No backlight on Macbook Pro 2015 and backlight fuse is burned out My Macbook pro has no backlight (you can see a dim image).  I checked the backlight fuse on the logic board and it's burned out.  I heard Apple recommends replacing both logic board and display to fix this issue, as the display be shorting out the logic board (so if I replace the logic board alone, the new logic board may get shorted out and damaged by the display again).

This way I may just replace the logic board without having to replace the display if it’s healthy.

How would one check the display pins for a short-circuit?

How would one check the display pins for a short-circuit?

You don't know that this is the issue.  What you do know is that you have no backlight.

  I heard Apple recommends...as the display be shorting out the logic board

That's hearsay and not necessarily your diagnosis.  Research is fine, but you need actual troubleshooting for a positive diagnosis.  You wouldn't be pleased if your doctor gave you a terminal disease diagnosis if he/she didn't do anything but tell you "they heard from the AMA that...."

Just to give you a broad overview of what your looking for, there's no one diagnosis for a failed backlight.  It could be

the backlight itself failed
a blown fuse
shorted pins

Each has their own diagnostic procedure like

simple observation (burnt/corroded/damaged components)
checking for open circuits (continuity testing)
short to ground
measuring resistance (Ohms)

To get an idea of this actual repair, take a look at this YouTube video.  In the end, if this seems outside your wheelhouse, he's a good person to send your board to (not affiliated, just a happy customer).


Mac OS Sierra Safari Youtube Flash out-of-date I am using Mac OS Sierra 10.12.5 (16F73) and Safari 10.1.1 (12603.2.4).

When I visit youtube most videos play fine. but some videos say

Flash out-of-date

It also quickly bring up a prompt to say "upgrade flash" which leads me to Adobe website.

But wasn't flash totally discontinued on Mac and Safari? if so, why am I being asked to upgrade flash?

I don't want Flash on my machine.

My understanding was that Youtube/Safari should use everything as HTML5 (H264) stuff. Then what's going on?

Flash is still [barely] alive & kicking, though is not needed at all for YouTube these days.

The best way to ensure it's gone once & for all is to use the dedicated uninstaller, available from Adobe, at Adobe KB: Uninstall Flash Player | Mac OS

The uninstaller is Mac version-dependant, but the direct link for OS X 10.6 & later is at https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/support/uninstall_flash_player_osx.dmg


Does an iOS app to convert PDF to grayscale PDF exists? As you probably knows AirPrint doesn't have an option for grayscale or B&W printing.

My printer doesn't have a setting to print in grayscale.

Is there any iOS app that converts a PDF to a grayscale PDF?

I have not been able to find an app that would do this for you. It is very possible that Readdle's PDF Office can do this for you, however I do not have this app and it is a subscription premium service. I could not confirm from their website or the AppStore for sure that they have the feature to convert to gray-scale, but they bill it as a fully functional and professional PDF suite. Their app Scanner Pro does have the option to save as gray-scale, but the source has to come from your iOS camera. I could not find an option that lets you import a pre-existing PDF into Scanner Pro. Adobe Acrobat isn't even worth mentioning.

I also looked at trying printing directly, but like you said, the printer needs to support conversion to Gray-Scale in order for you to be able to print a color document from the AirPrint as gray-scale. I looked at Readdle Printer Pro, however that did not give the option to convert to gray-scale either.

That being said, if you have a Mac as well as an iOS device, I can provide you with a bit of a convoluted work around.

If the PDF is on your iOS device, you will need to transfer it over to your Mac. You can accomplish this using iTunes, or emailing or messaging the file to yourself, etc. Once the document is on your Mac:

Open PDF in Preview
Choose File>Export...
Under Format: select PDF
Under Quartz Filter: select Gray Tone
Click on Save

The PDF will be converted nicely to a gray-scale document which you can then print.

Sorry I couldn't come up with an actual iOS app that was capable of this.

I have no association with Readdle other than I have purchased several of their apps for use on my iOS devices, which is why I mentioned them in the post. They build very good apps with functional UI's that are pleasant to work with, which is why I chose to buy these premium apps instead of using free alternatives.


iPad Discharged and not charging My iPad was in good health when it was used last. That was about 8 month ago. Now it wont come on and on connecting it to the charger, the low battery sign comes on with the 3 red stripes. That's all even after a couple of hours.

Is there any hope for the battery to recover?

The iPad is charging now. Just that it remained with the zero charge indicator for over 5 hours although it was connected to its own charger which was working.the first charge took in all over 18 hours. Now it is working as expected. I.e., the charge cycles are only few hours.


iPad stuck on Guided Access with broken home button My iPad is stuck on Guided Access. I do remember the passcode but my home button is broken. I've been using the on-screen home button but that too is disabled. Will draining the battery out fix my problem or is there another way?

After a quick google search, I found this video that may help you, depending on what version of iOS you have. There are many other tutorials on youtube that you should check out as well.

Good Luck!


Transfer between two ethernet connected Time Capsule from a wifi connected computer I have two time capsules which are connected in 1Gb through the ethernet.

When I initiate a transfer between the two devices from my wifi connected macbook air, I notice that the data flow from one TC to my computer through wifi, then flow back, still in wifi, to the other TC.

Is there a way to have the two TC talk through their high speed 1Gb ethernet directly ?

There is no way to have two Airport Time Capsule devices talk directly to each other to transfer files.

Usually, for inter-device file transfers, either a login mechanism like ssh (into the devices) should be available or the devices should support direct inter-device transfers through a protocol like FXP - File eXchange Protocol (where the connecting client helps initiate the transfer but does not act as a middleman in the actual transfer).

Unfortunately, the Airport Time Capsule supports neither ssh nor FXP.

The options below may be faster than going over WiFi (depending on what performance you're seeing now). If you need to do this often and would like to make it faster at some monetary cost as well as loss of convenience, your options are:

Get a Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

Connect the devices like so: USB drive <-> Time Capsule <-> MacBook Air.
Connect the MacBook Air to one Time Capsule on its Gigabit ethernet port via this adapter.
Connect an external USB drive to the same Time Capsule, then transfer files to it from the Time Capsule (this would get you a higher data transfer speed, depending on the external drive and your ethernet cable).
Disconnect the USB drive from the Time Capsule, connect it to the second Time Capsule (switch the MacBook Air to the other one too over Thunderbolt<->ethernet) and copy files to it.

OR

Get a Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter and a USB Ethernet Adapter

Connect the devices like so: Time Capsule 1 <-> MacBook Air <-> Time Capsule 2.
Connect the MacBook Air to one Time Capsule with the USB<->ethernet adapter and to the other Time Capsule with the Thunderbolt<->ethernet adapter.
Copy files from one Time Capsule to the other (just like how you're doing now).
The speed will vary depending on the direction of data transfer as well as network conditions and the number of files.


Wi-Fi fails to connect after OS X 10.10.2 Update I have a Mac Pro 4,1 that was just upgraded to OS X 10.10.2 (14C109).  I've used an ASUS PCE-AC68 wireless adaptor since Mavericks, and haven't had any problems before now.  I understand that this isn't exactly a supported configuration, but the card was plug-and-play since I first purchased it.

Since the OS X 10.10.2 update, the card regularly drops its connection to the router, and rarely is able to reconnect.  Running a command such as traceroute 192.168.1.1 to try to see if anything is happening between the computer and the router just yields timeout errors, although the System Preferences "Neworking" panel claims that the network is still connected.  Other devices have no problems connecting to the same network from the same location, including a MacBook Pro 10,1 running OS X 10.10.2.

Is there anybody encountering a similar problem or who might be able suggest ways to troubleshoot?  Thanks!

Downgrade driver back to version 7.0 from current 7.1 version. Follow the instructions here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6802848


What’s the difference between diskutil unmount and diskutil eject? On macOS (eg. Mojave 10.14), what is the difference between the diskutil unmount and diskutil eject commands?

For example, if I want to execute this from the command line (eg. bash in terminal), but I want to have the same, ‘safe’ result as though I had clicked the eject icon in the Finder:

which command(s) should I use (and why)?
what are the differences and side-effects between these two?

You can at least be certain that diskutil eject does all that diskutil unmount does, plus (sometimes) more. Examples given in the man page mention removable media readers equipped with a motor to physically eject a volume, such as a CD-ROM player. Also, when there are more than one filesystem on the media, diskutil eject will unmount all volumes on the media, while diskutil unmount just unmounts the one filesystem you mention explicitly.

When in doubt, I'd always go for the eject verb.


Unable to add folders to Dock Strangely, all folders (only Downloads in my case) have vanished form my dock. A reboot did not help.
I can still drag apps onto it, but not directories.
How can I find out what the problem is and maybe fix it? Is there some configuration .plist to which I could manually add stuff?

The system is 10.12.3 on an MBP 9,2.

I restored ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist and ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.extra.plist from Time Machine and killalled Dock and now it works. I suspect the first file is the only relevant one since it contains an entry for the directory.


Windows 10 USB installer not detecting Mac SSD on Macbook Pro 2016 I have been trying to install Windows 10 via a bootable USB on my Macbook pro (2016 running Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.6) for some time now, but I continue to run into issues. The USB boots up just fine, and allows me to get to the part of the windows installation where it asks me to select which disk to install the OS onto. The issue I am running into is no disks are displayed, and if I try to go into the WindowsSupport directory I added to the USB drive after downloading from bootcamp while it does have a AppleSSD64 driver it does not appear to function or allow the OS to detect the drive. I am running into much the same problem detailed at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8269886
The drive is 256GB total in size and I have a windows partition formatted to exFat to try to allow the installer to detect it. I also manually used fdisk to ensure a hybrid MBR partition scheme is not used, as detailed here. (https://fgimian.github.io/blog/2016/03/12/installing-windows-10-on-a-mac-without-bootcamp/) Despite all of my efforts I cannot get the installer to recognize my computers hard drive. I have downloaded the Windows 10 ISO repeatedly from Microsoft and am sure it is not corrupt and do not have any idea what is going on.
The end goal of this process is to get windows only running on my mac, I do not want a Mac OS partition due to the limited hard drive space I have available, which is why I am attempting to install the whole thing from a bootable USB instead of bootcamp.
Any help is much appreciated, thank you.

Your link https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8269886 contains the image shown below.

The $WinPEDriver$ folder should be in the root folder. There should not be a WindowsSupport folder. In other words, I would expect to see the path shown below.
D:\$WinPEDriver$\AppleSSD64\AppleSSD.inf

You are suppose to copy the contents of the WindowsSupport folder to the root folder of the flash drive containing the Windows 10 installation files. The image shows the WindowsSupport folder was copied instead, which is incorrect.
A Windows installation can fail if the wrong Window Support Software is being use. The best way to insure you are using the correct Windows Support Software is to use the Boot Camp Assistant installed on the same Mac that is going to run Windows 10. There is a option on the Boot Camp Assistant menu bar for downloading the Window Support Software. I should point out this is not the only way to acquire the Windows Support Software.
High Sierra and newer versions of macOS no longer hybrid partition a drive when creating a ExFAT partition. Since you only want Windows on your Mac, then you can use the USB Windows installer to erase your entire drive before installing Windows. This would make any previous hybrid partitioning irrelevant anyway.


What are the default settings for "Remote Management" under Sharing System Preference pane in macOS? I accidentally toggled the System Preferences → Sharing → Remote Management setting to Only these users:, and, now when I try to toggle it back to All users:, it asks what privileges to enable. But I don't know what the default privileges were and I don't want to open my computer up to any potential security issues.

Could someone take a screenshot of the default settings and post that up so that I can reset them to the OS defaults?

I have never enabled Remote Management on my Mac and these are the options corresponding to the default selection All users:


My iPhone keeps telling me my Apple ID cannot be used in the U.S. store and that I need to switch to the Albania store I’m not sure why but my phone keeps thinking I’m from Albania. I ordered the iPhone 7 off of Amazon. I got the phone yesterday and when I finished setting up my Apple ID, I tried to download an app. It immediately said my ID was not in use at the U.S. store and that I needed to review the account, it also said my Apple ID was not in use in the iTunes Store but my iTunes isn’t working. So I went back to my account and it took me to a page where I had to agree to Terms and Service. Above it was a location and it said I was from Albania. I changed it to United States and refilled all my information, then I tried to download an app and it said the same thing. I went to settings and changed my location on there, but it’s not helping to reset the App Store and iTunes. Not sure what I’m doing wrong. I’ve contacted Apple Support and I stayed up until midnight trying to figure it out. We factory reset it so many times and we tried turning my phone off and on again. I’ve tried going to the Apple ID website and changing my location from there but it keeps resetting to Albania as well. I have no idea what’s wrong with it.

There are two possibilities. One common and the other rare.
The common item is your AppleID is steering this. You can solve that with Apple Support directly and I would leave your device out of the picture - just use a computer to go to https://appleid.apple.com and choose your region / locale / banking so that your preferred location pops up when you browse https://www.apple.com and https://support.apple.com
The less common item is that Apple tracks the geography in to which an iPhone is sold. This can not be changed unless you have documented proof as the original purchaser that Apple made a mistake. If a reseller makes a mistake, it’s generally up to them to fix the registration.
This affects things like GPS being disabled, functions like EKG / health / watch being enabled only in regions where it’s officially approved (legally and contractually) by regulatory  agencies (the FDA in the US for example).
Once the AppleID is set, I would erase all content and settings on the iPhone and perform a setup again, and then engage Apple Support if you are not being offered your preferred region. Sometimes a reseller uses an iPhone to set up a bunch of accounts and then sells it, so you might need to talk to your seller if for some reason your phone isn’t working as Apple designed it out of the box.
Ask a pointed question to your buyer - which region did Apple sell this iPhone if you can’t solve this yourself. Tracing back to the contact to which Apple shipped the device (you or a reseller) will make it easy to know if a mistake was made.


Formatting Text in Mail I'd like to have all email that I send formatted with my font and size and color, like the way web based email does it. I'd just like to set a default font and have all email I send formatted this way. Can anyone tell me how to do that?

Mail doesn't offer the feature you want (except via the "stationery" option).  People who find it essential usually move to Thunderbird or Entourage/Outlook.  There are, however, a couple apps aimed at adding this, like Message Font

http://messagefont.com/


Has Apple indicated that some 2019 MacBook Pros have a fault relating to power, battery or shutdown issues? I bought a MacBook Pro two days ago and when I was using it for the first time I noticed that when it drops below 40% (20%-40%) it shuts down with no warning and it's impossible to turn it back on unless I plug in the power cable. I thought it must be a hardware issue so I got it replaced for a new one. I set up my new computer and I found out that it had the same issue.

I tried resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) as per Apple's instructions at: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201295

Unfortunately, this didn't resolve the issue.

At this point I think it would be stupid to buy a third MacBook Pro just to find out that it's not working again.

Has anyone come across any information that indicates this is a known issue?

For the record, here is my battery information:

  CHARGE INFORMATION:

Charge Remaining (mAh): 5107

 Fully Charged: No(its 100%)

Charging:   Yes

Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 5159

HEALTH INFORMATION:

Cycle Count:    3

Condition:  Normal(1 day old battery)

Battery Installed:  Yes

Amperage (mA):  2439

Voltage (mV):   12516

At this stage it's too early in the product cycle for this model to know if this rates as a known issue for Apple.

However, any product, no matter the type or manufacturer, can have a fault and having bad batches of components is not unheard of. Apple does use warranty extension programs, replacement programs and repair programs if/when it identifies there's a definite issue to address. At this stage though it would be pure speculation, even if a handful of MacBook Pros presented with the same issue.

You indicate you've reset the SMC as per Apple's instructions, but just to be thorough your model MacBook Pro has a T2 chip and you have two options for resetting the SMC (the 2nd to be tried if the first fails).

Resetting the SMC on a 2019 MacBook Pro

Fully shut down your MBP.
Press and hold the power button for at least 10 seconds
Let go of the power button and wait 5 seconds
Power up your MBP again

Once you've reset the SMC fully charge your MBP and see how you go. If it's still misbehaving, reset the SMC again but with the following steps instead:

Fully shut down your MBP.
Press and hold the right shift key and the left option and control keys for 7 seconds before then also pressing and holding the power button (or Touch ID button) down for another 7 seconds (i.e. the keys will end up being held down for 14 seconds, the power button for 7 seconds)
Let go of all three keys and the power button
Wait 5 seconds
Power up your MBP again

Now test your MBP again.

If the above fails, then I'd be talking to Apple Support to explain what's happening. If they can't address the issue then you're entitled to a refund or replacement, but you'll want to get onto it straight away so that a case is logged this early in your ownership.


How Do I remove video playback on my iPhone 7 completely? Hi I want to completely disable the ability to play videos on my iPhone. I don't mind jailbreaking the phone to change some core settings if this is the solution. I'm not just not sure what to change. Thank you.

iPhone 7 OS 12.

Turn on Screen Time in Settings and you could allow the apps you want or need and keep the ones you don't want out.
Also in Screen Time settings under Content & Privacy Restrictions you can turn off or restrick settings. You can choose to not allow apps. You can choose Don't allow Movies and scroll down to the bottom and turn off Show movies in the Cloud.


One Year Limited Warranty Is the one year limited warranty provided by Apple with a MacBook Pro international?

If I buy the MacBook Pro from US and use it in India, will the limited warranty be applicable in India?

I bought my MacBook Air in Hong Kong and I live in Ireland. The condition for the Warranty and AppleCare was that I had to pay for postage to Hong Kong where they would handle it.


iPhone 3GS screen repair I dropped my iPhone earlier today. The screen is now full of cracks but the phone still functioning. Is there any cases of DIY style repair being performed? Can anyone share their repair steps for this?

I went through this myself a couple of weeks ago. Stupid tile floor in my office wouldn't catch my phone at 9.81m/s2. I ended up taking my phone into a mobile repair shop and had them replace the screen (voiding my warranty in the process), but was a hell of a lot cheaper than doing it myself. Took all of about 15 minutes.

Your profile doesn't list where you live, but any Apple Authorized repair shop can do it for you (or send it away for repair if they can't do it in house).

That said, it is possible to do the repair yourself. iPhone 3GS glass replacement kits can easily be purchased on eBay and from any other number of resellers. The process for doing it yourself isn't easy, but depending on your own level of handiness, you could do it yourself.

There are some excellent video guides for DIY iPhone glass replacement on YouTube. For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mboB8p-sdw


How to stop using iCloud Music Library on Mac and iOS? While trying Apple Music this summer, I must have switched on the iCloud Music Library functions. I finished using Apple Music, and I would like to get rid of that iCloud Music Library.

I'd like to return to...

having my music on my Mac
syncing selected playlists, albums and artists to my iOS devices
NOT having my music on iCloud at all

I am on OS X 10.11.1 and iTunes 12.3.1 on the Mac and iOS 9.2 on my iPhone and iPad.

How can I accomplish this?

Update:
of course, I have googled this, resulting either in

partial (iOS only),
outdated (iTunes 12.x seems to have had a switch in Preferences that 12.3. doesn't have) or
immensely unattractive (restore iTunes Library from TimeMachine - I would have to go back to June, it is November now...)

solutions.

On my iPhone, I was able to have it show only music that is stored locally on my iPhone.

On my Mac in iTunes, it tells me to log into iCloud regularly. Often, I see duplicate entries in my playlists. When I rip a CD, it will get uploaded to iCloud. Sometimes, I cannot see my music library but the spinning circle with the message "connecting to iCloud".

I don't like this at all, and frankly, I'm quite upset about Apple's policy...

I had the same problem. I searched and found a few articles and threads that dealt with similar issues. It looks like the option to turn off iCloud Music Library for both the iPhone and Mac has been hidden in iTunes >> Preferences >> General. Uncheck the box next to "Show Apple Music". After unchecking the box you are given a message about iCloud Music Library. Next, you will want to reset your iCloud Music Library settings in iTunes. Go to Store >> View Account, enter your Apple ID and Password, then click "View Account". Once the Account Information page loads, scroll to the bottom and click the "Reset" button for the option to reset iCloud Music Library. You will be asked to delete all of the music and libraries stored in iCloud Music Library. Check "I Understand", and click "Reset". After you confirm and click "Reset Now", quit iTunes. Links to the full articles:

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT204964
How to prevent iTunes 12.2 from automatically uploading sound tracks to iCloud Music Library?

Now, verify that the settings are correct on your iPhone. Go to Settings >> Music. Under Apple Music, slide OFF "Show Apple Music". Finally, Power off your iPhone for 30 seconds and then power back on. If the music library on your iPhone still contains music from iCloud, tap the Music app, tap Library at the top, tap the red text (will read either: Artists, Albums, Songs, Music Videos, Genres, Composers, or Compilations), then slide ON "Only Offline Music".

Following these steps should provide the results you are trying to obtain. It deletes any music and libraries from iCloud but leaves your original library in tact, allowing you to continue syncing selected playlist, albums, and artists to your iOS devices.


How do I enter commands in single-user mode? After every command line do I have to press enter and wait for it to end before I go to the next one? I have no clue at all and am desperate to solve this problem. This is my first time using single-user mode.

/sbin/fsck -fy /
/sbin/mount -uw /
mkdir /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions
cd /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions
mv /System/Library/Extensions/ATI* .
mv /System/Library/Extensions/AMD* .
touch /System/Library/Extensions
exit

After you've typed a line, press the enter key. Wait until the command has finished before typing the next line and repeating. If you've ever used Terminal, it is the identical process.


Problem with dd command I inputted the diskutil list command and the following showed up

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Macintosh HD            120.5 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           +120.1 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 A552902B-0850-4310-8CD2-5742F99CEF78
                                 Unencrypted

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *32.0 GB    disk2
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:       Microsoft Basic Data                         31.8 GB    disk2s2

So I tried the dd if=/Volumes/Something of=/dev/disk2 bs=1m (yes, I named the device something previously). The terminal returned Permission denied. I tried the same command with sudo. It then returned Device busy. What should I do?

Before doing dd command you need to do unmount $device and sub partitions(if any).

ie, in general

sudo diskutil unmount $device

this case

sudo diskutil unmount /dev/disk2
sudo diskutil unmount /dev/disk2s1
sudo diskutil unmount /dev/disk2s2

then you try dd command, hopes this helps

for reference https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/271471/running-dd-why-resource-is-busy


What is the host "xp.apple.com" for and what is sent there? Ever since I have installed a Pi-hole DNS/DHCP server at my home, I see the host xp.apple.com pop up as one of the most blocked hosts. The amount of lookups attempted is ridiculous, at around 10% of all DNS lookups combined, even eclipsing graph.facebook.com, which is usually the worst offender.

Hence my question: what is xp.apple.com for and what kind of data is sent there. I am aware of Apple's server connection information but there's no mention of what kind of data is transferred. Also, several internet searches did not bring any more info about it to light.

It seems to be related to the app store and os updates. All my apple devices attempt to connect to it during updates. On MacOS the processes which attempt connection are commerce, appstoreagent, rtcreportingd and App Store.

I would speculate that it is for some kind of telemetry, as I have had it blocked for a couple of months now and it has never caused any updates to fail. I suspect the same is true for configuration.apple.com .


"codec missing or unavailable" error when importing media file in Adobe Premiere CC When I try to import any video file (e.g. AVI files) in Adobe Premiere Pro cc in my Macbook Air, I get this error:
"codec missing or unavailable"

What to do about it?

AVI is just a container for a video format, and can contain videos encoded in different formats. The error you're seeing says that Adobe Premiere does not know how to process the video format that's within the AVI file.

First, you would have to find out (or know) the codec used for the video within the AVI file and then download and install the appropriate codec on your system.
To find out the codec for the file, examine it using a tool like QuickTime or VLC and see if you can use the Inspectors in these to get the video and audio codecs for your file.
If these two don't help, you would have to use a media information tool like MediaInspector or AviInfo on OS X or GSpot on Windows. Then search and install the codec for the file.

Here's some additional explanation and information from Adobe on "Troubleshoot file formats and codecs":

  Video-recording devices and video software applications encode files in a specific file format, such as AVI, QuickTime (MOV), and Windows Media (WMV). For a list of the file formats that Adobe Premiere Elements supports, search "Supported file formats in Adobe Premiere Elements " in the Adobe Knowledgebase.

  Some video file formats, including AVI and MOV, are container file formats. The data inside these container files is encoded according to a particular codec. Codecs are algorithms for compressing video and audio data. Many different codecs exist.

  For example, an AVI file can be encoded with the DV codec, a commercial codec (such as DivX), a Motion JPEG codec, among others. (Camcorders that record to miniDV tapes use the DV codec. Some still-image cameras use the Motion JPEG coded.)

  Adobe Premiere Elements sometimes cannot decode video files that were created with a poorly designed codec or a codec that is not installed on your computer.

  Knowing the format and, when applicable, the codec of the files you are working with helps you use these solutions. To gather this information, do one or more of the following tasks:

  Open the file in Apple QuickTime Player and choose Window > Show Movie Inspector.
  If the file is from a camcorder, camera, or other video-recording device, see the device's documentation, or locate the device's specifications on the manufacturer's website.
  Open the file in a third-party application that analyzes media files, such as MediaInfo or GSpot 2.70.


Why does iOS 13 not trust my own Root CA? No matter what I do, I can't get Safari on the iPhone or iPad to trust a certificate from an internal website. I can look at the certificate and it is shown as "not trusted".

I have imported the Root CA, and I enabled trust for the Root CA. This worked before with iOS 12, but no longer seems to be enough.

The tool "SSL Detective" shows a trusted certificate chain. Safari on the Mac has no issues with the website / certificate (of course, the Root CA had to be imported to the keychain first).

Is this a bug in iOS 13.1.1? Or are there even more hurdles that I don't know of to enable an internal CA?

iOS 13 have increased the security regarding these root certificates. It is thus not a bug, but rather that you have to meet higher requirements in order to get this working.

First of all the process for manually trusted the root certificate has been made slightly more complicated to ensure that users do not unwittingly do this. Before you could import a profile and be done with it, but now you have to also open up Settings > General > About > Certificate Trust Settings, and then toggle "Enable Full Trust for Root Certificates" on for the certificate.

In addition to the above mentioned process change, the requirements for the actual certificate have changed as well:

If you're using RSA, the key size must be at least 2048 bites.
The hash algorithm must be SHA-2, and not SHA-1.

You can read Apple's explanation of these new requirements here. Note that most of the requirements are only for "server certificates" - you only need to comply with the new requirements for "issuing CAs".

As per your comments, it seemed that your question title was really incorrect and it wasn't the "root CA" trust you had problems with - it was the server certificate that wasn't trusted. In this case, remember that the server certificate should follow all the new requirements listed in the above mentioned link.

These new requirements are, for all server certificates:

When used for TLS (as you do in Safari), the DNS name of the server must be in the Subject Alternative Name field

Note that this requirement also means that if you're requesting your web page using an IP-address instead of a name, then the IP address (without port number) should be listed in the SAN field.

And for server certificates issued after the 1st of July 2019, also the following two requirements:

When used for TLS, the certificate must contain an ExtendedKeyUsage field with the id-kp-serverAuth OID (i.e. don't use a certificate listed as a client certificate, code signing certificate, email or VPN certificate, etc)
When used for TLS, the certificate must be valid for 825 days or fewer

As it turned out your problem was with the validity period of the certificate being more than 825 days. You'll have to reissue the certificate with a shorter validity period.

The reason for the new validity period requirement is that the global CA/B forum (regulates the industry for digital certificates) set new guidelines where CAs must not issue server certificates with a validity period of more than 825 days after the 1st of March 2018. For more information on who was behind the new rule, you can find the voting information here.


Is a 16-day Apple Beta Review time normal? I've submitted an iOS beta Testflight build for external testing on Jan 9th and it went into review that same day and has not changed status since. Normally it's only a few days as our previous beta took 2 days and it was a few days before. However, it's been over 2 weeks and counting so far.

I submitted an expedited beta review on the 21st (3 days ago) out of desperation to get our latest beta to our customers to test and it's like our app has been put into a void and forgotten about.

There is no way to contact our review team, so I'm not sure what's going on or if its some kind of fall back from the "holiday rush". Has anyone else been experiencing these long app beta review times? AppReviewTimes.com is reporting an impressive 2 days for full app reviews.

No, this is not a normal review time.

Review Times

You can get a gauge of average App Store review times on http://appreviewtimes.com

  This site tracks the average App Store review times for both the iOS and the Mac App Store using data crowdsourced from iOS and Mac developers.

The current average iOS review time is 2 days.

Having submitted an expedited beta review, there is nothing you can officially do but wait. As a developer, the review process can feel capricious.


How can I change DPI on OS X? Simple question, can't find a single simple answer on the entire internet. Although from what I have read, this might be a driver or hardware limitation.

My problem
I have a 1440 x 900 native pixel resolution. I want to run at a 1280 x 800 scaled resolution.

I know you can change this in the display settings, but then you see a horrible blur because of the hardware upscaling. OS X has built it DPI upscaling, and has been resolution independant for a while now. Why can't I change the perceived resolution at the software level?

My attempts
I've force enabled HiDPI modes via Quartz Debug and it has given me one HiDPI mode. 720 x 450 PX @ 2 DPPX. I've installed SwitchResX and although I can add custom resolutions, I can't force it to use the graceful scaling I want, and I can't see a way to manage the DPI or DPPX.

To summarise
I want to run my native MacBook Air 13-inch display at 1440x900 PX and have OS X upscale to this from 1280x800 PX @ 1.125 DPPX, still 128 DPI, using the same DPI scaling technology that makes "retina" displays look so clear.

I would love this option but I appreciate it may not be possible. I love my MacBook Air and don't want a rMBP, but I also have terrible eyesight and would prefer a 1280 width, but not with the horrible upscaling that is currently my only option making me squint even more.

Not sure if this will help some people, but I figured this out for myself

I have a 27" LG WQHD (2560x1440) display connected via HDMI to my 2014 13" Macbook Pro Retina.

Enable Mirror Displays

On the external monitor, select Optimize for: Built-in Retina Display

The final result isn't perfect, but it makes my 27" external display look like a beautiful retina display.

  Two downfalls:

the macbook has to be open in order for the external to continue running in HiDPI mode.
the external monitor has an aspect ratio of 16:9 but the laptop is 16:10. There are thin vertical black bars on the left/right of my external monitor.


Apple logo never lighted up! The Apple logo on my MacBook was never ever lighted up since I purchased it over a year ago. I was under the impression that some models are made this way, but on checking out how to turn it on, I'm learning that perhaps all models come with the lighted function and the common challenge lies in turning the light off. How could this be? I had placed a white Apple sticker that came with it on the cover, but now I'm feeling that I might have gotten a defective unit....what do you think?

No current model of MacBook or MacBook Pro has a logo that lights up. Apple had to give it up in order to make thinner screens. The 13” MacBook Air is the only one left that lights up.


How can I really disable the Cmd to Win key mapping in Parallels Desktop 5? Removed it from System Preferences > Keyboard. No go.
Remapped ⌘ Cmd to be Ctrl. No go.
Ripping out the ⌘ Cmd key shouldn't be the solution. Anyone?...

It works for me, but I have it remapped like this:

So cmd is really control for Windows.


By using digits in file name like 1.0.0.1, the file name will be truncated and displays like this 1.0 By using digits in file names like 1.0.0.1 (with an arbitrary file type like .pdf, .txt or .jpg), the file name will be truncated and displays like this 1.0 (the .0.1 part will be truncated)

I already set grid view in the view options, but it doesn't help.

I'm using OS X Yosemite.

Please suggest how I may see the full name?

Command-I will bring up the Info panel; can you see the entire name there? If not, then edit to see I'd you can change it.
I'm having an issue where a .app file with a 2 decimal number starts showing the extension (so instead of iMovie 2.1.3, it shows iMovie 2.1.3.app). So it's possible OS X just doesn't like the decimals


How to receive notification of HTTP access I have a web server running on my Mac and I'd like to be notified (via Growl for example) when someone accesses my server.

I searched for something like that in Automator but found nothing.

Do you know if this is possible ?

Thank you.

The key is your access logs.  Assuming your webserver is properly configured, each time a page is served it should provide some level of detail in the access logs.  This can be turned off for sites with enourmous traffic loads, but for your bog standard (assuming) apache install on a local machine I imagine you are not looking as a massive load.

So, what you need is a method to examine the access log periodically (or real time) either by checking timestamps, or tailing the content etc.  Once this is sorted, you need a way to push it into growl.  Growlnotify is a command line utility that will accept output from other commands and use it as the basis to provide a graphical growl notification.

At this point you need to decide if you want a simple "You have visitors!" message, or something that includes the details, say which page was served to which IP address etc.  That's your choice, and makes the code you need to write that bit more complex or simple.

Check the following example (sorry, I use ksh, you may need to modify):

#!/bin/ksh
while read access
do
growlnotify -t "HTTP_Access" -m "You have visitors!
done < /http/access/log/folder/log1.log

Obviously this will churn out far too much info and be generic, so you need to add your own special blend of a) configuring Apache to only log to the level you need, and b) filter out the entries anyway, possibly formatting while you go, e.g.:

#!/bin/ksh
while read access
do
formatted_access=`echo $access | grep -v "unwanted strings" | awk '{print "Time "$1", IP"$4}'`
count =`echo $formatted_access | wc -l`
case $count in
(0)
# No line matched criteria
;;
(*)
growlnotify -t "HTTP_Access" -m $formatted_access
;;
esac
done < /http/access/log/folder/log1.log

Throw this into an automator service, and away you go.


How to purchase Windows for my planned VMWare Fusion setup -- via online download, etc Apologies for this common question, but answers online are often patchy and a few details always elude me.

-- I plan to buy VMWare Fusion for my Mac Powerbook (core 2 duo.)  So I need to buy a copy of Windows.  I guess I'm aiming at Windows 7 Home Premium or some such thing, but please tell me a better flavor if you are passionate about it.  Or would a copy of WinXP be less of a resource hog?

-- Main Question:  Is it possible to purchase the windows copy via 100% download online, with no CDs shipped to me... I live overseas and prefer that. (I suppose I would then burn an installer CD myself to feed to VMWare?)  If yes, Please give any and all recommendations on online stores that would have a legit copy at a decent price...

-- If it's not possible to buy windows via 100% download only, please let me know your favorite online stores to buy the physical legit versions. The only one I have learned of that didn't seem incredibly sketchy is http://www.newegg.com/

-- Anything important to know about whether aiming for an "OEM" version would be smart, foolish, frugal, risky... Can they not be re-installed a second time if the computer crashes, or some other kind of risk?

You can buy Windows 7 online from Microsoft, and they will give you a license key and a download link. You should be able to use that installer directly in Fusion, no need to burn it to a disk.

I would recommend Windows 7 over XP - it will be supported by Microsoft and 3rd party software much longer, and has many technological advantages. You should be made aware  that Windows comes in several flavours—in addition to Home Premium, Pro, Ultimate, each of those can be purchased as an Upgrade, Full, or OEM version.

OEM is typically the cheapest, but is intended to be installed once on a computer you build, and can't be reused. Technically it's not meant for VMs, but in practice you shouldn't run into issues with it. However it can only be purchased as a physical copy, not downloaded. You want to stay away from Upgrade versions, which are cheaper than Full versions, but check for an existing Windows install. Finally, Full versions are the most expensive, but if you want to live by the purest letter of the license agreement, this is what you need.

Windows 8 is also an option, and will have cheaper licensing, but won't be available until October.


DVI-D to Thunderbolt - new Mac Mini I am buying a new Mac Mini that has one of these new Thunderbolt ports to connect to monitors. I know that this Thunderbolt port is equivalent to mini Display Port. My monitor is a Samsung 2232BW+ that has one of this DVI-D Single Link connectors. See next picture:

but all adapters I find are like this:

all informations I find, say that my monitor is DVI-D Single Link but the adapter is said to be DVI DUAL link.

Looking at both connectors, I see that in theory a DVI-D cable can connect to the DVI dual link, but I want to be sure.

Will it work if I buy one of these connectors in the second picture to use with my DVI-D monitor? Or what other cable do you recommend to connect a new mac mini with a thunderbolt port to a DVI-D monitor?

thanks.

Yes, that will work just fine.  Notice that the female DVI connector has more slots than the male connector has pins.  Those slots are for the extra pins needed by a dual link cable.  They're not needed for a single link DVI connection, so they'll just sit unused.


Reinstall OS X Mavericks I am relatively new to Mac world. I've bought my first Apple computer, a MacBook Pro Retina 2013, a few weeks ago and I've tried a lot of software since then.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I have a problem with Xcode as descried in this question I posted on stack overflow. I want to try reinstalling the OS to see if the problem will disappear.

About reinstalling the OS, my biggest concert is if all my files will remain after reinstallation. So, can you reinstall OS X without having to format your hard drive?

My mac came with Mavericks.

Just to clarify :-) Simply reinstalling an O/S (upgrading too) does not delete any personal files, it over writes only system files to a freshly installed state.

remember that the FIRST thing you do after re-installing is running software update and getting all the patches.

The SECOND would be booting from the recovery partition and repairing permissions and the disk with Disk Utility (in that order)


Safari - Display Favicons In Favorites Bar Is it possible to display favicons in Safari's Favorites Bar? For example, my Favorites Bar in Firefox looks like this:

I've tried using glims, but can't get it to do this.

I was looking for something similar as I use the Chrome bookmark bar in that way, but I couldn't find anything suitable. So I made an extension and have submitted it to Apple, Favicon Bar:

https://github.com/RoryCombe/FaviconBar


How do diagnose network problems My MacBook Air has issues maintaining an internet connection at home. I think my access point is at fault, as this also happens to other devices.

Reconnecting to the WiFi or running Network Diagnostics fixes the problem, only for it to happen again 5 minutes later:

How would I diagnose the problem? Are there any tools that would tell me what/where the problem is?

The key to your diagnostics is this statement:

  I think my access point is at fault, as this also happens to other
  devices.

When you have multiple devices exhibiting the same behavior, the best course of action is look for the common thread - in this case your WAP (Wireless Access Point)

You never mentioned what wireless router you are using, but it's probably a safe bet is a consumer grade unit.  I experienced the same issues until I finally ditched that gear and went for more commercial grade equipment.

In your case, even if you didn't want to replace the router itself, you could disable the WiFi functionality and add in "proper" WAPs as described in the linked answer.


Does Safari 2 support tabbed browsing? Does Safari 2 support tabbed browsing? What is the first version that supports this feature?

According to a google search for [safari 2 tabbed browsing], yes.

Source: http://www.macnews.com/content/safari-beta-2-brings-tabbed-browsing-autofill-forms


macOS Mojave local snapshots I just upgraded my Mac to Mojave and can no longer see any backup volume mounted even though Time Machine is enabled, my disk has enough space, and therefore should be used to store local backups..

tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

Displays:

/com.apple.TimeMachine.2018-12-04-104303

So there are snapshots available but I cannot see the internal content of it through the terminal as I use to by typing ls /volumes/Mobilebackups

Mojave stores Time Machine snapshots as APFS snapshots.

You can list these snapshots using tmutil:

% tmutil listLocalSnapshots /
[…]
com.apple.TimeMachine.2018-12-04-123456

These snapshots are not exposed anywhere in the filesystem by default, but they can be mounted manually using mount_apfs:

% sudo mkdir /Volumes/snap
% sudo mount_apfs -o ro -s com.apple.TimeMachine.2018-12-04-123456 / /Volumes/snap

Make sure to unmount the snapshot when you are done with it:

% sudo umount -f /Volumes/snap


Invoke QuickLook in Open/Save dialogue windows A handy tip I discovered by accident.

Highlight any file in an Open/Save window, press the space bar and voila! there is your file in all it's glory.

Well thank you! :D
This will certainly be useful.

Just as a note to everyone who sees this, it apparently only works on the window, not on the dropdown. I cant get the quicklook in the Save As dialogue.


How can I create a bootable USB stick with Linux and FAT32 from macOS I want to put 2 partitions on my USB stick: first one (so Windows can see it) with FAT32 (so also macOS can write to it) and a second one, bootable with system-rescue-cd on it.

I started looking how to partition the stick and I discovered that Disk Utility will not let me create partitions on the USB stick (the button is disabled), let alone configure the partition as bootable in the MBR.

There is plenty of ways to do that on GNU/Linux, other also works on Windows but I didn't find anything for macOS. Is there any free (as a beer) way to do that?

You need to use diskutil through Terminal to accomplish this.

The command you would use is

diskutil partitionDisk diskX 2 MBR fat32 "LINUX" 80% fat32 "RESCUE" 20%

A few notes:

diskX is the identifier of your USB stick (use diskutil list to get that info)
For this example, I am using a 1GB flash and dedicating 80% of it to the Linux partition and 20% to the Rescue.  You can use actual size values like 800MB and 200MB rather than percentages.
You will need a boot loader (like GRUB2) installed.  If your rescue CD already has one, just dd the image to the "Rescue" partition.
"Linux" and "Rescue" are the names of the partitions
The partitions will be created in the order listed.

Per the man page:

partitionDisk device [numberOfPartitions] [APM[Format] | MBR[Format] | GPT[Format]] [part1Format
                part1Name part1Size part2Format part2Name part2Size part3Format part3Name part3Size ...]


Copying 85000 files...(takes literally for ever) So I have these 85000 files (totally 2.5gb) that I wish to copy from my Mac to my ReadyNAS NV+ [X-RAID] with RAIDiator 4.1.10 [1.00a043]

It's a bunch of Matlab files.

Anyway, it's like it cannot be done. I went thru the wired network and let it copy all thru the night. From 9pm to 8am and it still said "30 hours to go..." Before that I managed to copy 30gb of data (30 files) in an hour.

Are there any better ways of copying these files that I don't know about? I'm using the finder.

If your NAS supports FTP or SFTP, you could try with a client like Cyberduck. That could be more efficient than through the Finder (with AFP).


folder copy in Finder labels it as incomplete, though copying is completed I am getting this error much too often. I am copying a big number of files from a slow device (external hard drive) to my Mac. When the copy is completed, the last top folder is still marked as "incomplete".

I only managed to clear the mark by creating an empty folder with a different name (say "Folder2"), moving the contents of the folder (say "Folder") there, erasing the (now empty) folder "Folder" and renaming "Folder2". That all looks weird to me. Any suggestions?

Update: External drive is formatted in FAT32.

Try clicking 'Get Info' and see if it works for you. I know its stupid but it should work.


Mojave disable download bouncing in dock? (no-bouncing doesn't work) I'm trying to disable all bouncing on the dock and have used in past versions of MacOS

$ defaults write com.apple.dock no-bouncing -bool TRUE
$ killall Dock

however this is not stopping the newly downloaded icons from continuing to bounce.  I tried looking at the defaults read for com.apple.dock, with no avail.  Does anyone know what setting will completely disable all the annoying bouncing?

You can disable the App start bounce in System Preferences > Dock > Animate opening Applications.

If you want to check preferences file for the changes it makes, see this answer for details on how to check that. Comments has an easier way too.

How to set dark mode appearance to auto in terminal


How to remove text services? I know service workflows created from Automator can be removed from ~/Library/Services, but I cannot see any services related to selected text there.

See my screenshots

I must have installed apps that added such services the LaTeX series in the screenshot, which shows up in the context menu when right-clicking text in apps like Notes.

How to remove these services then?

OK, found it myself. Under System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services, I can uncheck those 3rd-party services.


Time machine back up - how can I access my documents when my Mac has died? My Mac has died (it's really old and has some kind of virus and has finally given up the ghost). Luckily I have a time machine backup on an external hard drive.

I really want to save my photos and documents directly to a couple of different hard drives but I'm not planning on buying a new mac.

How can I access my documents from my time machine back up?

My husband has a Mac. Can I restore my documents and photos onto his Mac without affecting his documents etc?

Connect the Time Machine disk to another Mac, then you can browse the backups by clicking on the Time Machine icon in the menu bar, holding ⌥ and clicking Browse Other Backup Disks….

Alternatively, you can look for files just using Finder. Open the Time Machine disk in Finder, then open the folder at this path, replacing ‘computername’ with the name of your computer.

Backups.backupdb/computername/Latest


Messages restarts to login screen after a few seconds I'm running Big Sur (11.0.1) on a Late 2014 Mac Mini, and the Messages app refuses to stay logged in.
I recently created a child account for my eldest. Signed into her account on Mac Mini, I have successfully signed into her account in Apple ID in System Preferences, and into iCloud too.
When I open the Messages app, it prompts for credentials. I enter her creds (that I just created), and all seems to go well. I tried sending a message to my account, which was never delivered. Then, within a matter of seconds, the app appears to either restart or decides that authentication needs to be re-performed, almost like her account is being logged out. This repeats no matter how many times I try, or whether I restart the machine.
If I log into my Mac account, open Messages and log in with my Apple ID, the same thing happens. When I just tried, it lasted seven seconds before restarting.
If I open Messages using my Apple ID on a 2018 Macbook Pro, also running Big Sur, everything is fine and I can send messages to friends with iPhones, using their phone number. Similarly if I log in as her account on my MBP, I can send messages.
If I try to send a message to my child's account using my MBP, I get "Not delivered" errors.
Any ideas?

What i can recommend for you is to download “iMessage debug” Its a terminal Applcation,just unzip it and double click it to run in the terminal. You will have to goto system preferences and click on the security and privacy icon and allow it to run because it will blocked because of the “unidentified developer crap” But anyhow just run that and see if that fixes your problem. If there was a known good imessage configuration on the said Mac at one point then this app will be able to restore that configuration automatically. Your ethernet in your Hardware config will have to read as “en0” and “built in”. And your nvram must be working as well. In terminal you would type the command “sudo -s” enter your password and then “sudo nvram -p” hit enter. “sudo nvram -c” now type “sudo nvram mymac=1234” where 1234 can be whatever you want to put there and then just hit enter. Then reboot and then go back to terminal and just type “sudo nvram -p” and it should bring up some data on the screen along with whatever you named the 1234 above and that way you will know if your nvram is working. If it doesnt show the 1234 rename then its not working and that would be the problem. Anyway hope this helps


How can I share reminders from one iphone to another? Possible Duplicate:
  Is it possible to share reminders?

We have 2 iphones between us, both running iOS 5.  Is there a way to share reminders between them?  They have different apple IDs associated with them.  It looks like this was possible via iCloud, but I cannot find that functionality.

Pick one of your apple ID's and log in on both phones with this ID. In settings under iCloud you can select what you want to sync, just turn off the features you do not wish to share.

More info on using multiple accounts:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4020?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US


iMac OSX 10.8.4 Volume adjusts by itself I'm certain that this is user-error on my behalf and not an issue with the software or hardware. I've got the latest iMac (2013) and updated my OSX to the most current version of Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

The problem i'm having occurrs in all applications and affects the volume setting. Applications i use and have experienced this issue with:

Spotify
iTunes
Chrome (Youtube, HTML5 Video & Audio, Flash Players)

Sometimes i stream podcasts that have a low default volume  so i like to turn up my OSX Volume to full in order to hear them. However; when i use either the volume slider in my top bar, or the volume keys on my keyboard and adjust the volume beyond around 60% after about 5 seconds playback the volume automatically goes back down to around 60%.

See image:

I've recorded a 15 second Screencast with sound, here is the Screenr.

I've been into System Preferences > Sound  and taken a look around the output settings but i can't see anything that would restrict the volume to this.

Any and all insight to this problem is greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance

Check any third party software relating to sound output management. I'm not talking about apps such as iTunes or Spotify, but rather things such as Soundflower or other apps that modify how sound is output from your system and record system sounds.


AirPods don't work when connected to external monitor - sometimes I received a set of AirPods for the holidays and I'm generally enjoying using them with my 15-inch MacBook Pro (2018), which is running High Sierra (10.13.6).

This MBP only has USB-C ports. Four of them. I'm using an Apple 27-inch Thunderbolt display that has an Apple adapter to convert to the USB-C.

If I'm listening to music - for example on YouTube - the AirPods work just fine. I get audio and it sounds great. When I try to use Google Hangouts with video sourced from the external monitor's camera, the video works just fine but I get no audio with the AirPods. If I disconnect from the external monitor and use a video Hangout sourcing the video from the built-in camera, the AirPods work just fine. If I use the Hangout without audio at all, the AirPods work just fine, too.

Considering this, it seems like there's something breaking whenever I'm getting video from the external monitor.

Is there something about my setup that would prevent the audio from working in this situation?

Other notes:

I have a set of wireless headphones that have a USB dongle that I plug into the monitor and this works just fine, too (assuming I remember to turn them on).
I've not tried to use the AirPods when connected to the external monitor but using the built-in camera on the MBP.

After weeks of poking at this, I've managed to figure it out.

This actually had nothing to do with the AirPods or the external monitor, rather the problem was that Google Hangouts has its own settings to choose which devices are being used for input/output that overrides the system settings. So, while I was frantically trying to change which device was supplying in/out in the system preferences, Hangouts was happily sitting on the devices it had chosen, ignoring those changes.

Once I realized what was going on, changing the setting manually in Hangouts from my other wireless headphones to the AirPods proves effective every time.


Safari doesn't remember tabs in Mountain Lion In Mac OS X Lion 10.7, Safari preserved the state of my tabs when it closed. This functionality seems to have disappeared in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. Is there a way to restore (no pun intended) this feature from with the System Preferences or perhaps a Terminal trick?

Undo quitting of all applications
Apple has slightly changed the wording but the location for this setting is still the same as in Lion:
System Preferences → General → Close windows when quitting an application
Undo quitting for a specific application
This works only with Close windows when quitting an application disabled at the same time.
Type the following command in the Terminal. Then restart the specific application.
In general the syntax is:
defaults write com."producer"."program-name" ApplePersistenceIgnoreState YES

Thus, in your case (Safari.app) it is:
defaults write com.apple.Safari ApplePersistenceIgnoreState YES

You can undo this by using the parameter NO instead.
If you prefer a graphical interface, you can use TinkerTool. But the current version 4.9 only supports the toggling on a per app basis in Lion. I'll update this answer when TinkerTool adds this feature for Mountain Lion as well.


Microsoft fonts (Consolas, Calibri, Candara, etc) not displaying in Safari since Lion upgrade I can't see what I type as I write this question  in Safari – all I see is lots of capital A's in boxes. I'm new here, so I'm not allowed to post a screen grab.
No problems in other browsers, or in other apps. Seems to affect all the relatively recent Microsoft "C" fonts, but not Arial. I am using Font Explorer X Pro, which has exhibited a bit of post-Lion flakiness, but given it is apparently limited to Safari this is quite possibly irrelevant.
Anyone else had this problem? Any ideas?

This is a known bug that has been reported widely.

First, if you are using a third-party font management program (commonly used by graphic designers with large libraries of fonts) such as FontExplorer or Suitcase Fusion, disable that utility. Contact the publisher of that font utility for information about an update or workaround to deal with Lion and/or Safari 5.1 incompatibility problems.

Second, try clearing your font caches. One way to do this is to boot in Safe Mode. Start up and as soon as you hear the startup chime, hold down the Shift key until the operating system starts to load (after the grey Apple logo, when the rotating 12-point clock symbol appears). It will take longer than usual to start up because the Mac will be doing some diagnostic and maintenance work, including deleting your old font caches so the system can build a new one. Once startup is complete, and you are back to the Desktop and Finder, you should restart, because some functions won't work while the Mac is running in Safe Mode.

Alternately you can use a utility like Onyx or Cocktail to clear your font caches.


Which model of Macintosh has the longest battery life? I was exclusively a PC man (specifically Dell, Gateway, and HP), but I am now planning to buy a Mac, because my sister has a Mac, with a battery life (much) longer than mine, and I would like to benefit from that. Could anyone suggest the best Mac to buy if I want the longest battery life possible. I mean really the longest, even if it sacrifices other things to achieve it.

According to Apple's website, the 13" MacBook Air and all of the MacBook Pros have 7 hours of battery life. This means that there are seven laptops for you to choose from: Four 13" computers, two 15", and one 17". The possibility of getting more than 7 hours exists, because this number is determined in this manner:

  The wireless web test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing 25 popular websites with display brightness set to 50%.

—Apple (at the very bottom of the page, point number 2).


Bootcamp Windows 10 internal speakers don't work, audio port lights red I'm having problems with the audio in my Mid-2012 Macbook Pro running with Bootcamp Windows 10. There's no sound coming from the internal speakers, and the audio port lights red.

In OSX, I managed to fix this problem by holding a Volume key and disconnecting the headphone jack, and miraculously, it works!

The problem still remains in Bootcamp Windows 10. How can this problem be fixed?

I installed Windows 10 on my Macbook using Bootcamp Assistant on OSX.

I finally found a way to solve this issue:
First in OSX, I installed the "Latest Windows support software from Apple" on a USB flash drive via Utilities -> Boot Camp Assistant.
Then in Windows, I reinstalled the missing audio driver using the BootCamp.msi installation file located in WindowsSupport/BootCamp/Drivers/Apple in said USB flash drive.
Internal speakers now work normally again, and the audio port no longer lights red!


How Do I Remove Remote Disc from Finder (not in the Sidebar) I've an iMac 10.10.3. When I open Finder and go to iMac under Devices I see my HDD, NAS, etc. But I also see "Remote Disc". I can't eject it (right click->Eject doesn't do anything) or trash it (The item "Remote Disc" can't be moved to the Trash because it can't be deleted).

I have absolutely no use for Remote Disc. So how can I remove it from Finder?

Note: Please note I'm not talking about removing it from the Sidebar. I've already done that.

Regards,

To remove:

Launch Terminal
Enter the following string:

defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser EnableODiskBrowsing -bool false

Enter the following string:

killall Finder

The icon should now be gone from both Finder and your sidebar. To reverse and make the icon show again, repeat the steps but run this command in step 2:

defaults delete com.apple.NetworkBrowser EnableODiskBrowsing

The icon is present on Macs which do not have optical drives but may still need access to the physical media from another computer.

Source: Apple Support Forums


Sync only accepted Facebook events in iOS calendar If I activate the Facebook calendar sync on my iOS device all events are input in my calendar. Even those I denied. It's there a way to sync only those I accepted?

If it's not possible to do it with plain iOS, is there a way through third party tools? (I'm aware that they could log the calendar events)

You can use Facebook Event Calendar. Simple, efficient, clever, with options. Read every step carefully, and you'll be able to customize your calendar synchronisation and it works perfectly.


When I use iMessage the receiver always gets it via email and not phone number I know a lot of people have previously asked this question. However my problem still has not been solved. I have iMessage on. I am using iMessage via my Apple ID. Now where it says "receive at:", it shows my email, and it won't even let me remove the email. Plus it doesn't even have an option that shows my phone number. I have an iPhone 4S. I have tried opening iMessage without an Apple ID, however it says "Verifying" for hours and hours.

The only tried and true manner I've found to resolve this is to force Apple's activation servers to see the phone as a new device. The push notification servers have clearly "hung on" to what it thinks is the correct iMessage information despite your efforts to correct this.

To accomplish this, you'll need to be really careful about keeping a good backup since you will have to erase your phone and set it up as new. I recommend making an iCloud backup, then making a local backup to iTunes. If you are really paranoid, back up your PC/Mac at this point and have two copies of the iTunes backup. I would turn odd iMessage and power down the phone and then make a backup once it starts with no iMessage on the phone just in case the iMessage settings could get restored after you perform this erase operation.

Now you will need to be sure your phone receives SMS messages. Your carrier should double check that your account has SMS enabled. At this point, you may want to be sure you are not jailbroken or other thing that could get messed up if it's not stored in your normal backup procedure.

From the settings app, go to General, and then Reset and finally Erase All Content and Settings
When the device gets past all the red warning messages, it will trash it's internal APNS tokens (Apple Push Notification Service) and get ready to be set up as a new device or from a backup.
Do not enter your Apple ID when the device restores. You should skip everything and not enter any data into the phone. Don't set up email, iCloud or anything else.
Do test sending a SMS and receiving a SMS.
Then go to iMessage and enable it - not with an Apple ID, but with your phone number.
At this point you can test the iMessage and ensure it works.

Once you have verified things are fine, you can now choose to start setting up the phone and not restore your backup. This might be the best option if you don't have lots of third party apps that have extensive data. If you do want to restore your backup, you can connect it to iTunes ensuring you don't initiate a new backup to cover the old one or use iCloud to restore your cloud backup.

Hopefully this will clear the iMessage settings and restore things to the way you hope it will work.


What do these different terms for system memory in OS X mean? Possible Duplicate:
  What does it mean if I have lots of “Inactive” memory at the end of a work day?

I just bought a MacBook Pro (I've been a Windows user before this), and I noticed that the terminology for memory is a bit different here. In System Monitor it is showing:

Free
Wired
Active
Inactive
Used

What exactly do they signify?

Also, the used memory (whatever that means) is appearing to be unusually high even when no external application is running. Is it common on OS X? Even if I log out and log in again, and ensure none of the apps are running, the used memory value is above 2 GB! What will happen if I have lots of high memory consuming processes running?

Free memory

This is RAM that's not being used.

Wired memory

Information in this memory can't be moved to the hard disk, so it must stay in RAM. The amount of Wired memory depends on the applications you are using.

Active memory

This information is currently in memory, and has been recently used.

Inactive memory

This information in memory is not actively being used, but was recently used.

Used

This is the total amount of memory used.

VM size

This is the total amount of Virtual Memory for all processes on your Mac.

Page ins / Page outs

This refers to the amount of information moved between RAM and the hard disk. This number is a cumulative amount of data that Mac OS X has moved between RAM and disk space.

Swap used

This is the amount of information copied to the swap file on your hard drive.

See official Source for more details.

The high memory usage has occurred ever since Mac OS X Lion. I don't really now why this is. But generally it's good if your RAM is being used.

If you clear your ram too often, programs start slower because they have to be loaded into the RAM again.


Is a 10.8 Time Machine backup restorable under 10.7 I want to revert my system from 10.8 Mountain Lion to 10.7 Lion. Will Time Machine (or Migration assistant) gracefully restore my users and files created under 10.8?

Yes, though there are caveats. I decide to try it and see; I reformatted my hard disk, installed Lion, then used Migration Assistant to restore the two user accounts. Until this point everything works perfectly, but there were two major unrelated problems to downgrading: 1) is a user account login bug with Lion that requires use of the passwordreset utility for the root account, and 2) Using Migration Assistant to migrate applications was a mistake, since many vital apps such as Safari and Mail won't work under Lion, and require many steps to reinstall properly.


Adding a username alias using the command line How do I add a username alias using the command line?

I can do it fine using the preferences dialog through the "Advanced Options", but I need to do it during an installation script.

Can someone point me the right way?

The information is accessible through dscl. To add the alias "visitor" and be able to use this username for guest login, use the following command:

sudo dscl . -merge Users/Guest RecordName visitor


iMac RAM expansion compatibility I have an Apple iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017) with 8GB RAM and I would like to expand the memory to 16 GB. I have found the following ram on line (Newegg)and I would like to know if is it compatible and you would recommend it. I live in Bahrain:

Crucial 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR4 2400 MT/s (PC4-19200) 260-Pin SODIMM Memory - CT2K8G4SFS824A

Apple has a support document explaining this, see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201191#27inch2017 for your model:


In terminal, modify the text that comes before $ In terminal I can always see which path I'm in:

macbook-romeo:School romeovs$ echo "example command"

which I find quite useful. Yet there is a lot of unnecessary stuff here too: macbook-romeo is not useful since I'm always on my macbook (duh). Then again romeovs is quite useful (this is my user name).

Is there a wan to edit what is shown here? e.g.

22:50 - School - Romeo$ echo "example"

where 22:50 is the current time? (This is just an example of course, I won't be needing the time, I'd use like the text to be a bit more minimalistic).

This OSX Daily article has some detailed instructions on how to do. In short you need to modify your ~/.bash_profile file and modify the PS1 variable.

Below is a list of possible variables you can have displayed:

\d – Current date
\t – Current time
\h – Host name
# – Command number
\u – User name
\W – Current working directory (ie: Desktop/)
\w – Current working directory, full path (ie: /Users/Admin/Desktop)


Pairing multiple iOS devices with one bluetooth keyboard I have a Keys to go Bluetooth keyboard that I use with my iPad. When I turned off the Bluetooth of my iPad, and paired the keyboard with my iPhone, it worked fine with the iPhone. The issue is that when I turn off the iPhone Bluetooth trying pair back to iPad, the iPad doesn't recognize the keyboard. I could make the re-paring to my iPad only after my forcefully un-paring the device manually with my iPhone.

I just expected that the Bluetooth keyboard can connect any devices nearby, but this may not be the case.
Is this expected behavior or Bluetooth keyboards? Is this specific to iOS devices?

Whilst you can pair one master with many slaves, as far as I'm aware, you cannot connect one slave to many masters simultaneously.
You need to un-pair & re-pair each time.

There is a rather complex guide to piconet & scatternet technology at the Bluetooth Developer Portal

Bluetooth v4.0 spec distinctly says it cannot be done, however v4.1 says it can - so it may depend on which version is used in the device.
http://9to5mac.com/2013/12/05/bluetooth-4-1-will-bring-more-reliable-automatic-connections-multiple-roles-more-via-software-update/


How do I view .nfo files in Terminal? I'm trying to open an .nfo file correctly with the mac terminal (eventually with iTerm2) .

I've tried it already with vim:

vim file.nfo
:set encoding=cp437

But it has not helped. Maybe there are other tools? May be something in the Brew repository?

Your question is a bit ambiguous because you don't explicitly state what vim is or is not doing. A .nfo file is just a text file. Vim should be able to correctly handle Unicode encoded text files. If it is a codepage issue then this question on Stack Overflow should explain things:  How can I detect the encoding/codepage of a text file.


pmset default settings I was using this guide and changed a lot of pmset settings duo of FileVault2

https://github.com/drduh/macOS-Security-and-Privacy-Guide#full-disk-encryption

Is there any option to restore the factory defaults?

Open System Preferences → Energy Saver and choose Restore Defaults.


Mavericks InstallESD.dmg MD5 checksum I've just downloaded OS X Mavericks on a Mac.

I'm trying to convert the file:

/Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app\Contents\SharedSupport\InstallESD.dmg

contained inside the download to a .cdr (AKA .iso AKA ISO 9660) file.

I've tried a couple of conversion programs but both of them
report that the file is corrupt.

Hence, I would like someone to post the MD5 checksum so that I may check the
file's integrity with the md5 command from the Mac shell?

That is the only way to determine whether this file is intact or not
and if someone could post the MD5 sum I would really appreciate it.


Homekit: multi mode button in home app Is anyone aware of a HomeKit enabled device which exposes a control element/button in the Home app which allows you to cycle through modes (each click changes a "mode" - whatever mode means for the particular device)? I'm trying to find out whether this kind of button/control exists in HomeKit/Home app to build a device that exposes such a button.

Edit

Here is what I am referring to. The image shows 2 controls (a slider and a switch). I require the switch to have more than two states. Does anyone know if there is a device that exposes such a behaviour to Homekit?

Not a complete answer, but here's a list of all accessory service types supported in Apple HomeKit. This defines the entire scope of possibilities in the Home app.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/homekit/hmservice/accessory_service_types

The accessory categories are:

Light
Power and Switches
Air Quality and Smoke Detection
Temperature and Humidity
Windows
Water
Locks and Openers
Safety and Security
Video and Audio
Information

However, I am not familiar enough with the HomeKit ADK to fully answer your question.


My mum spilt water on her laptop and now the shift key does not work A few months back my mum spilt water on her laptop. Not knowing much about what to do, she turned it back on a few hours later rather than let it dry. Since then the left shift key does not work.

I do not know if it is related but now the mousepad occasionally stops working.

Is there anyway i can fix this?

It is a Macbook PRO SnowLeopard

The best thing you can do now is to send it in for a checkup.


iPhone 11 - Leave lock screen after FaceId I just switched from iPhone 8 (touch id) to iPhone 11 (face id).

From the lock screen on iPhone 8, after touching the home button to do the finger print id, the phone would unlock and go to the home screen.

I've noticed with iPhone 11, the phone unlocks after face id, but remains on the lock screen, requiring me to swipe up from the bottom.

Is there a way to automatically go to the home screen after face id?

This answer will be bit short because there's not much needed to provide an answer.

No.  It's designed to use Face ID to unlock the device only.

You still need to swipe up to open the device and get to the Home screen.


No option to enable Apple Pay on Watch I have Apple Pay enabled on my iPhone (6S) and it used to be available on Apple Watch (original edition) too. I wiped and restored my watch, and now there is no Apply Pay available. The instructions say to use the Watch app and select "Wallet & Apple Pay". For me the option is just called "Wallet" and the only option is to mirror the iPhone. Searching for "pay" doesn't help. I can make payments successfully with the phone. Both devices have latest OS releases (3.1.3 and 10.2.1 at the time of writing). Where has the option gone and how can I rectify this?

Please check the region your iPhone and your Apple Watch are set to. This is a quote from Apple.com, emphasis mine:

  Make sure that you're in a supported region.

  For your iPhone or iPad, go to Settings > General > Language & Region, then scroll to Region.
  For your Apple Watch, open the Watch app on your iPhone, go to the My Watch tab, tap General > Language & Region, and check the region
  format.

I had a similar issue in the past and was able to solve it after setting the correct region and restarting both devices.

Let me know if it worked for you as well.


iTunes Match uploading slowness with eventual error -9810 After several weeks now and still in dialogue with Apple third tier support still haven't resolved an upload problem, can anyone help?

I have around 12,500 tracks out of which iTunes Match found purchases, matched and uploaded a significant number leaving me with around 3000 tracks in 'uploading' status. Then the whole system slowed down. At the present rate it will take over twelve months to upload the remaining tracks. iTunes gets to around 10 uploads (on a good day) and then seems to just stop uploading but leaving iTunes itself unaffected - not crashed. On some occasions but not all I get an error message -9810 which Apple Support have no note for.

Any one cured this one before?

According to a the Apple Discussion Forum, it's a sign on authentication error (SSL). You should try to sign out, sign on elsewhere and sign back on your iMac. When you do sign out, some flags on the Apple Servers are reset or restored, so you could sign on with the proper speed and permissions again.

Or you could change from WiFi to Ethernet or vice versa, this is also mentionned as a solution.

The article mentions more solutions, so I suggest you take a look at the article if above information doesn't help you out.


How to locate a particular place in macOS? In this link, there is the unix command

$HOME/.matlab/<version>/matlab.prf.

How to go to this place by using terminal?

$HOME is your home directory.  This is the directory you are in when you start a terminal window.  Normal using on Mac (and most unix-like systems, is that your home directory has the same name as your short user name.  So if you are Mike Smith, and have a short user name of msmith then the value of $HOME is (usually) /Volumes/Users/msmith.

HOME is an environment variable. If I create a script or a set of directions and use $HOME instead of /Volumes/Users/msmith, then that script can be used by other people.  When I log in, during the startup process MY HOME variable is set to /Volumes/Users/sherwood.

The < > notation means, "Don't type this literally, but find out what the value is, and use that instead.  No automatic substitution this time.

In general on Mac and UNIX/Linux/*BSD systems a file in your home directory (possibly other places) that starts with a period contains settings for that software package.  So .matlab is a directory of Matlab settings, startup scripts, this and that.

<version> is replaced by the version number of your Matlab installation.  You may have several different Matlab versions.

The easiest way to find this is by typing

ls .matlab

In your home directory.  I don't have Matlab on my Mac, so I'm only guessing, but you will probably see something like R2009b and/or R2011a.

So if your username was msmith, you could refer to this file as

~/.matlab/R2011a/matlab.prf

The ~ is another shorthand meaning the 'home directory of'. Often you can just use ~ by itself.  As ~/.matlab.  ~/.matlab and $HOME/.matlab are two ways of saying the same thing.

If you need to GO there -- to see what else is in that directory, just chop off everything after the last / and put cd in front.

Thus

cd ~/.matlab/R2011a/

will leave you in the folder containing matlab.prf

The default settings folder in newer MatLAB versions seems to be $HOME/Library/Application Support/MathWorks/MATLAB/version/ though:

the path to matlab.prf is then e.g.

"$HOME/Library/Application Support/MathWorks/MATLAB/R2016b/matlab.prf"


Can you tell if your Mac computer is infested with malware from the CIA? On March 23rd 2017, news of the CIA having possibly infesting Mac computers with malware have been released by WikiLeaks.

  "DarkSeaSkies" is "an implant that persists in the EFI firmware of an
  Apple MacBook Air computer" and consists of "DarkMatter", "SeaPea" and
  "NightSkies", respectively EFI, kernel-space and user-space implants.

  Documents on the "Triton" MacOSX malware, its infector "Dark Mallet"
  and its EFI-persistent version "DerStake" are also included in this
  release. While the DerStake1.4 manual released today dates to 2013,
  other Vault 7 documents show that as of 2016 the CIA continues to rely
  on and update these systems and is working on the production of
  DerStarke2.0.

Although these infections surely target very few people, there is still little to no documentation regarding this malware, but I am wondering if there is a way to inspect and diagnose this malware (either with "regular" malware troubleshooting software or through Activity Monitor, Terminal, etc).

Kaspery Lab posted a few Yara rules for specific malware.

rule apt_equation_exploitlib_mutexes { meta:
copyright = “Kaspersky Lab”
description = “Rule to detect Equation group's Exploitation library” version = “1.0”
last_modi ed = “2015-02-16”
reference = “https://securelist.com/blog/”
strings:
$mz=“MZ”
$a1=“prkMtx” wide $a2=“cnFormSyncExFBC” wide $a3=“cnFormVoidFBC” wide $a4=“cnFormSyncExFBC” $a5=“cnFormVoidFBC”
condition:
(($mz at 0) and any of ($a*)) }

rule apt_equation_doublefantasy_genericresource { meta:
copyright = “Kaspersky Lab”
description = “Rule to detect DoubleFantasy encoded con g” version = “1.0”
last_modi ed = “2015-02-16”
reference = “https://securelist.com/blog/”
strings:
$mz=“MZ”
$a1={06 00 42 00 49 00 4E 00 52 00 45 00 53 00} $a2=“yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy”
$a3=“002”
condition:
(($mz at 0) and all of ($a*)) and  lesize < 500000 }

rule apt_equation_equationlaser_runtimeclasses { meta:
copyright = “Kaspersky Lab”
description = “Rule to detect the EquationLaser malware” version = “1.0”
last_modi ed = “2015-02-16”
reference = “https://securelist.com/blog/”
strings: $a1=“?a73957838_2@@YAXXZ” $a2=“?a84884@@YAXXZ” $a3=“?b823838_9839@@YAXXZ” $a4=“?e747383_94@@YAXXZ” $a5=“?e83834@@YAXXZ” $a6=“?e929348_827@@YAXXZ”
condition: any of them
}

rule apt_equation_cryptotable { meta:
copyright = “Kaspersky Lab”
description = “Rule to detect the crypto library used in Equation group malware”
version = “1.0”
last_modi ed = “2015-02-16”
reference = “https://securelist.com/blog/”
strings:
$a={37 DF E8 B6 C7 9C 0B AE 91 EF F0 3B 90 C6 80 85 5D 19 4B 45 44 12 3C E2 0D 5C 1C 7B C4 FF D6 05 17 14 4F 03 74 1E 41 DA 8F 7D DE 7E 99 F1 35 AC B8 46 93 CE 23 82 07 EB 2B D4 72 71 40 F3 B0 F7 78 D7 4C D1 55 1A 39 83 18 FA E1 9A 56 B1 96 AB A6 30 C5 5F BE 0C 50 C1}
condition: $a
}


How is iMessage/FaceTime/iCloud service in China? A non-tech savvy friend is going to China. I need to stay in contact with him while he's there. I've set up WeChat to ensure we're not stalled by firewalls, but I'd really like to use iMessage and FaceTime there. How do iMessage and FaceTime work in China? What about iCloud File Sharing?

Although China is notorious for restricting various internet services, iMessage, FaceTime, and iCloud are not among them.

Your friend would have no trouble using these services, as long as he's either connected to Wi-Fi or has a cellular connection.


How to uninstall an app on iOS Of course, by holding down on an icon and tap the x lets me uninstall an app. But take a look at this:

Here, the Pandora app is somehow stuck at the "update phase". Tapping it to continue download doesn't work. The progress "circle" will get stuck. So I decided to reinstall it.

  Translation:
  Delete “”
  Deleting “” will also delete all its data.

For some reason it doesn't even show the name of the app. It's just blank.

Tapping delete does nothing. So what do I have to do to fix this problem?

Running iOS 8, not jail broken.

Derek. Not a lot of people realize that an iPhone is a computer and should be treated as such. Just like your computer you shut it down or at least restart it on a regular basis. People don't do this with iPhones, because well, it's a phone and they may 'miss a call' or it's just habit for most. It causes a lot of memory leaks especially if developers aren't skilled enough to know how to test within their apps for memory leaks. In other words, a soft restart (turning it off in the normal manner by holding the sleep button and sliding to power off and then turning it back on) will 99% of the time autonomously repair itself and reset the memory. The 1% chance it does not you can do a hard restart (holding the sleep and home button simultaneously for 4-5 sec) will fix your issue.


What backups are on my mac? According to System Information, I have about 57 GB of "Backups". What exactly is meant by "backups"? I'm guessing iPad and iPhone backups count, but that only accounts for ~25 GB.

Where is the rest?

These files are stored in /.MobileBackups/ and /.DocumentRevisions-V100/.

I am very surprised that your backup is so large - my Backups are only 300MB!

According to the Time Machine preference pane, TM will "keep local snapshots as space permits". Do you have a lot of spare disk space?

Since these folders are owned by root, to check the size of these folders you'll need to use sudo, or log in as root user. E.g. the command line commands:

sudo du -hs .DocumentRevisions-V100/
sudo du -hs .MobileBackups/


After login mac is stuck on progress bar I have 15 inc Mac book pro with Mavericks installed. I can successfully on the Mac but I cannot login to my account. Upon press enter I get progress bar and after that I get grey screen then nothing happened.

I tried all those online solution i.e press cmd + s and follow:

/sbin/fsck -fy /
/sbin/mount -uw /
mkdir /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions
cd /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions
mv /System/Library/Extensions/ATI* .
mv /System/Library/Extensions/AMD* .
touch /System/Library/Extensions
exit

But I have no luck resolving this issue (this is the second mac that happened). I can sure see both Hard drive (HDD) and see all the context in by using cd, ls etc.. commands in this mode.

I have also try changing the HDD that contain new OS (EL Capitan) but its the same old issue (also tried cmd+alt+p+r too). When I press Alt on startup I can see the HDD, so I guess the laptop can read HDD but cannot access it?

One things I have also noticed is that I cannot start anything and what I mean by this is if I press cmd + R to access disk utility I persist same issue, if I try installing new OS via USB i  persist same issue. AND sometime when I login and keep the laptop for few long then my screen turns blue which forces me to restart my computer and follow the same procedure.

It will be nice if someone can help, can access var/log via cmd + S, if anyone requires specific log let me know.

If you're able to boot to the installation drive (external USB, DVD, etc.) but not able to boot from an internal drive, that indicates a hardware problem, likely with the drive or the cable attached to it.

An easy test is to attach your internal hard drive externally with something like this. If it boots fine externally, you can be fairly certain that there's an issue with the cable (or, less likely, the Logic Board).

If you still have trouble when it's connected externally, then you should first try reinstalling the OS while it's connected externally (as you might still have some software corruption). If it persists after that point, you likely have a bad hard drive.


How to reset the $PATH in terminal OS X El Capitan? tried previous posts but did not work I accidentally messed up my $PATH. I Tried to follow the instructions from the previous similar questions but I keep having the same problem
When I type:
echo$ PATH,
I get the following response:
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin . Do you know how i can reset the PATH?  The operating system is OS X El Capitan. Thank you so much

First, run PATH=/bin:/usr/bin in Terminal.

Then open ~/.bash_profile (in terminal, nano/vim/favorite editor ~/.bash_profile) or open Finder, then press Shift+Command+G and paste it in. Then you can comment out the path line. There is no need to delete .bash_profile in its entirety, and it isn't recommended.


Is Adobe Lightroom v6.0 (standalone and NOT cloud) serial# stored in a file on my Mac? Which file on MAC OS is the Adobe lightroom v6.0 serial# is stored? I've looked at /Library/Application Support/Adobe PCD/ - the cache files, but that only has the trial license and NOT my license key.

You can try using Migration Assistant to migrate your Home folder, Applications & Settings from your old Mac to the new one. This often transfers app licenses & settings successfully between computers.


iMessages -> Screen Sharing - is there some trick to actually making this work? Every once in a while I'm chatting with a friend via iMessages on OSX, we're both on the same OSX version & all, and I decide to go "hey, let's share screens". I've tried this on and off with multiple computers and friends, but I can never get it to work.

What am I missing? Do we have to be on the same network or something?

I had to fight with this recently to screen share with my mother so hopefully I can shed some light on some issues you may be having.

Per Apples support page on Screen Sharing:

  You can share screens using AIM, Jabber, Google Talk, and Bonjour. You can’t share screens using iMessage or Yahoo!.

That being said, you'll want to go to the preferences pane of iMessages and make sure you have an account added and enabled that supports one of those protocols. In my case, I added my Google Talk account. The other person will ALSO need to have one of these accounts enabled and signed in. I would presume on the same service also.

Back on the main iMessage window, you'll want to make sure you're signed into that account by looking at the bottom left hand corner of the window and making sure you're online.

Once that's done, you'll want to switch to the user you would like to screen share with and click on the details link in the top right. Then select the icon with the two overlapped screens, like below, and select the appropriate option.

The person on the receiving end of your screen share request should be able to accept it and that's that.

I do remember there being some weirdness around some security issues with Google Talk so you may have to do some research about that if it doesn't work, but that's the general procedure I had to follow for it to work.


How can I retrieve the complete "Documents and Data" from iCloud to my Mac? Is there a way to get to complete "Document and Data" to the Mac?

P.S.: All datas where uploaded via my ipad, most of it is in IBooks, a lot of Pdfs and ebooks (not from the store). The thing is
1) My ~/Library/Mobile Documents is nearly empty
2) My Ibook-app on the Mac is completely empty.

The folder's already on your Mac. Your data is accessible in ~/Library/Mobile Documents.


Way to send Computer audio wirelessly (wifi or bluetooth) to iOS device to be heard on its speakers? Inspired by this question over on Ask Ubuntu:

  A method to send Ubuntu's (16.04) audio over WiFi to iOS (10.2) device?

Is there a way to stream audio from another computer (whether it's Linux, Mac, or Windows) to an iOS device (iPhone, iPad, etc.) such that the audio can play over the iOS device?

I know there are solutions for Android or such, but was curious if there's a solution or method to do this with iOS devices.

You can buy a bluetooth to audio jack adapter:

https://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Bluetooth-Stereo-Adapter-Transmitter/dp/B00RHKYX7W

This way you should be able to use it as an amplifier using Garage Band amp on your iPhone.

It should work just like so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkL0bIx-ESk


How do I use a glob with parentheses in Zsh? This:
cp ./hb_(lys|gln|thr|glu|ace|nhe)*_aacH*.ptraj ./

Works just as intended when executed in the terminal. However, putting the same line in an executable script does not work as I receive a
syntax error near unexpected token `('\

I tried escaping \, does not solve the problem. For bash there seems to be some thing you need to do with extglobthough I can't find any similar suggestions for zsh.
Any help appreciated.

This has nothing to do with shell options. Rather, it depends on what shebang you have in your executable file.
When you run a script as an executable (instead of source-ing it or running it as a function), it runs in a separate sub-shell and not in your top-level shell. A sub-shell inherits its parent's environment (that is, exported parameters), but not any shell options. Instead, the shebang dictates which shell it runs in and with which options.
If the shebang is #!/bin/zsh, it will start a Zsh sub-shell with default options, then read commands from /etc/zshenv and $ZDOTDIR/.zshenv, and then from your script.
Likewise, if the shebang is #!/bin/bash, your script will actually run in Bash, and not in Zsh.
Finally, if the shebang is #!/bin/sh, it depends on your OS. On macOS, there is a symlink /private/var/select/sh that points to the shell executable to use when the shebang is #!/bin/sh. (Type man 1 sh for more info.) By default, that shell is Bash, and not Zsh, even if you have changed your login shell to Zsh. The only way to change it is to change that symlink.
But even if you make /private/var/select/sh point to the Zsh executable, if you run your script with a #!/bin/sh shebang, Zsh will not run in "native mode". Instead, it will run in sh emulation mode, which toggles a number of options that are significantly different from the Zsh defaults.
Parentheses are basic glob syntax in Zsh. However, they are not in Bash. So, my guess is, your script is actually running in Bash, because of the shebang.

So, anyway, long story short: Save yourself the trouble and don't run your script as an executable. Rather, what is usually the most convenient in Zsh, is to add your script's parent dir to your $fpath and then autoload your script as a function.