El Capitan causing built-in trackpad and keyboard to freeze intermittently I have a MacBook Pro 15" Early 2008, 2x 2GB RAM. Since upgrading to El Capitan including update 10.11.1 the built-in keyboard and multitouch trackpad freeze intermittently for about 4 seconds randomly at least once every 60 seconds. Booting from an external drive with Yosemite or Mountain Lion doesn't exhibit this issue so the hardware is fine. Using a bluetooth Magic Trackpad in El Capitan also works fine. I've reset PRAM and SMC. If I don't type or touch the built-in trackpad, interacting using only the Magic Trackpad then there are no stalls and no Console error messages but when using the built-ins at random intervals at least once every 60 seconds the keyboard pauses and loses all keystrokes entered during the interval, and the pointer freezes then eventually snaps to a new location. So, the system is unusable with El Capitan.

Have reinstalled El Capitan 10.11.1 twice after reformatting the internal HD. Disk Utility reports no problems with the drive.

No third party software, hardware or kernel extensions are installed,
either at the system or user level - LaunchAgents & LaunchDaemons are
empty.

The only Login Item is iTunesHelper (unchecked). This appears to be the default.

It's a pure, plain and simple default Apple install onto the
reformatted OEM internal HD.

Interestingly this issue even occurs when booting the 10.11 Recovery
environment, and during the El Capitan installer.

Running in normal user mode with the Console open displays the following messages every time a freeze occurs, which you can deduce is filling up this log:

11/1/15 7:57:04.000 PM kernel[0]: AppleUSBMultitouchDriver::_deviceGetReport - DeviceRequest returned error 0xe00002cd (interface 0, reportID 0x0)
11/1/15 7:57:04.000 PM kernel[0]: AppleUSBMultitouchDriver::handleSuspend - SuspendPort returned error 0xe00002e2.
11/1/15 7:57:06.000 PM kernel[0]: AppleUSBMultitouchDriver::handleReport - not in path binary mode, received 0x44 data packet of length 54
11/1/15 7:57:20.000 PM kernel[0]: USBF:    7969.165    IOUSBHIDDriver(AppleUSBMultitouchDriverNoShim)::RearmInterruptRead  returning error 0xe00002d8 (device is not ready), not issuing any reads to device

Any suggestions on what else to try or investigate to debug this? It's as if the Apple native IOUSBHID or multitouch driver shipping with El Capitan is incompatible with this (aka my) older MBP. If it didn't still work fine when booting with the earlier OS versions I'd think it was faulty hardware.

2 GB of Ram is not enough. make it at least 4GB or even better 8GB, easy to do and cheap. It should be the exact specs. Look at OWC or Crucial website.


How to fully 'uninstall' an app on OS X So, I've been a Mac user for about seven or so months now. And one thing I've been wondering is how to fully remove an application..
I know a lot of times applications leave extra junk on your computer; and, deleting the app from the applications directory doesn't fully remove it. I'm just wondering how I can 'search for and destroy' the files the apps leave behind.

If the app is a driver or some kind of system hack, then you better read it's documentation or contact it's tech support team to find out how to uninstall it.

For most apps, simply quit the app and drag it to the trash.

Most mac apps won't create much extra "junk". It will leave a few configuration files/etc around, but they're usually really small and you want them to be there, incase you ever decide to install the app again.

If you really want to get rid of it all:

Open Finder, and bring up the Go menu. Hold down the Option key to make the Library menu item visible, and click on it.

Type the name of the app into the top right search box (eg: "TextMate"), and when it suggests "Filename contains: textmate" in the menu, click on that. By default, it will search "This Mac", click on "Library" to only search the folder you were in before doing the search.

Make sure everything you see is actually related to the app, and move it to the trash. When a file is selected, the "Path Bar" at the bottom of the window will tell you where the file is, which can help figure out what app it belongs to.

Be careful, modifying anything in a Library folder can screw up your system. Don't do it at all unless you have a backup to restore to incase something goes wrong. It's usually pretty safe though, most files in the Library folder in your user's home folder will be re-created as necessary, if something important has been deleted.

You might also want to search your entire system instead of just ~/Library, but if the app installs anything elsewhere in the system then that's a pretty good sign that you should be checking the documentation for the correct uninstall procedure and/or contacting their tech support, to make sure it is actually safe to delete those files without screwing up your system.

If you are the type of person who regularly installs random apps from the internet and then deletes most of them... then you should either test these apps in a virtual machine or at least using the "Guest" account feature (where pretty much everything is deleted as soon as you log out).


Problems in using make - usb.h not found I am trying to use make to build a binary from a source code for a program I need.

Link to source: https://github.com/pali/0xFFFF

It requires usb.h, which seems to be part of usblib-compat. I installed the latter by brew install usblib-compat. But still usb.h can't be seen, although I know where it is (under /usr/local/Cellar/usblib-compat/version/include).

I read a lot over the Internet and tried to set many environment variables, but no success. Any idea?

UPDATE

After many trials, I have progressed somehow. Namely, the file config.mk is clearly read during the make'ing process, although I have to admit that it is not clear to me how this is done; anyway, I noticed two lines commented:

CPPFLAGS += -I/usr/local/include
LDFLAGS += -L/usr/local/lib -Wl,-R/usr/local/lib

I uncommented them and now something happens: the usb.h is found. I think the first of these variable definitions tells the compiler where to look tor header files, and the second tells the linker where to look for libraries - but again it is not completely clear to me.

In any case, I have still problems. Namely, the make'ing process outputs two warnings and an error, and then stops:

usb-device.c:90:57: warning: unused parameter 'udev' [-Wunused-parameter]
static void usb_reattach_kernel_driver(usb_dev_handle * udev, int interface) {
                                                        ^
usb-device.c:90:67: warning: unused parameter 'interface' [-Wunused-parameter]
static void usb_reattach_kernel_driver(usb_dev_handle * udev, int interface) {

usb-device.c:324:13: error: use of undeclared identifier 'RTLD_DEFAULT' if ( dlsym(RTLD_DEFAULT, "libusb_init") )

Seems this program is difficult to port from Linux to Mac, although I think it should be portable. If anyone has any idea about what to do (apart from running a Linux distribution...), it would be much appreciated.

You haven't told which program you want to compile, so it is impossible to give specific advice.

The general advice is to look at the program's README's, documentation and/or Makefile for ways to specify the include path.

For example you might edit the Makefile directly to identify where the include path is specified. In many projects the program is compiled by gcc/llvm and the include paths are specified using "-I" arguments to the compiler.

You could find that spot in the Makefile and add:

  -I/usr/local/Cellar/usblib-compat/version/include


iOS Supervised Mode vs Privacy I am wondering how enabling supervised mode on an iOS device affects the user's privacy, especially with respect gaining access to data on the device without the user's consent.

As I understand, supervised mode provides a feature called 'activation bypass', which allows one to reset the device without the user's password. Does it also make it possible to unlock the device or gain access to some data without the user's password, as opposed to an unsupervised device? In other words, does supervised mode compromise the security of the device or the user's privacy in any way?

Simply being supervised grants the following:

Remote wipe, which won't provide access to your information, only resetting the device.
Activation Lock bypass, allowing a reset device to be used again by the administrator.
Managed Lost Mode, providing the device's location (but you'll know about this through a large modal message).

Supervision also allows the administrator to install a number of features on the device, including a web proxy, allowing internet traffic to be monitored. To tell if these features have been installed, go to Settings → General → Profiles & Device Management → profile name.


Don't want my hard drive to die again! A couple of months ago, my Mac Book Pro wouldn't start up - it would make it halfway through and then power down. I took it to the repair store, and they said the hard drive was broken, and they needed to replace it. (Interestingly, they were able to transfer everything in my Applications/ folder to the new hard drive, and that was actually 85% of my content.)

Now, my computer is having problems booting again. Sometimes it takes a long time, sometimes it doesn't finish booting at all. I was able to boot it into safe mode, and it seems to be working alright right now. What steps should I take now to deal with this problem and not make it any worse?

Turns out, the bracket cable is broken. Nothing is wrong with the hard drive.


VirtualBox Share Guest Internet With Host Recently I've encountered issue with My MBP Mid 2009 Wifi Card,so I bought USB adapter but the problem is that it is not compatible with OSX only So I somehow managed it to Connect my guest Virtual Box Windows 7 to Internet but I don't know how to share it with host, I've tried by Host-Only adapter but not sure how to share internet using that and I've tried some online articles but none of them shows how to setup Host OSX.

Currently I'm on OSX 10.11.6 Host and Windows 7 Guest.

Screenshots of my Host Only network Setup.

In order to get this working, you'll need to setup "Internet Connection Sharing" in the Windows 7 guest. You do it like this:

Open Control Panel => Network and Internet => Network and Sharing Center
Click Manage Wireless Networks in the left sidebar
Click on your USB WiFi connection, and then Adapter properties at the top
Select the Sharing tab and check "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection"

Now your Mac host should be able to use your virtual connection to the guest to access the internet. If you want, you can set the host to use DHCP on that connection to get IP address, gateway and DNS information automatically.


The application "Google Chrome" is not open anymore I can not open external hyper link using Chrome as my default browser.

Example: if I click a link from Mac Mail nothing happens. If I click a link from tweetdeck I get this error: The application "Google Chrome" is not open anymore.

When i switch my default browser to Firefox then web pages are opened as expected in ff.

OSX V. 10.11.6

Chrome V.  54.0.2840.98 (64-bit)

Sometimes uninstalling and reinstalling applications helps to solve problem.  Try that and see if it works.


Open application in specific space through AppleScript I have a script that I run when I get to work to open all of the applications that I work with. But when I run it they all open in one space. I'm running OSX Yosemite 10.10.3.

So I need an AppleScript that will make new spaces if needed and then open the applications in specified spaces.

If you lock an app to a space it will always open in that space, no script required. the limitation is that all windows of each app will be in the same space; no way round that except manually, afaik.

First open the app in the required Space, then right click the Dock icon & select 'This Desktop'
After that, if you check from any other Space you will see the Space number listed.

[& I do wish they'd stop calling them Desktops]

If you really need it to be scripted, then this MacScripter page has all the calls - http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=23453


iMac very slow wifi while macbook is fine I currently have a MacBook Pro (Lion) and my iMac (Leopard) sitting side by side. The MacBook  Pro connects to a wifi network and speeds are as they should be. The iMac has serious problems: it doesn't find the same networks, it gets connection timeouts when trying to connect to the wifi network, when it finally connects the speed is so slow that it's unusable. When I ping yahoo.com I get results of between 100 - 1500ms and sites take minutes to load.

How can I start debugging this problem?

Here is a general plan to start debugging this problem.  Post your results and we'll help you figure this out.  I'm running an iMac with Snow Leopard and these steps have helped me.

Write down key data for each machine for each wifi connection.  I've included my data below.

Go to the iMac and hold down the option key while clicking the Airport icon in the menu bar.  Write down the PHY, BSSID, Channel, RSSI and Transmit Rate.

Move over to the MBP and gather the same information.

Phy Mode this tells you if you joined the network as a B, G or N connection.  I'm on an Airport Extreme N network using the 2.4 Ghz frequency.

BSSID - This is the access point you are logged into.  They are likely the same on each machine.  If they are different, your machines are logged into different access points.

Channel - This is the channel each machine is using.  In my case, my neighbor and I were both on channel 1.  I changed over to 11 and my speed improved since I was no longer fighting his interference.

RSSI - Received signal strength.  Mine is -43 while my neighbor's is -88.

Transmit Rate - The higher the better.  Mine is 130.  I can't view the neighbor's rate but it's like less due to his lower RSSI.

If you see other nearby networks, you can view some information about their signal by moving your cursor over the other network and a small dialog box will pop up with their PHY, BSSID, Channel, and RSSI.  This is how I found my neighbor was using the same channel as me.

You can also view this data in System Profiler under Network>Airport.


How can I successfully export video from iMovie to a video hosting service? I've tried several times to export an iMovie project to Vimeo using iMovie '11 v9.0.9 updated May 2013. The video takes several hours to render, but fails at the end when it would follow that the video is to start uploading.

This is the error message that shows when it fails:

Unable to prepare project for publishing. The project could not be prepared for publishing because an error occurred. (OpWrErr: file already open with write permission)

What can I do to make thus work successfully?

This is error -49, OpWrErr: file already open with write permission.

Turns out, this is related to Time Machine running at some point while the video is rendering.

It's possible to address this in one of two ways:

Disable MobileBackups.
Disable Time Machine entirely.

I chose the latter of the two and the export succeeded fully.


Is there a way to auto-resize programs like in Windows 7 and up? One of my favorite Windows features is the ability to slam a program into the side of the screen to auto-resize it to fill that half of the screen.

Is there any program I can download for Mac that makes this feature available on macOS?

Have a look at BetterSnapTool on the App Store:

BetterSnapTool allows you to easily manage your window positions and
sizes by either dragging them to one of the screen's corners or to the
top, left or right side of the screen. This enables you to easily
maximize your windows, position them side by side or even resize them
to quarters of the screen.

I had a client show this to me and they seemed pretty pleased with it.  It also has a rating of 5 stars with 3500+ reviews.  I personally don't use it (no need) but from the looks of it, it appears to be a good solution.


MacBook Pro goes into hibernation immediately after login, how do I fix this? My Mid 2012 MacBook Pro, goes into hibernation immediately after logging in. Battery indicator still shows around 95% charges when it does that. When I plug in and reboot, battery shows 0%.

This does not happen if I just let it stay in the login screen for, say 2 to 3 hours. The battery can stay for about that long which is I can say is the normal for it. At least before this issue arises.

Might this be just calibration issue? Is it fixable without having to be brought to service center?

If you've reset the SMC and it's still showing the problem, then you will need to take it in to an Apple Service Centre. The 13-inch 2012 MBP is still supported, as it was sold up to October 2016.

The 15-inch model is considered "Vintage" and Apple no longer provides hardware support. (Though it might be worthwhile taking it in anyway and smiling sweetly: my local Apple Store says they will continue to fix vintage hardware if they still have the parts.)

Batteries are the one part of a laptop that you can expect to fail over time and need replacing. If you can get it replaced, then that's a small price to 'refresh' your laptop and extend its useful life.


Is there any equivalent command for usermod? In Linux, if I want to change a user's home directory, I can use the usermod command:

http://linux.about.com/od/commands/l/blcmdl8_usermod.htm

usermod [-c comment] [-d home_dir [-m]]

[-e expire_date] [-f inactive_time]
[-g initial_group] [-G group [,...]]
[-l login_name] [-p passwd]
[-s shell] [-u uid [-o]] [-L|-U] login

Is there any equivalent command in OS X?

Since my original answer got transformed in a comment due to it's brevity, here is another go.

The command that you are looking for is dscl on OSX (which works both in OS 10.6 and 10.7 in my experience).  As I mentioned this question has been asked before, and you can find the original answer (plus usage examples) on stackExcjange superUser forum at:

https://superuser.com/questions/60150/is-there-a-usermod-equivalent-in-terminal-for-os-x-10-6-1

which provides a number of examples for its use. For instance, adding a user to a group would work as:

dscl . append /Groups/the_group_you_want GroupMembership the_user

In addition, someone did provide a bash script that does what usermod does on linux, and you can find it here:

http://www.splode.com/~friedman/software/scripts/src/arch/noarch-apple-darwin/osx-usermod

(I haven't tested it, so it comes with no guarantees).

HTH


Show table of contents when opening PDF in Preview Is there any way I can force Preview to always show the table of contents when opening a PDF? Most of the PDFs I use have a ToC, so this would save me the extra step from having to enable the ToC after opening the PDF.

This is currently not possible to be set as default in Preview. The closest you can get to this is Preferences → Opening for the first time: Always show sidebar. However, the sidebar that opens is the default thumbnail view, not the TOC.

You can provide feedback to Apple regarding this at the following page:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html


Weird User in my login screen "puppet" I just restarted my mac "OSX El Capitan v10.11.1" and I'm seeing a weird User in my login screen called "puppet":

I have not created this User and I don't know how to log on it.

The most concerning part is that I'm not able to delete it because I can't find it in the System Preferences > Users & Groups:

Neither in the /Users folder:

$ ls -l /Users/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x+ 11 Guest     _guest   374 Nov 23  2013 Guest
drwxrwxrwt   6 root      wheel    204 Oct 20 12:00 Shared
drwxr-xr-x+ 80 myuser    staff   2720 Dec  7 09:40 myuser

One explanation I can imagine is that the automatization systems management tool I'm using (puppet) has created this weird User.. but the other explanation I can imagine concerns me more: I've been hacked :/

Nothing in /etc/passwd:

$ cat /etc/passwd | grep puppet # -> nothing

This file has been just created, looks like with my last restart:

$ sudo ls -l /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/puppet.plist
-rw-------  1 root  wheel  2775 Dec  7 09:38 /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/puppet.plist

Have someone an explanation for this? How can I delete that User?

As per puppet doc for mac installation:

  The puppet master service needs a puppet user and group.

So you can be sure now that you haven't been hacked :)


How do I create a link on the iPad home screen to a specific pdf? I would like to be able to create a link on my iPad's home screen that will open up a specific PDF either in iBooks or some other app.  I need to be able to access the PDF even when Internet access in not available.

My iPad is used by my 3-year-old son. I want to make it just as easy for him to open up the (non-DRM) PDF picture books we have as it is to open up a random app such as Elmo ABCs.  Right now, in order to open his picture books, he has to go to iBooks and then open up the picture books.  It sounds like a small step but it isn't for him.

I've tried accessing the PDF from Safari and then choosing the "Add to Home Screen" option.  It does put an icon on the home screen but when clicked, it tries to open up the original site the PDF came from.  As a result, this isn't a good solution unless there is a way to cache the PDF locally.

I've looked in iBooks for some way to do this but nothing obvious is jumping out at me.

First simple way, it requires Google Drive, however.

Open the iOS Google Drive app, upload your desired PDF and get the link of said PDF.
Open iOS Safari and open the link in the browser; you should now see the PDF in Safari.
Click "Share" and then "Add to Home Screen".

Second complicated way, but goes to iBook; you will need Workflow the app.

Get Workflow the app; open it, create a new workflow (click plus sign)
Find the "action" Get File and drag it to the right "building area".
In the Get File action, uncheck "Show Document Picker"; you will see two new formlists pop up.
In the "iCloud File" form, type in any name, for now lets go with name.pdf; it should now look like:

  iCloud File  /Workflow/name.pdf

Search the actions again for the action "Open in iBooks" and drag it over as well.
Swith to laptop (easier) and you must get the desired PDF, rename it to name.pdf, copy/move it to your iCloud Drive and into the Workflow folder.
(if it doesn't exist, make a Workflow iCloud Account via the app)
Go back to the app, test the workflow we built by pressing the play button and it should open the PDF in iBook!
Lastly, press the gear and then press "Add to Homescreen", and ta-da! You now created a button on your homescreen to open your pdf in iBook!


What are the files in the /Library/Image Capture/TWAIN Data Sources/ and can they be removed? In preparation for macOS 10.15, I'm reviewing my list of installed applications and removing those that are 32-bit. On the list of apps identified by System Report, I see two things that are 32-bit:

Canon MP530.ds
Canon MP600.ds

Both of them reside in /Library/Image Capture/TWAIN Data Sources/, and they are the only contents of the folder.

These look like printers, but I have no idea if I ever installed those models. The "Last Modified" dates are nearly a decade ago. What are these files for, and is it safe to remove them?

The MP500 and MP600 are Canon all-in-one printer/scanners.

TWAIN is a driver protocol for exchanging information with scanners.

MPXXX.ds files are Canon drivers for the scanner component of these AIO printers.  Canon documentation indicates they can be removed by opening "Library, Image Capture, and TWAIN Data Sources, and move Canon MPXXX.ds to the trash", "if the MP Navigator or the MP drivers are no longer required."

Given the age of the MP600, unless you're still actively using one of these printers, the drivers should be safe to remove.


Apple ID working for iPhone but not for iPad I have an Apple ID and password that has been working fine with my iPhone. I have been able to buy music and download apps with no problems. I bought an iPad and configured it with the same email. I have tried to buy music and download apps using the iPad with the same Apple ID and password but have been unable to connect with the server.

Do I need a special configuration for the Apple ID in order to be able to use it from different devices?

One Apple ID can be used with multiple devices and if you are hitting a limit that too many devices are using it for a specific use (say playing purchased music on too many devices - no slots are left to authorize), you should get an error message.

The likely culprit is a network or other device specific error, but you may have to troubleshoot this:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4895

Most of the authorization issues can be solved starting with the above guide and general troubleshooting might be to check that you can browse the iTunes store and ask the networking staff to make sure things aren't being blocked or take the device to another public internet to be sure it's not a problem with the network and not the device.


iPad as a wireless webcam Can I use my iPad as a wireless webcam for my PC? I think the solution would be an app streaming the video captured by the iPad's camera from the iPad to the PC where another app would decode it, emulating a local webcam like ManyCam does (ManyCam could very well be part of the solution to this problem). Kinda like Air Video but reversed. I haven't been able to figure out how to do it; has anyone else figured it out?

Thanks!

How about PocketCam?  It's only 5 dollars, and it does the job-even optimized for iPad.  Never used it before, but it sounds useful.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocketcam/id316512204?mt=8


Why are some apps greyed out when Command+Tab'ing through programs? Sometimes when I switch through programs using the Command+Tab shortcut certain programs appear to be greyed out. I can switch to the program in question with no problems nor is there anything happening with the program to indicate why it would be greyed out.

I'm just curious as to what it means...

(its a little heard to tell due to me having to screen capture with my phone :p but the quicktime icon is greyed out)

I'm running Snow Leopard 10.6.8

I recently read that the command+tab switcher no longer strictly shows a list of running apps, but is instead the combined set of running apps AND recent apps. The Mac OS now (much like iOS) kills off apps that have no open documents or otherwise don't need to be running (in its infinite wisdom). My GUESS is that the greyed out apps in the switcher are recent-but-not-running apps.

Annnd ... I just read that you're running 10.6.8. So, yeah, never mind that answer.


TextEdit - quickly switch between colors I am using TextEdit, and I am frequently switching between red, blue and black for the text colour. Right now I have to move my mouse to the colour picker in the toolbar and select the desired colour.

Is there a way for me to press a key combination to switch between them instead?

There are two ways that I can think of:

One involves running an apple script and mapping keys, which is difficult depending on your skill level, it is described in this post:

http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=19711

The script requires that you have support for assistive services enabled, which I had to do.  This can be found at: /Applications/System Preferences/Accessibility/

I've extracted the script here.

All you need to do is save the three files changing one line:
activate application "TextEdit"
tell application "System Events" to tell text area 1 of scroll area 1 of window 1 of process "TextEdit" to if exists then
    set {x, y} to value of attribute "AXSelectedTextRange"
    if x ≤ y then tell application "TextEdit" to set color of document 1's characters x thru y to {0, 0, 0}
end if

All you need to do is copy the above text and then save it as a file called "black (or whatever you want).scpt"
For changes to Blue you need to change the second to last line to:

{0, 0, 65535}

For Red; and

{65535, 0, 0}

For Black just use the one I posted above.

Then you will need to assign the AppleScript files to a keyboard shortcut via Automator, although there are third party tools that make this easy.

The other uses the shortcut: Command + shift + T and having the three colours already defined in the boxes below. I assume you are already doing this? And it does not really qualify as keyboard shortcuts.


No audio when playing mp4 video from MacBook Pro to Apple TV When viewing some files with quicktime on my retina MacBook Pro (Sierra 10.12.6), I can view it on Apple TV and the sound works fine.

However some files produce the following behaviour:

Select Apple TV / Airplay in Quicktime. Video appears on TV, but no
sound (on TV or laptop).
I click on the Sound Pref Pane and select
Apple TV as the output. There is a slight pause, then the video switches back
to the laptop, and the sound now comes out of the Apple TV

This is a similar problem to those reported here and here, but it's not exactly the same because the solutions suggested don't work for me, and this is consistently happening but only for a subset of my video files.

NB this exact same behaviour also happens when watching youtube videos in Safari.

Have you tried adjusting the “Audio Mode" and the “Surround Sound" settings in Settings ➔ Audio and Video? It may be worth trying several combinations of these settings, although typically it is the “Surround Sound" setting that causes most problems for users.

Your TV may not support pass through or you may need to map the audio to the optical output.

If it still doesn't work you might try one of these.

HDMI to HDMI + Audio (Example Only - Not a recommendation or suggestion that this is suitable in your circumstances)


What is "memory swapping" in Fusion? In VMware's RAM setting, if allocated memory goes higher than the recommended maximum, it warns "if higher, memory swapping may occur".

What is "memory swapping" in this context? And what will I see?

It means the virtual memory for the virtual machine may be swapped to disk, massively slowing down both the guest and the host computers.

If you need to know about "swapping" in general, well, I was going to point you to the Wikipedia page on it, but that redirects to a page on "paging" which is caught up in some geek war about the difference between swapping, paging, segments, and even overlays, so it may be more work than it is worth to understand it from there.  The article on Virtual Memory is easier to read, but in a different kind of Wiki-unhappiness.

The short story is that if you only have 4GB of memory but want to run 4 programs, each of which wants to use 2GB of memory, the OS can let you do that by suspending the programs you are not using and saving the state of their memory to disk in a section of the disk called the "swap space".  When computers such as laptops do that with the whole OS, we now call it "hibernating".  When it was first done to entire individual applications while the system is running, lots of people called it "swapping" because you were swapping one active process for another. Now it's done differently, with small blocks of memory called "pages" rather than whole applications, and lots of other optimizations (and consequent complications), but it's the same general idea.

If anyone has better reference material to point to, please add them to this answer, but please read them first and make sure they are appropriate for those not-so-few ordinary Mac users who do not much care about the details of how computers work.


Change main desktop to external screen after sleep mode I have connected an external screen to my MBP. If I close the MBP the main desktop is switched to the external screen like I want. If the notebook goes in sleep mode and I wake it up with my wireless Apple keyboard than I cannot see a window. The problem is that the login screen after the wake up is on the MBP and not on the external screen. Launching mission control or similar doesn't work when you are logged of. What can I do that my main desktop stays on the external screen?

The only "solution" I came up with is that I open the MBP and close it again. Than I have the login screen on my external monitor. But that is not an ideal solution ... I'm using Lion (10.9.1).

You can change your default display to the external monitor by setting a boot argument. Note that this will disable the internal display of your machine. It is described as the opposite of clamshell mode, but this isn't quite accurate, since this works when the clam is closed as well:

  sudo nvram boot-args="iog=0x0"

To clear the boot argument, either reset the NVRAM or execute the following. The former will clear all NVRAM contents, the latter will only clear the boot arguments variable:

  sudo nvram -d boot-args


What is the purpose of speculative memory? Recently, I've found out that Darwin has speculative memory metric. But, I don't know what the purpose of speculative memory. The memory metric can be checked using vm_stat command on terminal.

Mach Virtual Memory Statistics: (page size of 4096 bytes)
Pages free:                              334212.
Pages active:                           1450252.
Pages inactive:                         1367584.
Pages speculative:                        81968.
Pages throttled:                              0.
Pages wired down:                        794478.
Pages purgeable:                         377078.
"Translation faults":                1584392481.
Pages copy-on-write:                  316685071.
Pages zero filled:                    358257445.
Pages reactivated:                      9976919.
Pages purged:                           2557552.
File-backed pages:                       597869.
Anonymous pages:                        2301935.
Pages stored in compressor:             1170377.
Pages occupied by compressor:            165553.
Decompressions:                         7496783.
Compressions:                          14958548.
Pageins:                               29715699.
Pageouts:                               1058099.
Swapins:                                6422438.
Swapouts:                               7169648.

Refer to Darwin source, speculative is that used to hold pages that have been read from disk speculatively and the memory metric is the number of free pages and havent' actaually been used.

I can't find any information about speculative memory on the Internet. It's very strange that the memory is an official darwin memory metric, but no one says for it.

What's the purpose of this mertric unless used for any purpose?

Speculative memory (introduced with OS X 10.5) means that the kernel has marked a specific page of memory as being "speculative" - meaning that it is stored by the kernel because it predicts that it probably will be used for something later, but it hasn't happened yet. I.e. the kernel is speculating that reading something now will benefit it later.

In practice this occurs when the macOS kernel detects that it (because of application requests) are reading in a sequential manner from a disk drive. For example if an application reads block number 1, 2 and 3 - it is fair to assume that there's a high probability that the next block to be read is nummer 4. It might not be, but it is likely to happen.

The reason the kernel tries to detect this is that in many cases it is "cheaper" (in terms of performance) to read in larger blocks from the disk, and/or issue multiple requests to the drive for many blocks at the same time - rather than issuing them one at a time. Also it is possible for the kernel to request blocks from disk while the application itself is actually busy doing something else and hasn't asked for the block yet.

The idea behind speculative pages is thus to "prefetch" or "read ahead" on the disk and store these in memory, so that when the application later asks for the data, it can be provided very quickly. The current macOS kernel has different optimizations for ordinary hard disk drives and SSD drives in terms of when a prefetch is triggered, and how much is actually prefetched at a time.

The kernel marks these pages as "speculative", which is different from regular disk caching, because it knows that this is just a performance optimization on data that hasn't really been requested yet. So if the computer is lacking memory for other purposes, the speculative pages can be thrown out with little or no performance penalty at all.

In practice the kernel reads in the data into speculative pages and marks it as "protected" meaning that it won't be that easily thrown out under memory pressure. As the speculative pages age (i.e. time passes) they are moved from "bin to bin" so that older pages are stored together. When they reach a certain age, they are no longer protected - and can be readily discard if memory is needed for other purposes.

However, if an application actually uses the data that has been put in the speculative pages, they're immediately remarked as no longer speculative, and put in one of the other categories as relevant.

If you want you can completely disable speculative pages by setting speculative_reads_disabled to 1 with sysctl.

The reason statistics are made seperately for speculative pages so that it is not lumped together with free pages or the ordinary disk cache is that you can use it to measure if speculation is really being used on your machine, and how much, and you have a better idea on how much memory is actually being used by the applications - and not just by the kernel trying to optimize for performance.


How do I update macOS App Store apps to the latest compatible version? I have rather belatedly (March 2021) updated my macBook to Mojave.  Because I depend on Aperture and other 32-bit apps I can't update to Catalina.
brew doctor tells me:
Warning: Your Xcode (10.1) is too outdated.
Please update to Xcode 11.3.1 (or delete it).
Xcode can be updated from the App Store.

But unfortunately trying to update Xcode or other out-of-date apps, including iMovie, using the App store:

The Updates tab (⌘7) says "No Updates.  All your apps are up to date".
When I go to page for Xcode and click "update", it tells me "We could not complete your update.  Xcode can’t be installed on “Macintosh HD” because macOS version 10.15.4 or later is required."  I get similar messages for iMovie.
The profile tab (⌘0) shows both Xcode and iMovie in the list of purchases, but the buttons next to each just say "Open".

Sometimes, if I wait a while, the button next to Xcode (but not iMovie) will change to say "update", and when I click on it I get a dialog that says "Download an older version of Xcode?  The current version requires OS X 10.15.4 or later, but you can download the last compatible version"—but when I click "Download" the same dialog reappears again immediately.

How can I install the latest compatible version of apps originally installed through the App Store on older versions of macOS?

Xcode can be updated by downloading the appropriate release from the Additional Downloads section of https://developer.apple.com/ - for Mojave, the latest compatible version is 10.3.1, or consult this Xcode compatibility table for other macOS versions (as suggested by aMike—thanks!)
It can be installed simply by uncompressing the downloaded .xip file and then dragging Xcode.app to /Applications/.


What happens to application data when I update vs uninstall an iOS app? When I update my apps on iOS the configuration for the apps are always maintained, including passwords. I am wondering someone knows if the data is kept when I (as end-user) uninstall apps as well.

The questions here are:

Is the Update on iOS actually is an uninstall and then install or really a different operation than uninstall?
Is there a real uninstall or is it simply a delete?

Given that the app provider is not capable to distinguish between end-user uninstall and update, how is the configuration data expected to be secured?

It's a delete and re-install. A new copy is downloaded from the AppStore, and the actual application file is deleted off the device, and then re-copied. It's the same operation as when you uninstall, just with an immediate install.

The data for the application is kept separately, and when you choose to delete an application via the springboard, it will prompt you to delete the data associated with the application.

When updating, it is assumed that you want to keep this data, and it is also part of the backup that is made when the device is backed up.


How do I route YouTube audio to AU Lab using SoundFlower? How do I route audio from a YouTube video to AU Lab using SoundFlower so that I can capture the YouTube video's sound stream?

Crank the computer's volume all the way up. (This is so that you pass 100% of the sound into AU Lab).
In System Preferences => Sound => Output tab, select Soundflower as output.
In an AU Lab document, select the same Soundflower option as your input. You should then be able to see Youtube's audio levels in AU Lab.

Source.


How can I drag and drop transfer a playlist of songs using home sharing? It's easy to browse a list of songs using home sharing and import all the songs that are "not in my library".

Once that is done, is there an easy way to get the same playlist on the new library?

There is no option to import a playlist. You can drag a playlist from another computer to one of yours. But that would end up copying all songs again and creating duplicates.

I ended up using Screen Sharing to export that playlist as File -> Library -> Export Playlist..., choosing XML format, then saving it to the desktop of the current mac. From there, it imported the playlist fine, but I was hoping I was missing a simpler, more drag and drop solution.

I can't believe I'm actually looking for another feature to be added to iTunes - it's got to be there somewhere.

Also, I don't want all the playlists - just a few so exporting the whole library won't speed things up or simplify the operation.

Create a new playlist on your local machine with the same name as the one you would like to import.
Click on the library that you wish to import a playlist from over Home Sharing.
Expand the library by clicking on the arrow to the left of the name.
Expand the folder called Playlists from within the library.
Drag the playlist from the home sharing library onto the one you have created.

Your music will be copied over into the new playlist.  This method does have one flaw, however.  If you already have some of these songs in your library, they will be duplicated.  But, File > Display Duplicates may help you with that.

Unfortunately, this is the only way to do this over Home Sharing.  Hopefully, iTunes 11 will improve on this, but I'm not getting my hopes up.


How to I list applications sorted by modified time in Finder on OS X 10.8? I discovered that on 10.8 the Applications folder does not allow you to change the sort order, it's always listed by name.

How can I change the sort order?

The view your screenshot displays can be produced if you go to the View menu and select Arrange by ▸ Name (or press ^⌘1). When "Arrange by Name" is selected, indeed changing the sort order is not possible. If, however, you select View then Arrange by ▸ None or press ^⌘0, your problem is solved.


Clear recents list in Screen Sharing on OS X El Capitan Please help me clear the list of 6 recent connections offered by the Screen Sharing app.  View the list via a right-click on this app when docked. This is on OS X 10.11.2 (El Capitan). I've tried shift-click, control-click, option-click etc. on the items but never get a pop-up menu.

This 2008 discussion over at Apple Support Communities points me to ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.ScreenSharing.plist, a file which does not exist for me.  I do see files com.apple.ScreenSharingLSSSharedFileList.plist and  com.apple.ScreenSharingSharedDefault.plist but both are tiny and the recents list doesn't appear in either one.

Confusingly, I can see and clear the recents list in the open app by picking menu Connection, item Open Recent, item Clear Menu.  That wipes the list shown there.  The right-click context menu shown in the docked app remains populated.  Baffling!

Finally stumbled across the answer to clear the docked recents list, ridiculously easy of course:

In the Screen Sharing app, pick menu Connection, Open Recent, Clear menu (as described in the question)
Quit the application
Undock its icon (right click on it within the dock, pick Options, pick item Keep in Dock).
Reopen the app (Finder, menu Go, item Connect to Server, type "vnc://host:5901" in the Server Address field, click Connect).
After it opens, redock the icon (same as #3 above).

After this, the recents shown in the right-click context menu should be gone.

p.s. thanks @grgarside for the clean-up edits


Launching mp3 file from Finder, iTunes first tells me it's "copying" it - to where? I download MP3 podcasts when I have Wi-Fi to listen to when I'm offline.

I just download them onto the hard drive. I don't have an iPod or phone or anything else attached to the Mac, either by cable or BlueTooth, etc.

When I doubleclick on the MP3 to listen to it, iTunes starts up and I've noticed there's first a message telling me that it's copying the MP3.

Why? Where is it making this copy? Can I disable it? I don't need two copies.

It is putting the file in the iTunes library. you can find that location by going here:

iTunes Preferences > Advanced

And it is listed under iTunes Media Folder Location at the top of the window.

Default behavior is to copy the file to the iTunes media folder. If you uncheck "Copy media to iTunes media folder when adding to library" on that same Preferences window it will stop doing that.


How do I use ls command with a variable for a directory in zsh? I set a variable named $G2_HW_sci. This is the output with echo.

user@192 SS % echo $G2_HW_sci
~/Documents/trabalho/SS/G2/science/homework/student_work/

Then I tried to access the contents of this folder with ls but I am getting this error:

user@192 SS % ls $G2_HW_sci
ls: ~/Documents/trabalho/SS/G2/science/homework/: No such file or directory

user@192 SS % ls "$G2_HW_sci"
ls: ~/Documents/trabalho/SS/G2/science/homework/: No such file or directory

user@192 SS % ls "${G2_HW_sci}"
ls: ~/Documents/trabalho/SS/G2/science/homework/student_work/: No such file or directory

user@192 SS % ls $"G2_HW_sci"
ls: $G2_HW_sci: No such file or directory

Now, if I just use ls with the absolute path to the directory it works:

user@192 SS % ls ~/Documents/trabalho/SS/G2/science/homework/student_work
2A          G2C_johnny.jpg      G2D_leonidas_1.jpg
2B          G2C_boris.jpg       G2E_angeline_1.jpg
2C          G2D_hellen_1.pdf        other
G2C_jerry_1.jpeg    G2D_leonidas_1.2.jpg

Another option that works is:
echo $G2_HW_sci | ls

I read some materials around here but they all seem to be using bash and by trying their solutions it didn't work for me.

I believe it may have something to do with the fact that I'm using zsh instead of bash.

What can I do to see the contents of the folder with the ls command?

You don't show how you assign the variable in the first place, but usually issues with ~ in variables come from the way you quote (or don't quote) during assignment. To make it work you need to omit quotes when assigning ~ to a variable.

$ foo=~
$ echo $foo
/Users/pse
$ foo="~"
$ echo $foo
~
$ ls $foo
ls: ~: No such file or directory


Contacts has trouble syncing with the Google account. What to do? I have Contacts (Version 8.0 (1365)) running under Mac OS X 10.9.1. I have it connected with my Google account. But it keeps showing that it is busy syncing. Changes made on other devices don't come through. (Other devices do sync with each other.) How can I solve this?

NB: After some time the "wheel" disappears, but still the new contact isn't there...

From your error message:

Contacts: CoreData: error: exception during obtainPermanentIDsForObjects: Fetching maximum primary key failed with userInfo of { NSSQLiteErrorDomain = 11; }

I am guessing that the SQLite DB of your Contacts.app is corrupted.

I would recommend taking the following steps:

Export a backup archive of your contacts (if they are not all on Google)

You can do this by going to File > Export... > Contacts Archive
Quit Contacts.app

Delete the offending SQLite Database

From the Finder, select Go > Go To Folder from the menu.
Type in ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/
Select all those files: Edit > Select All
Put them in a folder: File > New Folder With Selection
Move the folder to the Trash. (In case something goes wrong, we can restore everything)

Launch Contacts.app and re-create your Google account
Re-import your contacts archive (again, only if they are not all on google's servers.  Otherwise, just let it re-sync.)

Let me know if this works for you!


MacBook Pro mid-2012 have to wait 30min between reboots My MacBook Pro mid-2012 has been acting up lately. A year ago I replaced the original hard drive with a Samsung SSD 850 EVO 1TB, and everything was fine. Then the SSD became corrupted and was exchanged under warranty. Since installing the second SSD I've installed a fresh copy of the latest macOS Sierra on a single 1TB partition and have been having issues ever since.

The symptoms are:

Random fails: When I wake it up from sleep or open the lid I find it with the "grey screen with crossed circle" (Similar to this: https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-b29f58e707cef6f20a882248f4ee558c).
Fails to find a bootable volume when rebooted (or even after a shutdown and reboot) within a ~20-ish minute timeframe (boots to the folder icon with a question mark, similar to this: https://i.stack.imgur.com/V5agg.jpg). I have to wait and try to boot it again later. Then it boots as if nothing happened.

What I have done:

Reset the NVRAM. Result: no significant change in behaviour
Reset the SMC. Result: no change in behaviour
Did the Disk Utility trick where I modified the size of my partition, then set it back to a single 1TB partition again, in order to have Disk Utility rewrite the partition map (or something). Result: now it doesn't constantly fails when I close and reopen the lid. Although it may have been the result of the next point.
Changed the energy settings to default (I have a script I run when I setup a new computer, and it includes some non default power management settings). Result: see previous point.

Questions:

Does this seem like a hardware failure or a software failure?
What can I do to be sure either way?
Any suggestions on how I can reliably fix this?

I have several full backups of my data, so I can try virtually anything. I'm determined to find out how to fix this. Perhaps installing a stock version of macOS Sierra and not changing anything at all, and using it like this for a few days could help me figure things out in more detail?

Some Mid-2012 MBPs had an issue with the Hard Drive Flex cable that could cause similar issues (at least as far as the Booting to a Folder with a Question Mark), so I might be worth calling Apple or heading to an Apple Store to have them have a look.

If it is one of those ones, you may get a repair for free for it. I gotta stress though, it isn't ALL mid-2012s, just some of them. Mine wasn't one of them (I had permanent "No Hard Drive Detected" but the tech I saw initially thought it was, hence me knowing anything at all about it).

If it is the cable that is faulty, it didn't cost a lot out of warranty anyway, although if you are getting the odd Prohibitory symbol, then you may want to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X anyway to get rid of any filesystem problems that would still be there beyond hardware


Alt-. and vertical bar (pipe) on terminal On linux consoles I always use Alt + . to get the last argument of the previous command in history.

for example if I had

ls /tmp/test

as last command, and if I type

rm Alt -

this will result in

rm /tmp/test

On an Apple terminal, this doesn't work by default but I found an answer here:

Equivalent to alt-. in terminal

  You have to change the Terminal’s behavior to the alt key acts as a meta key

Now there is a new problem: I cannot access the pipe | anymore (Alt + 7)

How can I use both?

esc+. inserts the last argument by default.

iTerm can change just the other option key to meta:

Or if you change to the US layout, it doesn't have any ASCII characters under option.

For example \e7\e. normally inserts the seventh argument of the previous command, so there isn't really any way to get both.


Rebooting machine with macOS Sierra takes very long time Since I upgraded my Retina MacBook Pro with macOS Sierra GM (16A319), rebooting the computer takes 20-30 minutes. I select Restart... from the apple menu, everything logs out, then the Mac hangs on a black screen for the rest of the time. I even have a mouse cursor. After a while it reboots normally, and booting takes 10-15 seconds as usual. If I force shut down, I can boot normally (except for the warning, that the computer was not shutted down properly).

I've tried selecting Boot disk in System preferences, change the boot disk from terminal, but it seems the problems is with the shut down operation.

I have only TripMode's kernel extension beside Apple's own modules.

I had the same issue and it seems to be fixed when upgrading to MySQL 5.7.15

Cheers


Time Machine backup fails after copying some files My Time Machine backups started consistently failing, but only after copying a certain number of files to the backup disk.

Repeated attempts to back up would fail more quickly, almost as if a particular file were causing the failure.

The error messages say to try to repair the backup disk, similar to

  Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "MyBackupDrive". An error occurred while copying  files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk.

However, repairing the backup disk failed to resolve the issue. Reparing my boot disk and using a different backup disk also failed.

I am not (to my knowledge) using any services or applications known to cause Time Machine problems, as detailed in answers to related questions.

How can I get the backup to succeed?

The issue may be a corrupted file. Open Console.app and filter errors for "backupd".

You may notice an error related to a particular file which is causing the failure, for example

Error: (-48) SrcErr:NO Copying /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots/Backups.backupdb/mycomputer/2020-04-23-231950/Macintosh HD/Users/myusername/bad_file to /Volumes/MyBackupDrive/Backups.backupdb/mycomputer/2020-04-23-231950.inProgress/A93DB1E9-8D23-482D-953E-0D808B6380AD/Macintosh HD/Users/myusername/bad_file

If so, you can try deleting this file (completely).

In my case, to be safe, I also restarted my machine, reformatted the backup drive (OS X extended, case-sensitive, journaled, encrypted) and re-added it to Time Machine, but I am not sure if any or all of those steps were essential.


How to disable shortcut for an Automator script? A few weeks ago I wrote a short script with the Automator to get familiar with it.
I found a website which explained how to set up a primitive script to start the screensaver and define a shortcut to start it. I chose cmd + L to activate the script and it worked fine.

Now I want to disable the shortcut and delete the script. The problem is, that I forgot how and where I defined the shortcut. It is not listet in the system preference -> keyboard section. Unfortunately I can't find the website with the how to or an equivalent description.

Any suggestions for my awkward situation?

If you want to remove the shortcut and not the service go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts and make sure that in the right pane services is selected, I think that might have been your issue. The just un-click the check box next to your listed service.

I've had an issue recently where services aren't showing up in the services pane, to fix this just copy the service to your desktop from ~/Library/Services and delete the service in the Library directory, then paste the service back in again.


I just upgrade my iPhone to iOS 4.2. Where did all my email go? I just upgraded my iPhone 3G from iOS 3.1.3 to 4.2.1.

Backed everything up (8 hours)
Downloaded the update (1 hour)
Installed the update, and restored everything (1 hour)

Everything looks like it worked… EXCEPT that now, all my email is gone.

I have three questions:

How could it restore all my contacts, settings, apps, all email settings, all email boxes, everything… and only skip my email?
Where did my email go?
How do I get my email back?

Email is not included in the backups according to this apple support page.  This probably makes sense as you would normally have a copy on a server whereas with SMS, MMS etc you wouldn't necessarily have a copy on the server.  So the answer to where is your email gone is it gets wiped by the backup process.

To get your email back you should be able to just go into your email accounts and click the circular arrow button to refresh or if you're setup for push mail then it should sync automatically.  You can take a look in Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars for your mail accounts which should still be there.  If they're not syncing try turning the mail off and back on in one of the account setting screens.


Run siri commands in a shortcut, connect to airplay I can ask siri to connect to my apple tv through airplay with the command “play on bedroom”.

“Bedroom” is the name of my apple tv

Is there any way of doing this with a shortcut?

Today, on iOS 12.2 it’s not possible to select the output of music from the shortcuts app, so you’re not going to be able to automate that via tap or via Siri shortcut.

The good news is if you already are using AirPlay - the shortcut to play something leaves that alone, so you could automate playing something else to the current sound output destination for music.

This function is so awesome, that I bought a HomePod so I could have Siri play music I can hear. That way my AppleTV and iOS devices can output sound there as well as it being the Siri that listens to what I want to hear.


How do I disable ALL password prompts in Yosemite? Have searched far and wide with no answers.  I want to never enter any passwords again for my entire OS X experience (except internet passwords, of course).  Please do not answer "it's a bad idea"; I know the risks, and they are mine to take.

Logging in as the root user will negate most administrative password prompts, but this is highly dangerous for your system's security.

A better idea, though not by much is to change your login password to nothing, so when you are prompted for a password, you simply press Enter, and the procedure begins.


Crash during Boot Camp restoration. How do I remove my Windows partition? As mentioned in the title, my OS crashed while removing the windows partition. Now Boot Camp Assistant doesn't recognize the pre-existing Windows partition anymore. See diskutil results below.

How would I go about getting rid of the Windows partition and restoring everything to a single one?

/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         120.0 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +120.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            80.5 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 46.0 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                517.0 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk1s4

Resolved by removing what was listed as "Free Space" in Disk Utility and re-partitioning it to Macintosh HD.


iPhone 4 unable to connect to any Google service on Wi-Fi Today I found my iPhone 4 (iOS 7.1.2) is unable to connect specifically to any Google service (Search, Google.com or YouTube) when on Wi-Fi.

Any other website will load.

I get the message "Safari cannot open the page because it could not create a secure connection to the server".

All other browsers show a similar error - Google Chrome says: ERR_CONNECTION_CLOSED.

All my other devices on the Wi-Fi network work with Google ... my Win8 PC, my Android Tablet and Smart TV.

I have tried resetting network settings but with no luck.

Anyone else had this problem?

It might be related to the DNS on the iPhone.

Go to Settings -> Wi-Fi -> And Connect to your home Wi-Fi Network

Now:

Touch on the "i" icon on the right;
Where it says DNS edit the value for: 8.8.4.4
Go Back to the Wi-Fi networks listing and wait to confirm that the blue tick appears on the left.

This DNS address is from Google, so it will work with everything Google related but also outside of Google universe.
I've set that address for all my DNS addresses in every machine I use and never had a problem.


What are the differences between the various Mac video "compressor types"? Video
H264
Animation
DV - PAL
Apple VC H.263 etc.

I know H.264 is pretty much the default video codec nowadays, however it seems to be a bit choppy on older machines. And from experience,  "video" seems to offer better playback with bigger files sizes. But I've never properly learned the technical differences between Mac OS's default codecs and I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on this?

Most of these codecs you can read more into by doing Google Searches on them. I will try to summarize some of this for you:

Video codec is the traditional QuickTime codec used by Apple, going back a very long time. The quality is good, but it takes up a lot of space as it uses relatively little compression.

H.263 was developed for use in early web applications. Flash and RealVideo were two very popular web delivery mechanisms that utilized this system. It essentially is an update to the MPEG-2 encoding frameworks used on DVDs.

H.264 is an update to H.263 and offers even more space efficiency based on the quality. The overall concept of this codec (as well as many others) is to provide a full frame every x number of frames, and in the intermediate frames, to simply record the changes that have occurred from the previous frame. So if you have a frame of a person walking with a still background, only the data of that person's movements are recorded.

DV - PAL is a format optimized for outputting onto DV (digital video) tape, and PAL means it is designed for the European standard (vs. NTSC which is the broadcast standard in the United States).

Animation is a format, similar to H.263, but optimized for animation footage, where there will be many areas of the solid color. It also supports an alpha (or transparency) channel, which allows footage encoded in this method to be layered over other footage.


Run program if connected to specific wifi? Is it possible to have a program starting automatically when I connect to a specific router, and having it stop when I disconnect from this router?

Basically I want a program to run while I'm at work (flexible hours, so I can't just have some sort of timer function) but not when I'm at home - or somewhere else.

I'm running:
Macbook air
OS X Version 10.9.4

You can use ControlPlane where you can set up rules to carry out tasks such as opening apps based on various criteria which includes connecting to Wi-Fi.

  ControlPlane supports multiple contexts where a context is defined as a location or activity you are performing.  Using evidence sources you can create a set of rules that tell ControlPlane what context to apply to your environment.  When ControlPlane enters or leaves a context a set of Actions are performed.

ControlPlaneX, an unofficial fork of the open source project, has kept the project working to Mojave.


AppleEvent Handler failed (-10000) I'm having issues with a simple part of script, where I wanna get the property dock preferences of System Events. I have the following:

tell application "System Events"
    tell appearance preferences
        set ap_prefs to (get the properties)
        set ap_prefs to the properties
    end tell
    set a_pref to the properties of appearance preferences

    tell dock preferences
        set d_prefs to (get the properties)
    end tell
    set d_pref to the properties of dock preferences
end tell

In the code above I access appearance preferences in all the ways shown above, but not dock preferences. It give an error error "System Events got an error: AppleEvent handler failed." number -10000.

So what is going on, and why is only giving error with dock? Here @dj_bazzie_wazzie says:

  Error -10000…most of the time it is not a target error but an incomplete command or wrong usage of brackets.

But I can't figure out what is the proper way. I've tried all I can think of, also why doesn't it throw the exception for appearance preferences?

Cheers

I've also opened this question on Stack Overflow, I'll close one when I get a answer.

This works for me in the latest version of macOS Sierra...

tell application "System Events"
    set dockPrefs to dock preferences
    set appearancePrefs to appearance preferences
end tell


Iphone 4S 8.1.1 Battery Problem What else can I do to make my iPhone 4S work for as long as possible?

I have done all the "standard" battery saving techniques recommended on most sites, like:

turn off background app refresh, automatic updates
lower brightness all the way / disable auto brightness
keep bluetooth and cellular Off always. Rarely use WiFi.
No dynamic backgrounds.

The battery is still dying way too quickly.
My Battery Usage indicates that the Home and Lock Screen are using 30% of the battery. How is that possible? What is it doing??

I have the same problem. Max life is 12 hours and very very little use.  It goes down by 5% per hour!!!

Apple said battery fine and I should only expect 10 to 12 hrs.  Back several iOS ago I could get well over 24 hours.

Sounds like the want to force us to get new iPhones 6.


MacBook Pro not outputting audio Yesterday I could play music and actually hear something, but as of today, my MacBook Pro speakers aren't producing any sound at all.

Here is what I tried:

rebooting (a cold reboot too) several times
internal/external speakers
PRAM reset
Reinstall iTunes
Using headphones

There is no red light in the headphone jack.

The only thing I did was updating my iTunes to the new 10.5.3 version. But I doubt this is the cause because other programs aren't reproducing any sound too. So, no sound at all on my MacBook Pro (mid 2011). Any idea or hits to get the sound back?

EDIT
And to make it even more weird, the mail-app is making sound when sending and receiving mails. But iTunes, QuickTime, VLC, Safari,... These apps aren't making any sound at all!

In the first instance, please repair disk permissions. If that makes no difference please try starting your machine in Safe Mode before restarting (back to normal mode) and seeing if that made any difference.

If neither of these work I would reinstall the OS over the top at this stage.

As to the cause? I think the Quicktime system plugin has incorrect permissions, is damaged or just plain isn't where it should be. Let us know how you get on!


How can I make Apple Mail show the URL (in mails) when I hover over a link? There is a related question for Safari but I am interested in a solution for Mail. The ⌘View menu.

I am using OS X 10.10.5, and I would really like to see the real full link I would follow, especially with potential phishing mails.

Just hover the cursor over the link for a few seconds. The full URL will spring up underneath.

The down arrow that will also appear next to the link will open it in a Quick Look window rather than a browser - but if you want to check the link is safe first, don't use that until you're sure.


How do I select part of an audio track in GarageBand 10.3.2? I'm using GarageBand 10.3.2 on Mojave.  I want to extract part of an MP3 file but I'm having trouble figuring out how to select the part I want.  When I open my track I see the below.

I want to select a region between 23.25 and 27.  When I hold down the Shift key and click the playhead, and then slide the playhead to the right end where I want the selection to end, I see no visual indicator that I have selected anything.  Indeed when I do Edit -> Copy, open a new project and try and paste something, tehre's nothing there.  How do I select a region?

Edit: Sorry. Just noticed you asked for GarageBand and not Logic. Updated answer for GarageBand which has fewer split options.

You have to split the track. Once you've split it, you'll be able to copy the region onto the clipboard and paste into another project.

You can split at the playhead position using Edit > Split Regions at Playhead or use the Cmd-T keyboard shortcut.

Just put the playhead at 23.25, split. Move it to 25.00 and split again. Then you'll have a region you can select and copy onto the clipboard.


Exchange Calendar sync loops, drains, and fails It seems I have got the same problem as described here. The symptom is that the Exchange sync never seems to finish. The phone runs hot, drains the battery, and (probably) uses a lot of network traffic. The problem is that the disable/enable of Calendar sync trick fails on my iPhone. It tries for a long time and then it times out. I can't even remove the accounts completely, that fails in the same way.

It's an iPhone 5S running iOS 7.0.5. I'm syncing three calendars. Two Exchange accounts from different servers and one Gmail.

This problem happened to me once before and then I ended up doing a Factory Reset. I'd rather not do that again.

Power assertion
timeout:https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26840/iOS_power_assertion_timeout_DataAccess_Exchange_related.png
and with https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26840/iOS_power_assertion_timeout_fetchMobileSynchronously.png

MobileCal: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26840/iOS_MobileCal_has_active_assertions_beyond_parmitted_time.png

The preferences timeout:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26840/iOS_preferences_timeout_turning_off_calendar_sync.png

I would love to find a solution to this! It could be to the root of the problem, how to force calendar sync off, how to force removal of email accounts, or to something that I've missed.

I logged in to the webmail (OWA) and there Options -> See All Options -> Phone
Two devices were listed, my old phone and the current. I removed both. Then I restarted the phone and the sync seems to be back in order. The phone hasn't run hot for several hours and both mail and calendar events works fine.

PS. Before this I had also Reset Network Settings. I have no idea if this was part of the solution. DS.


"Developer" option is not available under Settings menu. Why? I am missing a Developer option under Settings menu. What do I need to do to make it appear?

I found that by powering off the device, and turning it back on while connected to the machine running Xcode 6.3, the Developer settings menu returned for my iOS 8.3 devices.


Copy full path of an open file I have a file open in Preview.app. I can easily view the full path for the same by  ⌘  + clicking on the file proxy icon (the icon shown besides the filename in Preview's title bar).

How do I copy the full path to clipboard?

Command+O  this opens a dialogue with the current file.
Select the file, and press Command+R, this reveals the file in Finder.
In Finder, select the file, and press Option+Command+C, this copies the full path to the Clipboard.


Repeatedly "trying to add a new helper tool" on each restart for same application(s) Every time I restart my computer, it tries to "add a new helper tool". For instance I have to reinstall shell commands in Atom on every restart, and it prompts with the "An update is ready to install."  But I see this same issue with other programs too.

Atom installs /usr/local/bin/atom -- but then when I restart it's gone.

I get the same thing from MAMP that it "wants to make changes".

And Slack gives me the same thing as Atom on every restart:

  An update is ready to install. Slack is trying to add a new helper tool.

  Enter an administrator's name and password to allow this.

  Add Helper

Let me know what other information I can give.

Try changing the ownership of Atom.app. In my case, Atom.app was found in /Applications, and ownership was:

  drwxr-xr-x   3 1699963712  365896978    102 Dec  8 12:48 Atom.app

I ran the following command:

  sudo chown -R $USER:wheel /Applications/Atom.app

In my case, any program with ownership of root or the numeric code listed above would have a popup a few seconds after opening. Changing ownership of the .app directory corrected the behavior and I don't see it anymore.

I found the information at this site.


MacBook Pro crashes during boot I'm having the following problems:

after latest El Capitan update, my Macbook Pro (mid 2010) crashes (turns off) during boot.
I'm unable to boot in safe mode, the only way is recovery mode.
I've ran disk utility with ok results.
I've done PRAM reset with no effect.
I'm trying to reinstall El Capitan as a last resort but I'm getting the following error message: "An error occured while preparing the installation. Try running this application again."

Currently I'm really stuck in the middle of nowhere, everything I've tried goes terribly wrong and I have no clue what is going on.

Please help,

Thanks.

There most common cause for this error, is a time/date issue.

If you notice the time and date are wrong during the installation, try the following:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/166746/164066

There's more info on the error here:
http://osxdaily.com/2015/01/19/fix-os-x-install-errors-cant-be-verified-error-occurred-preparing-mac/


MacBook Pro keyboard and Trackpad not working. All solutions found have failed I have a 13-inch early 2015 Macbook Pro with Retina display, and today the keyboard and trackpad stopped working completely. (I have OS X 10.11.5 if that's relevant. I can't update to sierra, as a software I use is not compatible with it). The only thing that works is the power button. Now, this isn't unprecedented. This started happening a few weeks ago, but every time it happened, shutting down and restarting by holding the power button fixed the issue. But today it didn't.

I know there are many questions like this, but I tried every single solution I found. This probably means I won't get one here either, but I want to try this before I have to go to the Apple store.

I plugged in a USB keyboard to my laptop so that I could use it. I also plugged in a USB mouse, but that mouse plugs into the keyboard, not into the computer. Both worked fine. I tried an SMC reset and a PRAM reset, using both the built-in keyboard and the external keyboard for the required inputs, for a total of 4 attempted resets. I can't really tell if they did what they were supposed to or not, but they didn't fix my keyboard.

I booted in safe mode (using the shift key on the external keyboard. Using the one on my laptop didn't work, and it just booted normally), and the issue persisted.

The other solution I saw was to disable FileVault, but it was already disabled prior to this incident.

I also saw people saying plugging in a USB drive during login fixed the issue, but this didn't work either.

The last solution I tried was to let the computer sit while powered off and not connected to the battery. This didn't do anything either.

I did not spill anything on my computer prior to this incident, so I have no idea why it started happening. If anyone has solutions for this that I haven't tried yet, please let me know.

EDIT: I just noticed that if my computer is asleep, clicking the built in trackpad wakes it up. However, the trackpad doesn't do anything else.

You need to replace your top case assembly.

Your keyboard and trackpad (built in) are USB devices, so when you plugged in your external mouse/keyboard and everything worked, you effectively ruled out software issues.  This is also confirmed when trying to boot in Safe Mode or doing NVRAM/SMC resets via the built in keyboard.

If it doesn't work in a pre-boot environment, it's not going to work at all.

The only option left is replacement of the top case assembly itself (Apple PN# 661-02361)  and given that both have failed, it's highly likely that the USB interface on the keyboard has died.

Technically speaking, you could replace just your keyboard and trackpad, but it's an extremely labor intensive proposition.  Whether you are replacing the keyboard/trackpad or the assembly itself, it will require a complete disassembly of the MacBook innards.  iFixit.com has a writeup on the procedure and they rank it as "Difficult" with an allocation of 3 hours time.

Even if you don't plan on undertaking that repair yourself, I do suggest you familiarize yourself with the procedure to understand what's actually involved.  Suffice to say, it will be an expensive repair.


Difference between Internet Sharing and 'Create a Network' I have discovered two ways to share internet on my MacBook. Firstly, clicking on the Wi-Fi icon and selecting 'Create Network...'. Secondly, in System Preferences, Sharing > Internet Sharing and select 'To computers using: Wi-Fi'. What is the difference between these?

I would think that "create network" allows another wifi device to connect to your mac but not browse the internet through the mac's network connection.


Why can an app create daemons on the fly without sudo permission and how to stop it? First, I come from Linux so there are many things which confuse me such as daemons.

I installed VOX.app and it has some kind of agents and cloud-related processes which can be started automatically. There is no option in the VOX UI which can disable them. I tried the following to remove those daemons:

launchctl remove com.coppertino.VOXCloud
launchctl remove com.coppertino.VOXAgent

The above commands are weird already because I didn't need to use sudo. The most weird part is what I did is apparently useless since everytime I launch VOX.app, it can create them again and again. This is just crazy.

If this is the security model of macOS how can I understand things and perhaps control for this?

The general security model is that normal users can add any startup items to their realm (user library for them) and not for the system, so don’t let people have admin accounts if you don’t trust them to not run software that installer system level startup items.

There is no easy way to stop an admin user from changing the system. You can enforce gatekeeper or signed apps, but most admin users can bypass that setting so at best, you slow down an uneducated admin user for a bit.

Per-user and Computer Wide Jobs

On macOS, launchd can manage background processes per-user and computer wide.

Per-user jobs exist within your user session. They start and stop with your logging in and out of the computer. If the jobs have associated job tickets, you will find them with the folder ~/Library/LaunchAgents and ~/Library/LaunchDaemons

Computer wide jobs start and stop with the computer. These jobs are stored in /Library/LaunchAgents and /Library/LaunchDaemons.

Computer wide jobs managed by Apple are stored in /System/Library/LaunchAgents and /System/Library/LaunchDaemons.

Per-user jobs do not need super user permission. Thus you did not need sudo to stop jobs installed at the user level by vox.app.

Disabling a launchd job

You can unload a launchd job to block it returning:

  Usage: launchctl unload <service-path, service-path2, ...>

  -w Additionally disables the service such that future load operations will result in a service which launchd tracks but cannot be launched or discovered in any way.
  -S <session> Only unloads the services associated with the specified session.
  -D <domain> Unloads launchd.plist(5) files from the specified domain. See the discussion regarding this same flag when given to the load subcommand for further details.

The -w causes the unload to be written to disk and to persist across sessions.

For more about stopping, unloading, and overriding jobs see:

Launchctl difference between load and start, unload and stop
Disable Services in OSX (services.msc)
launchctl - remove enabled/disabled override


Why is the photo quality terrible in Automator? I am trying to use Automator as a Photo Booth but when I use the video snapshot command the photo quality is terrible. The built in camera is fine in other apps such as Skype or Photo Booth? I can't find anything online about this.

I don't know why, but it seems to save the image as a 201x201 pixel tiff file.

You could also install imagesnap with brew install imagesnap and then use something like /usr/local/bin/imagesnap ~/Desktop/$(date +%y%m%d%H%M%S).png in a Run Shell Script action.


Apple Screen Sharing = VNC/RDP? Is Apple Screen Sharing just an implementation of VNC/RDP or similar protocols? If so, then which?

It is none of them, however it is compatible with VNC.


I never want the phone to go to the " lower power mode" even if the phone battery drops to 10 % . I entered low power mode on my iDevice and the battery level indicator turned yellow. Now I've plugged it in and it's up past 23% and the battery is still yellow. Does that mean I'm in Low Power Mode still? How do I get out of Low Power Mode? Update: It's at 55% and it's still yellow.

Also, let's say I enter Low Power Mode accidentally, it pops up that alert dialog awfully fast sometimes. If I entered low power mode on accident but don't want to be in it how do I exit out of it then?

Go to Settings -> Battery -> Disable Low Power Mode

Low Power Mode will also turn off automatically once your device has been charged up to 80%.


Phantom photos stuck on my iPhone that I can't delete? According to iTunes:

According to my phone:

But also:

What's going on? :-/

I look into my DCIM folder on my iPhone through Windows Explorer and it's empty, too.

Update: I have no photo syncing going on in iTunes, nor do I have any "recently deleted" items on my iPhone

Set the date of your phone a few months back. These phantom photos should now show up in "Recently Deleted" section on iOS photos. Delete them from there, and then set the date back to the present.


Every time my three-year-old bashes the keyboard randomly my hot corners stop working. What key combo is she pressing? Whenever I make the mistake and leave my MBP unattended and unlocked for more than a minute, my three-year-old rushes in and starts randomly mashing keys on the keyboard, pretending to type.  Every time, without fail, afterward, things seem OK but the hot corners no longer work and the Dock (which I normally have set to auto-hide) will not rise up from the bottom of the screen when hovering there; I must click the mouse at the bottom of the screen, where the Dock is hiding, in order to make it rise.  Merely hovering, like usual, does not make the Dock rise.

What key combination is she pressing to trigger this behavior?  And how can I turn it off without having to completely restart the computer?

You can search through the keyboard shortcuts with System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts.

For me, "Turn Dock Hiding On/Off" is Option ⌥ Command ⌘ D

I don't see a keyboard shortcut for enabling/disabling Hot Corners (in High Sierra), though maybe your list is different?


Can I upgrade my MacBook Pro Retina? So I saw around on the internet that people have changed their HDD to an SSD  on their MacBook Pro which people say helps in speed.

This might seem silly to ask here for some of you but I like to get direct answers from someone with better Mac knowledge than me.

But if I were to do so, is there a certain type SSD I need and what would be the price? Depending on space. And is it easy?

I have an Retina MacBook Pro 13" 8GB RAM, 2,6GHZ, 128HDD (Mid - 2014)

Unfortunately I cannot comment on the other answer.  Ian is correct in that the drive inside the new rMBP's are solid-state drives, however, you can upgrade the drive to a larger drive yourself, but in doing so you may void the warranty so make sure that you verify that first, otherwise, you can take it into an Apple Store and they likely will upgrade it for you.  Either way, this will only give you more space and chances are will not increase your read/write speeds.

Here's the link to the instructions on replacing the SSD.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Retina+Display+Mid+2014+SSD+Replacement/27849

Your only obstacle might be finding one.  Currently, the SSD's that Apple uses are made by Samsung and use a PCIe connection.  They are very difficult to find as they are not yet on the mainstream market.


AppStore stopped working Today I wanted to download a free application from the AppStore.

First it wanted me to review my account settings, I accepted the license, then filled out the empty fields and it asked for my payment settings. Since I don't have US payment method, I had to switch to the Hungarian store, because no payment was not an option there.

They charged me (for around $4) and switched me to the Hungarian store. Later I could set it back to the US store with iTunes where I could check the no payment option.

So I have an US account again.

But since then I could not download any application. It starts to download it, finishes the progress bar and then this alert window appears:

Of course there is no problem with my Internet connection.

The application is installed nevertheless but the AppStore application could not see it as an installed app so I could not check the updates for it.

Update: In the /var/log/install.log it seems the installation has been finished:

May  4 09:33:16 krtek installd[14760]: PackageKit: ----- Begin install -----
May  4 09:33:16 krtek installd[14760]: PackageKit: request=PKInstallRequest <1 packages, destination=/>
May  4 09:33:16 krtek installd[14760]: PackageKit: packages=(\n    "PKLeopardPackage <file://localhost/Users/raszi/Library/Application%20Support/AppStore/414445104/mzm.cufsjzsc.pkg#com.most-advantageous.windowflow.pkg>"\n)
May  4 09:33:16 krtek installd[14760]: PackageKit: Extracting file://localhost/Users/raszi/Library/Application%20Support/AppStore/414445104/mzm.cufsjzsc.pkg#com.most-advantageous.windowflow.pkg (destination=/var/folders/zz/zzzivhrRnAmviuee+++++++++++/Cleanup At Startup/PKInstallSandbox-tmp/Root/Applications, uid=0)
May  4 09:33:17 krtek installd[14760]: PackageKit: Shoving /var/folders/zz/zzzivhrRnAmviuee+++++++++++/Cleanup At Startup/PKInstallSandbox-tmp/Root (1 items) to /
May  4 09:33:17 krtek installd[14760]: PackageKit: Registered bundle file://localhost/Applications/WindowFlow.app/
May  4 09:33:17 krtek installd[14760]: Installed "WindowFlow" ()
May  4 09:33:17 krtek installd[14760]: PackageKit: ----- End install -----

Update2:

Moving away ~/Library/Application Support/AppStore/ did not help the problem, update still not working:

The Reset cache solved my problem in the iTunes advanced preferences:

Since then I can install and upgrade applications from AppStore.


mac OSX Yosemite, safe mode? how do i launch safe mode on mac, with boot camp installed(windows 7)?
Without boot camp u just press shift on the sound, but with bootcamp installed it always login in windows? help!!macbook air.

After a quick search I found this information:

  If you're in Windows, you can switch to the Mac OS X partition using the Boot Camp icon in the System Tray. Click the gray diamond-shaped icon, and click "Restart in Mac OS" from the pop-up menu. Then, confirm your choice to reboot to Mac OS X.

When you back in OS X you can change the startup disk via sys. pref. > startup disk


Should I update my apps on iPhone 4s? I have an iPhone 4s. I am not updating to IOS 8 as I have read enough warnings not to do this. All my apps now want to be updated, but most of those updates say that they are for IOS 8 compatibility. Should I do these updates? Will the apps still work normally for me?

Yes, you should continue to update your apps. Just because iOS 8 compatibility has been added to an app doesn't diminish the compatibility with earlier versions of iOS.

If an app has been updated to support iOS 8 and has removed support for iOS 7, you will not be given the option to update in the first place, however this is rare.


How to quit "Force Quit Applications" using AppleScript? I've been learning lots of different programming languages when I came across AppleScript. Since I'm technically new to it, this question may seem dumb.I need an AppleScript script to quit the "Force Quit Applications" app.
The following code doesn't work:

  tell application "Force Quit Applications" to quit

Probably it's because the process has a different name. What is the "Force Quit Applications" process name? Many thanks in advance.

You can use this Apple Script to close this window:

tell application "System Events"
    key code 53 using {command down, option down} -- ESC + ALT + CMD
    keystroke "w" using command down
end tell

This window is owned by loginwindow process and it's not that easy to interact with it. Here's the code to press Force Quit button on this window:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "loginwindow"
    click button 1 of window 1
end tell

However this does not work:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "loginwindow"
    close window 1
end tell


Does updating iOS force you to update watchOS? First there was watchOS 1 which shipped with iOS 8.x.

Then there was watchOS 2 which shipped with iOS 9.

Now there is watchOS 3 which ships with iOS 10.

The question: if you start with watchOS 1 & iOS 8, and then update your iPhone to iOS 9 or 10, is the user then required to update their Apple Watch to the latest rev that comes with iOS?

No, it won't force you to update your Apple Watch. You can use an Apple Watch with older versions of watchOS while using iOS 10 on your iPhone.

You won't be able to use any features that are exclusive to iOS 10 or higher watchOS versions, though. Think standalone watchOS apps (watchOS 2.x and higher), iMessage animations (watchOS 3.x and higher), new watch faces and so on.


Macbook Pro Can't Open Site Beside Google, Youtube, Facebook I have macbook pro, with MacOS High Sierra. The thing is, i can't connect to any websites beside those on the title, but only when i connected to a specific Wi-Fi in my office, and happened on all browser. I have no problem when i connected to my own Wi-Fi at home. And this is only happen to my macbook, my phone using same Wi-Fi but have no problem. I did follow many solutions like add google dns, flushdns, turning off ipv6, etc but none of them working. I even try to look for solution using my phone, since i can't open single link on google. Pls help, been through this for past few weeks...

I know this question is a bit old and hopefully the OP has already solved there issue but for those who are finding themselves with the same issue I'll leave what I found others doing and what worked for them and then I'll put what worked for me.

The issue seems to arise from the Mac trying to self-assign itself an IP.

If you're experiencing this issue, the first thing I would try is renew the Lease in your network preferences panel: System Preferences > Network > Advanced > TCP/IP > Renew Lease
Other's have also said that deleting their Wi-Fi Prefered Networks ... > Advanced > Wi-Fi fixed it for them.
Other's mentioned having to delete the Wi-Fi Service in Network and re-adding it
Other's suggested changing DNS to Google or OpenDNS (8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4 for Google)

Another solution that worked well for most was to flush the DNS:

Mac OS X Yosemite and later
sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

Mac OS X Yosemite v10.10 through v10.10.3
sudo discoveryutil mdnsflushcache

Mac OS X Mavericks, Mountain Lion and Lion
sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

Mac OS X Snow Leopard
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

The most common one I saw was the suggestion of going into finder and navigating to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration (you can get their by pressing CMD + SHIFT + G) and deleting the following files:

com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
com.apple.network.identification.plist (or com.apple.network.eapolclient.configuration.plist depending on OS version)
NetworkInterfaces.plist
preferences.plist

And then after deleting the files reboot your computer and try connecting to your network.

Another suggestion was the firewall but because my firewall was already turned off I didn't try this method.

None of those worked for me, however. What did work for me when none of the other suggestions did was setting my IPV4 to manual (System Preferences > Network > Advanced > TCP/IP) and filling in the information as such:

IPv4 Address: 192.168.0.32
Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0
Router: 192.168.0.1

This method requires that you know the base of the IPv4 Address. For this, you'll need another computer on your network and type ifconfig | grep inet into terminal for Mac or if your other computer is Windows you can do ipconig and find it. It usually always starts with 192.168 which can then be followed by (most commonly off of experience) 0, 1, or two. The last part of the IP I chose at random but needed it to be a value high enough that it wouldn't conflict with another device.

You can grab the router ip of this other device too. I believe most phones will display the information somewhere.

IMPORTANT NOTE is to mention that if you "played" with the IPv6 you'll need to set this back to automatic


When opening a DMG file, how do I get it to open up in front of the windows? Whenever I download a .dmg file and then open it (usually from the download bar in Chrome), it opens up in the background. Is there any way to get it to open up in front of my window?

Edit

To clarify: I want the DMG window to pop up as the active window.

I created a Folder Action script in Applescript, that might do just what you want.
Copy and paste it into a new Applescript, and save it as an Application (without a starting dialogue!) into "/Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts/".
You can then attach it to any folder (most likely your ~/Downloads/ folder ) by right clicking on the folder and selecting "configure folder actions" from the services drop-out menu. Activate Folder Actions and let the script watch the folder.

What the script basically does, is react on items dropped into the folder it´s attached to and if the dropped item is of Kind:"Image" it attaches the Image as a Volume via the "hdiutil" command line tool.

You can configure it´s behaviour by setting the openWindow and makeFrontmost properties in the Script; this can also be done by double-clicking on the Script after you have saved it as an application - it will then ask in two dialogues on what it´s standard behaviour should be.

I hope this helps,

Asmus

 property openWindow : true
 property makeFrontmost : true

 on run

    display dialog "Do you want to bring the Finder to the front after new items are added?" buttons {"Don't Activate", "Activate"} default button 2
    if the button returned of the result is "Don't Activate" then
        set makeFrontmost to false
    else
        set makeFrontmost to true
    end if

    display dialog "Open Folder after adding new files?" buttons {"Don't Open", "Open"} default button 2
    if the button returned of the result is "Don't Open" then
        set openWindow to false
    else
        set openWindow to true
    end if

 end run

 on adding folder items to thisFolder after receiving addedItems

    repeat with i from 1 to number of items in addedItems
        set itemKind to the kind of (info for item i of addedItems) as string

        if itemKind is "Disk Image" then
            set itemPath to (quoted form of POSIX path of item i of addedItems)
            try
                showImage(itemPath)
            end try
        end if

    end repeat

 end adding folder items to

 on showImage(itemPath)

    set volumeMountpointInfo to do shell script "/usr/bin/hdiutil  attach " & itemPath & " | grep Volumes"

    if (openWindow is true) then
        if (makeFrontmost is true) then
            tell application "Finder" to activate
        end if

       set currentDelim to text item delimiters
       set text item delimiters to tab

       set volumeMountpoint to POSIX file (text item 3 of volumeMountpointInfo)

       set text item delimiters to currentDelim

       tell application "Finder" to open folder volumeMountpoint

    end if

 end showImage

====

second Applescript to determine the kind of file dropped into a folder

On adding folder items to thisFolder after receiving addedItems
repeat with i from 1 to number of items in addedItems
    set itemKind to the kind of (info for item i of addedItems) as string
    display dialog itemKind
end repeat
end adding folder items to

Edited Needs to be "Disk Image" rather than "Image"


iPhone 4S photos app not working I got my iPhone 4S a week ago since I got it, it seems I can't open the photo app.

I can't see the pictures I have taken. Whenever I try to open the photo app, a white screen appears for two seconds then closes by itself.

The videos I record don't seem to appear on the video app as well. The video app opens, but it shows that it is empty.

I tried to reset the device but it didn't help.

How can I fix this error?

It looks like your best choice is to do an OS restore through iTunes if you can.  If that does not work, I'd contact Apple Support.

Also, for the record, videos that you take using the Camera app do not appear in the Videos app, they appear in the Photos app as well (strange, I know).