volume C0ECB057-CE38-4C8C-B69A-14898070383E
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:                  disk2
            Status:                Online
            Size (Total):          120108089344 B (120.1 GB)
            Conversion Progress:   -none-
            Revertible:            No
            LV Name:               External SSD
            Volume Name:           External SSD
            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

Below you see a screenshot of the Disk Management window (unfortunately in Norwegian)

Disk 1 looks like a typical, bootable OS X drive with an EFI-partition (200 MiB), a main OS X volume and a Recovery HD partition (620 MiB).
I can't say it for sure, but I'd assume your external SSD (disk1 in the Disk Management screenshot) contains a CoreStorage Logical Volume Group on the second partition (112.20 GiB).
To check if the second partition of your external disk contains a CoreStorage LVG boot to an OS X volume and enter diskutil list or diskutil cs list. If you detect the volume type Apple_CoreStorage next to the second partition of your external drive after entering the first command or a CoreStorage Logical Volume Group or a Logical Volume with the size of ~120 GB after entering the second command, your external disk contains a CoreStorage volume.
A Paragon knowledge base article states that Paragon HFS+ isn't compatible with CoreStorage:

...
[HFS+ for Windows]
If you are running HFS+ for Windows in a Bootcamp configuration, you won’t be able to see Mac OS X partition due to Core Storage restrictions. If you can disable Core Storage as described above, this will give you access to Mac OS X system drive from Bootcamp.

To enable r/w support you have to revert the CoreStorage LVG to a normal HFS+ volume.
To revert a CoreStorage volume boot to a Recovery HD or the OS X volume on your internal disk. Enter diskutil cs list and copy the Logical Volume UUID. Then enter: diskutil cs revert LVUUID. Some CoreStorage LVs aren't revertible. If you have enabled FileVault on the external main volume you have to use a passphrase: diskutil cs revert LVUUID -passphrase [passphrase].


Is there a way to connect my iPod touch to the internet without wireless connection (say, by usb)? If I have no wireless connection, can I connect to the internet using the usb on the computer, or some other way?

Not that I know of however you could try turning internet sharing on on your computer. This will create a wireless network that you can use on your iPod Touch.

This is easy to do if you are using a Mac. Assuming that internet comes in over Ethernet, go to the Sharing tab in the System Preferences application. Click the internet sharing tick box and configure it to share over Airport. (this is from memory as I don't have access to a Mac right at the moment but you can probably work it out.

Some further details are available here.


Pages 5: Increase indentation in table of contents? Is it possible to have multiple indentations in the table of contents (auto-generated according to the paragraph styling)?

E.g.

•Header 1

....•Header 2

....•Header 2

........ •Header 3

....•Header 2

•Header 1

Sort of thing? I'm only able to get up to the second indentation.

Thanks in advance.

You can set the indentation for each heading type in the TOC in Pages 5. Select a heading in the TOC then open up the Format Panel, go into the Text tab and change the Indents/First value (see pic). This updates the TOC's indentation for that type of header.


iOS does not move mails to junk folder I'm using Mail on iOS with an IMAP account. When I flag an email and choos "move to junk" the emails disapears from my inbox. After syncing the account again the email is back in the inbox.

Checking the inbox at OSX shows it marked as spam and it's still in the inbox.

How can I make Mail on iOS doing what the label states: Mark the email as spam and move it to the junk folder?

I'm not at all sure this will work for you, but since nobody else has responded...

I set up a manual email account yesterday on both Mac and iOS, and my ISP warned me that both on Mac and on iPhone I needed to add "INBOX" as the IMAP Path Prefix in the Advanced Settings for the account, or else I would have trouble moving messages from Inbox to Trash and Junk. I was having a similar problem moving messages to Trash, and that did the trick. You might give it a try, since it's easy to undo if it doesn't work.


How do I change user password on non-AD Windows Server from a Mac? I have a Windows server (Win 2003) not using AD, just a simple local file server.

My Mac clients can log in fine to the server using SMB in the Connect To Server window on the Mac, and they can access files fine, but I can't find any way of changing their server password from their Mac.

A few years ago, we would go into the Mac's Terminal and type:

smbpasswd -r <serverIPaddress> -U <username>

the server would ask for the current password, then allow the user to specify a new password. But with the last few versions of Mac OS X (Leopard & Snow Leopard?) this doesn't seem to work anymore - and now with Lion smbpasswd isn't even included!

Is there some other technique to change the user's server password on the Mac?

You could install Samba3 through Macports and then you'll have smbpasswd available again.

Install Xcode from Apple - If you download Xcode from the Mac App Store, be sure to use the Xcode preferences to subsequently download the command line tools or use the xcode-select tool to get the BSD command line tools placed in your path. MacPorts needs make, gcc and other tools from Xcode to compile the samba3 code.
Install Macports for Lion (or whatever OS X version you are using)
Run sudo port -d selfupdate - just to be up-to-date
Install Samba3 in Macports: sudo port install samba3
Setup smb.conf: sudo cp /opt/local/etc/samba3/smb.conf.sample /opt/local/etc/samba3/smb.conf

You are done, and now you should be able to call smbpasswd -r <serverIPaddress> -U <username> again.


Ban particular senders from having text appear in lockscreen My bank uses "smsTAN", so when I make a transfer, the TAN gets texted to me. I would like to prevent texts from my bank from appearing in the lock screen as this lowers the safety of this method (someone would just have to nab my phone and find out my five-letter online PIN, don't ask me why my bank still enforces five-letter PINs).

I'd like to keep my other texts appearing in the lock screen.

Although excluding specific contact's text from being shown on the Lock Screen is not possible, you could always switch off the Show Preview option. Therefore a notification of your bank will be shown, but no portion of this message will be previewed, safeguarding your five-letter PIN.

To do so just go to Settings / Notification Center / Messages and turn off Show Preview.


Why is memory management in macOS more efficient than in Linux? I have been a Linux user for four years. Recently, I have been using macOS and I see it has very efficient memory management compared to Linux.

For example, here is a description of the documents/apps I have open on a Mac Mini i5 1.4 GHz 8GB RAM 500 GB HDD @ 5400 RPM:

40 pdfs
Blender
PowerPoint
Photos
iTunes
12 Safari tabs
QuickTime video
Terminal
Maps
Sublime Text
Calendar

With these open the Mac showed 5.91 GB of RAM used.

My question is: What's different about the Mac that on Linux I can't even open half the apps with a machine with the same amount of memory and HD?

Most of the efficiency comes from large blocks of read-only memory being shared between applications. Most graphical Mac applications use common frameworks. Where possible macOS only loads one instance of a framework into memory.

For more about macOS memory management and organisation see:

How does memory management work in Mac OS X?
What's the difference between Real, Virtual, Shared, and Private Memory?


How to remove EPSON Projector Audio driver? I made the mistake of installing the EPSON Projector Audio driver. It gets selected all the time, now, even when there is no EPSON Projector around. There's no obvious way to get rid of it. How do I make it go away?

Go to /Library/Extensions and delete the "EPSONProjectorAudio.kext" kernel extension. The pesky EPSON Projector Audio driver should be gone after reboot.

(If you can't see the Library folder on your hard drive, try Finder > Go > Go to folder… and paste /Library/Extensions)


Low sound on headphones Macbook pro Very low volume when headphone is connected to my Macbook pro, even if at max. Headphone works correctly on my iphone and other devices. Tried Audio MIDI setup, settings seem to be correct 44.1KHz 2ch-16 bit. Can anyone help me?

In audio Midi setup, change the "2ch-16bit" setting that you mentioned to either the 32 or 24bit option. The hissing should then be gone.


Any idea how to disable Version? As titled, is there anyway I can disable it?

Sometimes when I close a TextEdit window or whatever application, I really want to purge it. But when I open the application again, the same text that I didn't want appear again, and that is really annoying.

Thanks.

Yes, you can disable Versions globally, I described it here:
How to disable Versions in OS X Lion
I found a way to disable Versions (not Autosave) in a (hopefully) non-destructive reversible way: (re)move the SQLite database that Versions uses
Careful, this comes with absolutely no warranty and may break your system!
sudo mv /.DocumentRevisions-V100/db-V1 /.DocumentRevisions-V100/db-V1_off; sudo touch /.DocumentRevisions-V100/db-V1; sudo killall revisiond
If it worked you'll be notified e.g. in Textedit when you close a document:

That (probably) means that your document will still be automatically saved in certain intervals, but once you close it (or the program) you can only retrieve the latest version (and Time Machine backups, if available).
The changes can be undone with sudo rm /.DocumentRevisions-V100/db-V1; sudo mv /.DocumentRevisions-V100/db-V1_off /.DocumentRevisions-V100/db-V1; sudo killall revisiond

Edit 2012-04-04:
Versions (especially of Autosave) may still end up in ~/Library/Containers as nicely described in this answer.


Unmount fails with: "failed to clean up smb mountpoint(s)" I have mounted an SMB share and I want to disconnect, but CMD-E just dims the share disk symbol on the desktop but never completes.
System log says:

  förval    10:09:00.748510 +0100   lsd SecTranslocate: DiskArbitration callback: failed to clean up mountpoint(s) related to volume: /Volumes/myshare

What could be the reason?
How can it be avoided?

If I logout, the share is back in the desktop when I log in again.
To get rid of it, I have to reboot.

My guess is some program is still using files on the share.

You could see what programming is using files on your share by running the folling line from the command line:

lsof | grep "/Volumes/yourshare/"


Extending searching into the archives folder in Mail.app When I'm doing a search into my mailbox, Mail is not looking into the archives folder, and that is pretty annoying.

I checked "Look into every folder" into the preferences, but it doesn't change anything. If I want to look into the Archives folder, I have to click on it, and then I can type my search criteria.

Isn't it possible to search into this folder as well when I'm on my main folder?

Here is a solution fro this post that might help:
Alex

It appears that this is linked to Spotlight in some way.
I recently turned spotlight indexing back on for the volume holding my $HOME and immediately this started working again.
I assume that without the spotlight index it can't find the Archive directly automatically, then finds it via IMAP when I run through the steps in the question.


How to stop being asked the same Firewall related question each time iTunes launches Possible Duplicate:
  Always Asked to Configure Firewall for iTunes

Every time I open iTunes (version 10.6) I'm asked "Do you want the application “iTunes.app” to accept incoming network connections?"

If I reply 'allow', iTunes works normally. (Except that I'm asked the same question again next time I launch iTunes.) If I choose 'deny' I get a similar dialog box asking me to attend to my Firewall settings the next time I open iTunes.

I've already added it to the list of apps which, under Firewall settings, are allowed to accept incoming network connections. I've tried removing and adding it again to no avail.

How can I stop this dialog box holding up the launch of iTunes?

I'd suggest double checking all steps have been followed at:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2553


How to banish wifi network from laptop but leave it enabled for iPhone There is a wifi network that I don't want my macbook to ever connect to. However, I do want my iPhone to connect to it. How can this be done?

I've looked in the wifi settings on my mac and I can remove the network in the advanced settings, but that will remove it from my iCloud credentials and prevent my iPhone from connecting to it.

There are several options that you can give a try on this post

Selectively disable iCloud keychain syncing for WiFi passwords


Is it possible to hide files from Terminal's ls? I am saving some files because I need to reinstall OS X, and noticed oddly high numbers of files in some folders. Is it possible for malware to hide files from ls?

Hidden files are hidden from ls unless you use the -a or -A flag:

-A   List all entries except for . and ...  Always set for the super-user.
-a   Include directory entries whose names begin with a dot (.).

Source: ls man page

Therefore, files can be hidden by starting the filename with a . but ls will still show the file if it is run with -a or -A.

Note that not all files that are hidden with a . are malware-related. The system creates many files like this for a variety of reasons in various places on the disk that can cause problems if removed or modified.


What are the apps in iOS app store which are used to fetch data from External Accessories? I am searching for some of the apps in App store, which have been developed to get data from External Accessories. Is it mandatory to have an MFi device, to download an app for the Mfi device?

Is it mandatory to have an MFi device, to download an app for the Mfi device?

No. For instance you can download the Oscium apps and use them in demo mode without owning or attaching the hardware MFi device they interface with.

You keep asking specifically about MFi devices, but there are also a number of non-MFi devices that connect through the headphone jack, such as credit card readers (square, intuit, and others) and heart rate monitors (60beat.com).

So far Apple has allowed many of these devices and apps to be developed and sold in the app store, although they prefer people use the MFi program, it's not always necessary.


How to fix Cover Flow size behaviour? The resizing behaviour of Finder Cover Flow kinds of annoy me...

The size of the icons in the Cover Flow area is HUGE, while the list stays small at the bottom.

Moving the slider to make the Cover Flow area smaller works...
Until you open another folder.
Then, depending on some strange logic, you will get the HUGE icons again, or will stay with a smaller size.

But when I make a little bigger the area, dragging the slider a bit down, to see greater icons (especially photos, but also other files), then I get again the HUGE icons...

I googled to check if someone found it as weird as I do.
There is a thread in Apple Communities where it seems that confirms my thought:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2492638?start=0&tstart=0

Anyway, does anybody know if this can be fixed somehow?

The preference is stored in the FlowViewHeight key. Something like defaults write com.apple.finder FlowViewHeight -int 180 only changes it temporarily, but you could run the command every minute by running EDITOR=nano crontab -e and adding a line like this:

* * * * * defaults write com.apple.finder FlowViewHeight -int 180

Or just make the default size of Finder windows bigger.


I cannot play music in the status "uploaded" in iTunes through iCloud (via Apple TV, iPhone, iPad) I have a subscription to iTunes Match.

Recently, I think in the last week, I am not able to listen to the music that result in the status "Uploaded" , therefore is not matched.

Normally if I load a cd in my iTunes library (on my Mac) it sync with iCloud and I could have 2 status: Upload or Matched.

In the recent past I could play any song in either the two status with any device with the same Apple ID associated.

Now (in the last week) I cannot play anymore the pieces with the iCloud status "uploaded".

Is there anybody who had the same experience and who have solved the problem?

I had this problem recently - I could see the songs in my library on my iPhone, but I couldn't play them. In iTunes, the iCloud status of the files was Uploaded.

What fixed it for me was plugging my iPhone into the computer with my iTunes library, and syncing. It didn't seem to transfer any files (other than doing a backup), but after that, I could play all of my songs on my phone.

This might help for your iPad and iPhone, but unfortunately, probably not the Apple TV.


Reverting CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled in VSCode I turned on font smoothing in VSCode using the following commands:

defaults write com.microsoft.VSCode CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled 0
defaults write com.microsoft.VSCode.helper CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled 0
defaults write com.microsoft.VSCode.helper.EH CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled 0
defaults write com.microsoft.VSCode.helper.NP CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled 0

This was taken from Reddit.

But how do I revert it back? I tried doing defaults com.microsoft.VSCode delete -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled but didn't work.

For each defaults write x y z run defaults delete x y,
where x is the domain, y is the key and z is the value.

For example, to delete the first key that was set, run

defaults delete com.microsoft.VSCode CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled

Omit the value (e.g. 0) when deleting a key since the key is deleted regardless of value.
-g is a reference to the global domain; if you didn't write the key to the global domain then don't include -g when deleting.
The delete or write verb needs to go before other options like the domain, not after.


Changing OSX Mavericks Server to default to personal website rather than welcome page I've looked at every option in OSX Server for Mavericks but I don't see anything that allows me to default to my website rather than the "Welcome to Server" page. I have a DNS set up through Godaddy. I had no issues before I installed OSX server. I tried using an alias but that still requires that the URL I provide people has to include that alias. Not a good solution.

The way to do this within Mavericks Server is to adjust the Server Website Preferences to the folder you are locating your HTML pages.

Here's how to do it:

Open up the Server application, and select on Websites, under
Services.
Double click on "Server Website" under Websites.
Next to the option titled "Store Site Files In:", click the text
box, select "Other...", navigate to the location where your website
is stored, and select its top level folder.
Click the "OK" button

That should be all. If networking/DNS/Port Forwarding are properly set, you should now be able to load your site.


Does macOS still use Yarrow as it's cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator? I'm trying to understand if the XNU underpinnings of macOS (BSD) still use the Yarrow cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator?

I have looked through the source and it seems as if they switched to a DRBG NIST generator?

https://opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-4903.221.2/osfmk/corecrypto/ccdbrg/src/ccdrbg_nisthmac.c.auto.html

There are very few references to Yarrow in the 10.14 XNU code compared with older versions of the Kernel, but 10.14 still contains this string in key.c :

/* Our PRNG is based on Yarrow and doesn't need to be seeded */

That said if you looked at older XNU Yarrow is littered everywhere.

Source code for XNU:

Lots of Yarrow references in XNU 2782 - macOS 10.11

Very few Yarrow references in XNU 4903 - macOS 10.14

So, are Apple still using Yarrow?

I ask because Yarrow is only capable of generating 160bit strong keys.

Yarrow is gone.

The kernel CPRNG is a Fortuna-derived design targeting a 256-bit security level.

https://support.apple.com/en-ie/guide/security/seca0c73a75b/1/web/1

Ok! So I mailed Craig Federighi recently about this, concerned that macOS wasn’t capable of generating >128bit quality keys.

He responded!

  ‘The source you were referencing is out of date.  You can find more current informations here:   FIPS certification document, section 7: "The NDRNG feeds entropy from the pool into the DRBG on demand.  The NDRNG provides 256-bits of entropy.”’

What a legend.

So yup, macOS and iOS are both capable of generating 256 bit entropy and creating quality CS keys for both ECC and Symmetric Key crypto.

EDIT: Apple confirmed the kernel CPRNG is a Fortuna-derived design targeting a 256-bit security level.


How to make @ key work? Have bought Mac air 11 inch today. Cannot make @ key function. I Have pressed alt and the @ key together.  Nothing happens. It seems that other signs on the right side are not the same as what I see on the screen. For example, if I press ?, it gives me -.  Is something wrong/broken?

Maybe your keyboard does not match the settings in your System Preferences. It would be good to include the layout of your keyboard i.e. English UK, English US, or maybe another language's default.

To check your System Preferences setup go: System Preferences --> Keyboard --> Input Sources. There you will find which button layout is set.

By matching that to your actual keyboard layout you may be successful resolving your issue.


Magic Mouse 2 vertical tracking issue on iMac 27 I have a weird issue that makes my Magic Mouse 2 usage experience very uncomfortable on iMac 27.

The problem is: when I move the mouse vertically (up or down), tracking works very slow. That is: I have to raise and move my mouse 3-4 times to reach the bottom of the screen (assuming I started from the very top).

On the other hand, moving in a horizontal direction with the same speed works like a charm.

OS X Sierra, tracking speed is set to maximum and no third party applications used.

Is there a way to fix this?

researching internet a minute ago with the exact same problem in the same hardware - iMac 27 late 2015 + Magic Mouse 2
I found the answer that solved my problem - just blew the optics's and vertical tracking speed is ok again. I should use an air compressed can but used my lungs instead but away from the mouse to avoid humidity as much as possible.it worked for me.


Update iPhone NOT to latest version I have an iPhone 4s with an iOS 7.1. I wish to update my phone to iOS 8 or 8.1 because most apps only support 8 or higher. I do not however want to update to the latest version supported on the 4s (iOS 9.3.5). Is there a way I could update by phone to iOS 8 and not iOS 9?

What does Software Update in Settings show you? If it is iOS 9 then I'm afraid you can not upgrade to 8 via this route.

You cannot download iOS 8 unless Apple decides to start signing it again.


My iPhone SE has ceased booting up upon power-on My iPhone SE had difficulty in upgrading to IOS 12.0.1. A visit to my local Apple store solved this problem.  Four days later, after turning off the phone for the evening, I turned power on, the Apple symbol appeared, but the software would not complete loading.  I tried the hard reset (Power on and home button held simultaneously,) the phone rebooted, and the Apple symbol appeared, but the iPhone hung and would not complete the reboot.  I believe I need an appointment again at my local Apple store. I would like your opinion before I call and make an appointment.
Thanks so much.

Get your hardware in the hands of a trained technician is the best plan. Asking on an Internet site to go through triage is so fraught with assumption issues / time lag issues. You’ll get more done in 15 minutes with a pro than weeks here in most cases.

This site isn’t a replacement for Apple support for lots of reasons mentioned here:

Why we're not customer support for [company X or product Y]


How do I get rid of the sub headings in finder with "arrange be date created" in Lion So I installed Lion and I can't stand the way finder arranges icons arrange by date. Finder makes a bunch of sub headings like: today, yesterday, past 30 days or earlier. These settings have a show all button/coverflow thing. Is there a way to get rid of the headings? Thanks.

There's a new toolbar button in Finder, called Arrange. If you choose to arrange by anything in that menu, you'll get the new headings that you've described. To disable this sorting and get the standard click-to-sort column headers back, click the Arrange button, and set it to "None."


Pictures are not shown on Mac I can connect the iPhone to my Mac via USB. The photos.app opens but my pictures are not displayed and I cannot download them.

Is there a way to fix this? I already reset the permissions but this did not have any effect.


Optical audio input options for iMac Pro I will soon be upgrading from a 2014 Mac Mini to an iMac Pro. I am a little surprised to discover that the iMac Pro does not have a digital optical audio input (TOSLINK/SPDIF), which is something I've been relying on with the Mini for audio capture, for I have a piece of home studio equipment that only has an optical digital output.

I thought there might be an external USB-C audio capture device on the market instead, but a look through online stores doesn't offer any hobbyist-level solution (there is high-end pro audio gear that is way beyond my price bracket or needs).  A few devices do analogue input (such as the Griffin iMic and the Behringer Uca202), but that's not what I'm after; neither can do optical/digital input.

The search is hindered by all the output devices showing up from the same query, so perhaps I missed something. It seems like an obvious device to offer.

Has anyone solved this problem? What are my options?

I found a USB device that captures optical input.  I'm using a miniDSP USBstreamer B, and with the TOSLINK firmware installed it is doing the job perfectly with a clear signal and low latency.


Backquote (<) and ² inverted on my external keyboard I don't know why, but the ² and < are inverted on my external keyboard.

The ² is right after the left shift, where it's written "<", and the < is at the top of the tab key, where it's written "²" ...

Any idea why, and how I can fix that?

Thank you.

I've got the same problem on an external Italian Keyboard, as said in the comments by Tom Gewecke the problem was Karabiner.

I want to maintain Karabiner for one of the two keyboards so I've done a "simple modification":

You can do the same with your inverted keys.

Another solution of the problem is disable Karabiner for a specific Keyboard:


macOS not showing the actual free space I'm in the process of installing Windows 10 on my Macbook Pro (macOS 10.13.4/17E202, 256 GB of storage, no partition), but Boot Camp says I need at least 40 GB of storage.

So I freed up some space by removing some files, and "About My Mac" now shows almost 100 GB of free space on my Mac:

However, the Disk Utility shows only 33 GB of free storage... 3 times less:

The trash is empty, and I restarted my computer twice. I also used Onyx utility to free up some more space, empty caches, etc. But there is still this huge difference.

I tried to find "hidden files", that could cause this difference, using the Disk Inventory X app, but it shows 100 GB of free storage...

Another strange thing that happened: after I restart the computer, the status bar at the end of the finder shows 33 GB of free storage. But after 2-3 minutes, this number changes to about 100 GB... As if some cached values were used while the Mac is updating the folder sizes.

I'm pretty sure I have 100 GB of free storage, because I removed dozens of GB of photos and apps.

What's wrong? I'm kind of lost!

You probably have some local snapshots on your drive, you can try to list the local snapshots with

tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

and with

tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 9999999999 1

you can delete all local snapshots and release the storage space.

You can find more information here How to thin your local Time Machine Snapshots on macOS High Sierra


Enter passcode without touch screen [iTunes] I have an iPhone 5, which has the screen broken, so I can not type the passcode. After connecting the phone to PC, I wanted/tried to backup the data that is on the phone.

But iTunes says that I need to enter the passcode to access. Is there any possibility to simulate a keyboard or something and enter the passcode on the phone without the screen? Or the only possibility is to replace the screen with a new one.

No your not able to do this.. You always need to prompt the password on your phone via touch.

Or.. you can try to connect with a wireless bluetooth keyboard, but still you will need to touch the screen to do this.