Only root login remains (all other users gone) and even root hangs, so can't access! We have been locked out of our iMac running on El Capitan. Basically all known user accounts have disappeared. Only "other" remains which seems to the "system administrator" or "root" and when trying to login with this one, it hangs (endless turning white circle). Have been on forums and tried many of the First Aid (and second aid) tips and tricks, including fsck (where I found out initially "MacHD had been modified", and eventually got to "MacHD seems to be working fine").

Someone suggested the problem may be in Launch Services area and to access the Mac through FireWire and Target Disk Mode, but I don't have the possibility for such connection, plus without step-by-step I am not tech savvy enough to dare the programming challenge it seemed to require.

Any help would be wonderful. I would bring it in, but as always when things fail, several important docs on the hard drive hadn't been backed up yet, so there we are.

According to several sources: Apple discussions or Mac notebooks: Apple Hardware Test may report "HDD" alert the error: error 4HDD/11/40000000:SATA(0,0) may be erroneous or at least unclear/dubious.

It may be related to the vanishing of your users in the Login Screen or not.

Depending on your findings in Single User Mode you have several options:

Removing .AppleSetupDone to re-run Setup Assistant

To remove this file, you have to boot to single user mode by pressing ⌘S while booting. After a few moments, you'll see the Mac boot to the command line.

Check the file system and mount your main volume in read/write mode

/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /

With the filesystem mounted and accessible, it's time to remove the file so OS X will re-run Setup Assistant:

rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

Reboot your Mac with

reboot

After rebooting the Setup Assistant will create a new user and setup your system. Choose a user name not used previously. Search for any "old" (in /Users) or moved (elsewhere) previous user folders. In a second step you can change the permissions of the individual user folders and recover all data.

This might fail if your system is corrupted (bogus LaunchServices etc.)
If your system seems to be corrupted, reinstall it:

Reboot to Recovery Mode by pressing ⌘R while booting.

Open Disk Utility in the main panel and verify/repair your main volume and permissions. Quit Disk Utility.

Reinstall the system with Reinstall OS X. This shouldn't affect any user data or already installed apps.
If the previous step also fails I recommend to slightly resize the main volume, create a new 50 GB volume and install a fresh version of OS X to it. Since you have a Fusion Drive (CoreStorage LVG) you may either use the command line or Disk Utility to resize the main volume. Using Disk Utility choose the Fusion Drive and "Partition" and use the handler to slightly resize the main drive. Then choose the new item "Untitled" and the erase button and rename it to something else but stay with the default format (OS X Extended (Journaled)).

After successfully installing OS X to the new small volume attach an external drive and save all precious data to it. You may have to adjust the permissions of some of the user folders to accomplish this.

Finally erase the drive and install a new system. Now either let it check by an Apple authorized technician or at the Apple Genius bar for the errors mentioned at the beginning or continue setting up your system.


How can I switch Chrome to display web pages with the San Francisco font in El Capitan? I'd like for Chrome's default sans-serif font for websites to be San Francisco. However it's not showing up in the font list. Any ideas for how to change this setting?

You will need to install the San Francisco font to be user-accessible. (See Can I use or access the San Francisco font that comes with El Capitan?) Once you do this, you will be able to set it as the default font in Chrome.


Account limit reached when attempting to create a new Apple ID I am trying to create a new Apple ID and now it's telling me: "account limit reached"

If you reset your iPad, in the open dialogue boxes, skip the apple id sign in. When you reach the home screen, open settings and log in your apple id. Then you can begin purchasing again. But since this is your first time to purchase, make sure use different credit card.


Exporting all file locations that could not be found on iTunes I'm running Windows 7 64 bit and am using iTunes. I previously had an issue where when iTunes organized my media library (after transferring all my music over), the file names were auto-truncated to 40 characters. This effectively broke a large portion of my library.

To see all the songs that were broken I created a smart playlist of "dead" songs and exported that playlist information. Unfortunately, the dead locations did not get exported when I chose File -> Export Playlist, only the other metadata was exported. This is strange because when I actually select Get Info on the song, I can see the file path it is looking for.

Is there some way to get this information exported? I'm trying to write a script to auto-rename the files it finds to the correct (longer) file names.

Edit:

Here is an example:

Let's say I have a song that is broken in iTunes (the file path is incorrect). In iTunes this appears with the correct metadata. I can check the metadata by right clicking on the song in question and selecting Get Info.

My song structure looks like this:

Artist: DJ Rashad
Song: Last Winter
Album: Double Cup
Genre: Footwork
Location: C:\My Music\iTunes\DJ Rashad\Double Cup\DJ Rashad - Last Winter.mp3

In this case the Location attribute is incorrect, which is fine. But I still need this data when I export the information about the track. So I drag this track into its own playlist and export the information via File -> Export Playlist. I expect to see the structure above but instead what appears in the corresponding file is the following:

Artist: DJ Rashad
Song: Last Winter
Album: Double Cup
Genre: Footwork
Location:

Since iTunes does not find the location, it exports an empty location. Since I am writing a script to correct some broken paths, I do not want an empty location. I want the last known location of the file (the one that is displayed when viewing Get Info). How can I export the complete information under the Location attribute?

suggest you go a different path.

first remove all the broken links in itunes
Can I easily view all songs that iTunes can't locate in Finder?

then drag&drop your complete lib back in itunes (there wont be duplicates, if you drag files that are already linked/imported.)

done


Is there any app or anyway for mac to search within a video's texts/transcription This might be a very niche thing, but I have a lot of local and downloaded videos on my Mac that I keep for educational purposes, and was wondering if it's possible to search through the transcriptions/speech within the video.
I know searching in finder allows the ability to search within text documents and file contents, I'm looking for something similar for videos.
I'm willing to manually attach the transcriptions myself to every video if that's required, since there are many apps that can do that. But the ability to search my entire Mac, like in finder, for a certain phrase and see which videos contain those search results would be extremely useful.
The closest thing available right now natively on macOS is to just paste as much of the transcript inside the comments section of the video's 'get info'. Doing this allows searching in finder and getting the video in the search results but there is character count limit so it's very limiting.

If the mp4 file has a subtitle track, you could extract the text to a .srt file using mp4box (more info can be found at How to extract subtitles from MP4 and MKV movies. Of course, you would need to do this for every file you have then search within those .srt files.


Macbook pro retina setting resolution to 2880 restored to 1440 after restart system System is Mountain Lion, these steps will reproduce the problem:

Select a primary resolution in System Preferences pannel, Displays. Select the 'Best for Retina display' (Other resolution in this pannel is also OK).
Use the SetResX to set the resolution to 2880x1800 (I tried some other programs, the same result).
Restart the system or log out the current account.

Then after login again, the resolution will restore to the resolution in setp one.

Is there a way to keep the resolution to 2880x1800 permanently?

Thanks.

I found a solution here:

http://wineskin.urgesoftware.com/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=51

  This isn't exactly a Wineskin related post, but... with the new Retina
  Macs not having a way to truly change the resolution, I threw together
  a little app that uses the WSReso command line tool I made for older
  versions of Wineskin for changing resolutions before RandR was added
  to XQuartz... it uses WSReso and its just an Applescript GUI front end
  that lets you change resolutions, including knocking that Retina
  Display Macbook Pro up to a true 2880x1800.  Works on any Macs for
  changing resolutions around... its very simple, but effective.

  http://wineskin.urgesoftware.com/Special/Change Resolution.app.zip

  EDIT: update

  if you want to just have an app that automatically goes to your max
  resolution that you can put in your startup items... use this

  http://wineskin.urgesoftware.com/Special/SetRes.app.zip


Can’t mount external drive - Mojave came up here after a lot of looking around. Even seen a couple of examples of my issue,  JT not sure what to do. Have tried a bunch of stuff and still cannot not get drive to mount. Apple says to wait for a call back in a week after the holidays. Doubt that anyone is reading here now, but.....  tying anyway. Older HP external drive and recently upgraded to Mojave. Here is some of the details I posted on Apple ———-

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2

Not on the actual computer now but for the life of me can’t figure it out. Any ideas - all my back files are there. Tks Stumped.

Edit add info:

High Sierra previous os. run in safe mode, empty caches, remove .plist for time machine, try on another Mac, run iboysoft recovery software. cannot unmount as it won't mount. HP5000s drive. Drive just spins and spins showing activity but won't mount. connected by usb to MBP w/ Mojave. Tks! – Stumped 6 mins ago

From Terminal, what happens if you try:

sudo diskutil repairVolume disk2s2
sudo diskutil mount disk2s2

This will run the Disk Utility disk repair process. Can you report back with any errors or output you get.

You can also try booting into Single User Mode (at start-up hold down Command-S). That'll drop you into a command-prompt and you can try

sudo fsck_hfs -fy /dev/disk2s2
shutdown -r now

That runs a filesystem check (hence fsck), and can also repair damage, then reboots. After the reboot, check and see if it mounts.


Apple ID for iPhone X in Myanmar I ordered an iPhone X from the US. Now I am using it in Myanmar, but I cannot sign in to Apple ID. It asks for an address, phone number and Zip Code in the United States. However I do not have those. What do I need to do to set this up?

I like to go to the apple.com page where you buy a phone and tap the OS section. At the bottom of it, there is a small print section making note that not all features are available everywhere. Currently this link is:

https://www.apple.com/ios/feature-availability/

Sadly for you and residents of Myanmar - there is not one feature offered in that country. You may have to use your presence in another country to establish an account to use some of the features of the stores and OS that are only available in certain countries.

Start with the list above and perhaps pick one or two things you really need to do and see if you have any ties to those places to have some legitimacy for establishing an account without fabricating all the details or going to the expense of establishing an address in the US.


How do I create an AppleScript that will quit an application at a specific time and then put the computer to sleep? I've been toying around with AppleScript and Automator to get this thing to work, but I just can't seem wrap my head around it. If anyone could show me an example or give me some tips on how I can set an application to close at a specific time and then put the computer to sleep or shutdown, it would be greatly appreciated.

I'm assuming that you'd like to initiate this procedure as opposed to having it run at a regularly scheduled time.

My approach would be to initiate this from the command line, but any commands can be run in a shell script component of an Automator script with some modification. The following approach combines a few components to get the job done:

A tell command to quit the application
A command-line call to put the computer to sleep
A command-line call to schedule 1 and 2 for a specific time.

1. Telling the Application to quit

This can be as simple as:

osascript -e 'tell application "AppName" to quit'

2. Putting the computer to sleep

Have a look at pmset for more details, but issuing the following command will put your computer to sleep:

pmset sleepnow

3. Scheduling an operation to be run at a specific time

Have a look at the at command. This command gives you the ability to specify a time for a command to run. You'll need to enable this functionality as it is not by default. To enable the atrun daemon, run the following command [reference on SU]:

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.atrun.plist

Once you've enabled atrun, any command can be scheduled for a specific time by issuing

echo "<command>" | at HH:MM

which works because at takes it's input from stdin by default. A simpler approach is to run commands listed in a file. A file can be executed by using the -f flag, followed by the name of the script to be run like this:

at -f /path/to/file HH:MM

Putting it all together

What follows assumes that atrun is enabled. As a toy example, let's say that I want to quit Mail and put the computer to sleep at 11PM. I would create the a file containing the commands that I want run as follows:

osascript -e 'tell application "Mail" to quit'
pmset sleepnow

Save that file to quit-and-sleep and then run on the command line

at -f /path/to/quit-and-sleep 23:00

Caveats

I didn't do any checking to make sure that Mail actually closed. The script also assumes that nothing else is going to get in the way of putting the computer to sleep.  I've kept it simple here as a starting point for what you want.


Windows resized after sleep with external display connected to Macbook Pro via DP to usb-c I have an external display ASUS VG279 connected to my MBP 2018 via Display Port to USB-C cable by moshi (sold on Apple's website). I use 1080p resolution for the display and my macOS version is Catalina (10.15.4). When my laptop wakes up after sleep, all my windows resized (smaller than should be) and I have to manually adjust it every time. My laptop is always on a charge.

How can I do so the size of windows kept to the external display resolution after sleep?

The issue doesn't happen if I lock my computer manually and then unlock it, only if it was put to sleep according to the schedule in energy saver preferences.

UPD: I don't know what happened but now after the laptop wakes up I see my windows minimized and a small part of them picking out from the right side of the screen, it's like I have a two display setup and the windows were on the right screen even though my laptop lid is always closed.

I ended up installing and using Display Maid


Received a FaceTime call from unknown person I have received a FaceTime call from unknown source. I'm not sure who this person is, nor do I know the caller's email.

What can I do? I don't want unknown people contacting me. It was from an iCloud email address.

Block that caller! And if he or she calls again just contact Apple and they will help you resolve the problem! Just follow my steps and you will be fine!


How to recover factory reset in iPhone 5 apps without backup I forget my passcode and when I reset my phone I lost all my data, photos and apps. I was connecting to iTunes but I never backed up.

How can I get all my photos and apps on my iPhone 5 without a back up?

I was able to restore my apps from iTunes, but its like new again, how can I include the data inside the applications?

But if you have a apple ID you can get apps back by simply downloading them on device with no extra fee


How to create a service that puts selected text into quotation marks? I'd like to create a service that puts any text I select in TextEdit or web page text editors into quotation marks. I understand Automator is the tool to use, but how do I create this action using AppleScript or another scripting language in OS X (Lion)?

One way is to create a service that runs a shell command.

For this, open Automator, create a new Service, check "Output replaces selected text", then add the action "Run Shell Script". In the box where you enter the Shell script write:

cat | sed 's/^/"/' | sed 's/$/"/' | sed 's/""//'

This takes the text you entered as input, and adds a quotation mark at the beginning and end.

Now, once you save your service, you can, for example, go to TextEdit, select the text you want to quote, then go to Services -> "name of your service", and your text should now be quoted!

Edit: I included the removal of trailing double quotation marks


How do you cancel 1000's of iTunes Match downloads on the iPad without swiping each one? I accidentally asked iTunes to download all my music from match to the iPad. There are 2500+ songs in the queue now and they won't download before my flight tomorrow. The music downloads are blocking more important app upgrades.

I can't cancel each one individually since it would take hours.

How can you cancel all downloads in one go?

(iOS 6)

I just have the same exact problem. It's a bug in iOS. If you go to iTunes App on your iOS device, you will see a Downloads section. There you will see all pending iTunes Match downloads. It's a pain if you have thousands of songs to delete them from this download queue one by one. So here's how to squash this bug.

You absolutely don't need to reset your phone and go back to square one or email iTunes. Spare yourself the trouble. Here is a simple fix.

Go to Settings > iTunes & App Store > iTunes Match
On that screen, turn iTunes Match off.
Tap your Apple ID on that screen and tap Sign Out. (I don't know if this is necessary but it works anyway. Just an added precaution for this to work.)
Restart your iOS device (Hold down Sleep and Home button for about 5 seconds until it goes black and the apple logo in a black background appears).
Go back to iTunes Store > Downloads and voila they're all gone. All those pending downloads are reset. And your iOS device won't download anymore of those songs unless you tell it to.


App Store - are "legal contract" kind of apps permitted? I'm considering involving a lawyer in creating a simple app to create a contract between two people. They read and sign the contract on an iPhone and both get copies of it.

I know there are medical apps like WebMD that provide medical info, while disclaiming intent to diagnose, cute or treat conditions. Can the same approach be applied to an app that creates contract while disclaiming offering legal advise?

I'm interested if the kind of app I'm proposing would be allowed on the App Store?

Only Apple's review staff can answer this question. Any answer offered here can only be an opinion.

As the Apple's App Store guidelines stand today, the app may be accepted. However, Apple reserves the right to reject apps that carve new niches and push boundaries.

Contact Apple

Talk to Apple's App Store staff about how best to approach your app and how to avoid being rejected:

  App Review

  Find out the status of your app and submit general questions for the App Review Team.


About downloading photos from iCloud I turned off iCloud photos on my iPhone. After that, some of my photos have been lost. How can I find them again and then restore them?

Sounds like the photos you lost were stored in iCloud and not on your phone, so they disappeared when you turned off iCloud Photo Library.

You can either enable it again, or find them at www.icloud.com (click on the photos app once you login).

This can also be done in the desktop photos app if you have a mac.

From there you can share these photos, maybe you could email them to yourself 1 by 1 and save them to your phone.


Windows resize to maximum for no reason On High Sierra, from time to time, my current window maximizes itself without any keyboard or mouse dragging. Mostly it is in browsers. I use both Chrome and Firefox. I hate this and want it to stop. If I want a window to resize, I will do it myself. Any suggestions? Have not been able to find similar issues.

Are you accidentally double clicking the window's title bar?
In modern versions of macOS, double clicking a window's title bar mimics the behavior of the old "Zoom" button that was semi-replaced in OS X Yosemite. I find that I sometimes activate this behavior accidentally.
To disable the behavior, go to System Preferences ➞ Dock and uncheck "Double-click a window's title bar to (Zoom)"


Camera QR Code Scan always open in different safari I have eCommerce website with number of products QR code. When user scan products 1 by 1. It always open new Safari window.

So session is not maintained for that user.

For each product there will be different sessions.

So it can't be in the same cart.

Cookies are maintained across tabs and windows if not in private mode and not explicitly disallowed in Safari Settings. So if you can create some cookies and update the cart on every page load and reload, different windows will not be a problem.

I assumed that this is a problem when the user is logged out. Otherwise for signed in users, cart can be maintained on the server side.


What are the consequences of upgrading to OS X 10.7 Lion if I have a separate Boot Drive and Home folder drive in my MacBook Pro? I have an early-2011 MacBook Pro 15" with a 128GB SSD. I replaced the built-in SuperDrive with a 750GB MCE OptiBay HD, so my boot drive is the 128GB SSD (speed!) and I have moved over most of my Home folder except for Applications and Library to the 750GB HD (storage!). To make it all work smoothly, I followed TUAW's advice found here.

My directory structure looks like:

SSD (Boot)

Applications
Developer
Library
opt
System
Users

HD (Storage)

Desktop
Documents
Downloads
Dropbox
Library (the other one)
Movies
Music
Pictures
Public
Sites

So, my concern is that upgrading to Lion will eradicate this structure in some way and that I will have to do a special install. Has anyone tried this yet and can you tell me if there are any pitfalls I need to be aware of?

You probably should do what BMike has said as a precaution, but what you could also do is create alias folders in the Empty Users Home folder on the SSD. The alias folders would be empty, but would link to the actual folder on the larger hard drive. To create the alias, drag the actual folder to the users folder on the SSD whilst pressing command and alt together, you will see the green plus sign on the folder turn to a little curved arrow, whilst you're dragging.

Anything you put into the alias folders will go in the corresponding folder on the larger HD! This should also prevent any issues with the Lion upgrade, however in saying that, you shouldn't have a problem anyway as all the OS files are on the SSD!

Hope this helps!


Always ask for password when mounting encrypted partition I have an external disk with partitions A and B. B is an encrypted HFS volume with as password. (Presented as "Apple_CoreStorage" or "Logical Volume OS X Extended").

When I connect the drive, OS X asks for the password to the partition. If I unmount the partition, and mount it again, OS X does not ask for the password.

I have to physically disconnect the drive and connect it again to make OS X ask for the password.

Is there any way to require the password to be entered every single time the partition is mounted? (This is the way encrypted sparse images work, for example.)

This is a flaw in the CoreStorage encryption system. When you first connect the physical disk, the volume is in state Locked. Once you enter the password, the volume becomes Unlocked. (you can actually see the state of your volume from diskutil list)

The problem is that CoreStorage does not lock a volume until it is physically removed from the system.

My theory is that the keys used to unlock the volume being stored within memory until the drive is ejected - although the volume may be unmounted and locked, the keys to unlock it remain within memory. Attempting to remount and unlock the partition just calls for the keys from memory instead of asking for the password.


Is there a way to turn off an external Apple Cinema Display remotely and continue to use the computer? Here's the situation: I often access my Mac Pro remotely using Screen Sharing and sometimes TeamViewer. The problem is that when I do this, everything I'm doing can be seen by those near the physical computer. It also uses a considerable amount unnecessary power to have the displays on but not actually being used.

Is there a way to turn them off and not just blank if possible, while still using Screen Sharing or TeamViewer Free?

I don't think this is possible with Screen Sharing.  (That would go against the "spirit" of the Screen Sharing feature, which is to help people troubleshoot a problem or work collaboratively on something.)

This is not a free alternative, but if you use Apple Remote Desktop ($80), you have the option to "curtain" the screen, which not only hides what you're doing, but locks the remote computer against local access.  It also has many powerful system maintenance/monitoring features.

As far as saving power, could you simply turn off the local display before you leave the location?  You should also set the display to sleep when it's not being used (in the Energy Saver pref pane) -- in that case, it would only be drawing power while you're connected and using it.  Also, if you're using one of the new LED Cinema Displays, keep in mind they are energy efficient devices, so the power draw isn't as much of a concern as with standard (non-LED) displays.


Identify disk manufacturer in Macbook Air I wonder how can I know which is the disk's manufacturer for my Macbook Air. Is there a way to know whether the disk is one of those faulty SSD disk that Apple has recalled.

The article which you linked to from the Verge says there is a firmware update on the app store which will test your drive.  If your firmware cannot be updated Apple will replace your drive for free.

I would back up my data and run the mentioned firmware update.

I could not find the firmware update on the app store but I found it on the Apple support site here.


Xcode on a classroom image asks students for admin password I'm teaching a college class, and IT has installed Xcode on the image for the iMacs in the classroom/lab. In theory we should be good to go.

However, when running a project or playground, there are multiple dialog boxes that pop up asking the students for admin passwords. Here is a screenshot of one of the dialogs from a student:

An administrator was present during the first class to enter these for students, and he and I had tested that future logins on the same machine by a different user should no longer prompt the request for this information. However, students are continuing to report that they are running into these dialogs intermittently. I need to resolve this problem to ensure students can complete their coursework.

Is there a way to install Xcode on an image such that it doesn't perpetually ask users for an admin password?

You can add users you would like to have access to debugging to the _developer group.

dseditgroup -o edit -u adminusername -t user -a studentusername _developer

Replace ‘adminusername’ with the username of a sudoer you have the password to and ‘studentusername’ with the username of an account to add to the group.


How to remove OS X Installer for 10.10. to get back to 10.7, the originally installed OS? I ran OS X 10.7 latest version on my MacBookPro 2011.
Then I installed on an external USB stick 10.10.3 from my running system OS X 10.7.
The installation on the stick was successful.

After testing 10.10 for some minutes I restarted the system, took of the usb-stick and wanted to restart from my internal disk the 10.7 system.
However, now there is the installer and insists on installing 10.10, what I do not want to do.

The disk utility says that my internal disk is not writable and that I cannot modify it.
Starting with an external disk with 10.7 works, but does not allow to reactivate the internal disk.

Recovery with  Cmd ⌘   R   loads 10.7 via the internet (it therefore still know that the original system is 10.7), but I cannot recover the 10.7 system, since I cannot write to the internal disk.

The internal disk is now Master Boot Record partitioned.
I do not know if it was GUID before or not: At least it worked for three years before.
I have a backup, but since this is 1TB I do not want to load it via a USB 2.0 port.

How can I reactivate my internal disk with 10.7?
If reasonable I would change to 10.8 (but not higher) if there is a utility that works with 10.8 only.
Any proposal or links to tool to remove the OS X installer and allow me to restart from my internal disk with 10.7?

The output of gpt -r show /dev/disk0:

sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0
results in:
       start        size  index  contents
           0           1         MBR
           1           1
           2  1466246608      1  MBR part 175
  1466246610           1
  1466246611   487278557      2  MBR part 175

I have a time machine backup.

Something really, really bad happened to your internal 1 TB drive:

The GUID partition table was somehow replaced by a dual (and therefore additionally false) MBR partition table.

You may recover the previous GUID and your missing volume with a disk recovery tool like Disk Warrior to some extent. But since you have a backup just restore it:

In case you have a Time Machine backup:

Boot to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing altcmdR. The prerequisites for an Internet Recovery are listed here: Recovery/Internet Recovery.
In a few words you need the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated for a successful internet recovery.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot into the Recovery Netboot image which is loaded from an Apple server.

(Alternatively you may boot to an external drive containing a Recovery HD or a full OS X system or a OS X thumb drive.)
Open "Disk Utility" and partition your internal disk: GUID partition scheme (use the "Options..." button at the bottom of the main pane for this), one partition, journaled HFS+.
Close "Disk Utility".
Attach your Time Machine backup drive.
Open "Restore from Time Machine Backup" and restore your main drive if you have booted from a Recovery drive.
If you've booted from a full OS X external drive just open Time Machine and restore your internal drive.

In case you have a different back-up app:

Follow the instructions of the non-Apple back-up application


Force images to synchronize from an iPhone to a Mac My sister in law would like to synchronize photos from her iPhone to her Mac.
When she connects the iPhone to her Mac, iTunes starts up but photos don't synchronize.

I tried taking a couple of photos and import them using iPhoto. The software did not detect any new photos. Although I can see a bunch of very recent photos on the iPhone, the most recent photos in the iPhoto collection are from last year.

I'd like to manually copy all the photos from the iPhone into her Mac and then re-synchronize the images. Can this be done?

You can manually import photos from iPhone into iPhoto. Connect your iPhone, open iPhoto, select iPhone in the sidebar, and select all of the photos you want to import, then click Import.

If she has upgraded to iOS 6 and has an iCloud account, she can enable Photo Stream on both devices. This will synchronize photos and place them in monthly albums in iPhoto.

Enable Photo Stream on OS X:

System Preferences > iCloud > Photo Stream

Enable Photo Stream on iOS:

Settings > iCloud > Photo Stream


Can I use any storage device to store user profiles using Profile Manager? I'm using the OS X server. I'm trying to use the Profile Manager. I need to create about 40 users (each user has yours workspace, desktop, etc.). Due to that, I estimate that the server will need about 1 TB to each user.

Can I use the storage device (external HD, RAID, etc) to store all those users profiles? What is the default folder to store it? How can I change that directory? I need to store the every configuration for each user.

I think what you are asking is how to enable (network) "Home Directories". Workstations need to be connected via Gigabit Ethernet for this to work well. For laptops, use "Portable Home Directories" over a robust Wi-Fi network (or Ethernet)

Yes, you can use any (direct-attched) storage device, though for 40TB, I would recommend a RAID over Thunderbolt (2 if possible).

In File Sharing, add or create a new shared folder on your external (direct-attached) storage, then click the check box to "Make available for home directories over... " and select a file sharing protocol (AFP or SMB).

Set up the Home Folder (directory) location in "mobility" using Profile Manager


How to find ip address of Iphone connected to Mac I want to find IP Address of Iphone which is connected through usb to my Mac.

Kindly note that Mac and Iphone are on different networks.

I used ideviceinfo which gives me the Iphone MAC address. I did not have any luck finding IP address from MAC address either.

If you are on a WiFi network, go to the Settings app, then Wi-Fi.  On the Wi-Fi screen, touch the circled-i to the right of your connected network, and the IP of your phone will be displayed along with some other network information.


Pair a bluetooth mouse directly with Macbook Air I have Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Mouse, which has a dedicated Bluetooth receiver USB dongle. When I plug it in on the left-hand side of the laptop and the mouse is physically on the right-hand side of the laptop, there is some kind of interference and the mouse does not work, it only works when the mouse is physically on the left-hand side of the laptop, closer to the dongle.
Is there a way to pair the mouse directly with the built-in Bluetooth in the Macbook Air so I don't have to use the USB dongle?
It is Macbook Air 13" 2020, and Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Mouse.

The mouse has a fixed connection to the dongle, you can not use a normal bluetooth connection
Once the bluetooth dongle fails or you lose it, you can't simply buy a new dongle, since you are unable to pair the mouse to it again. This means once you will end up with a useless mouse

Note: You have to dig a little deeper into the reviews/questions for example here on Amazon to verify that you can not buy dongle replacements


What is this line on my dock? I recently upgraded to Yosemite and I seem to have some sort of line on my desktop near the dock that won't go away.  I've changed my background, moved the dock and even rebooted and it stays there.  It looks like something that I can click on and drag up but it doesn't do anything if I click on it.  Did I install something that is causing this?

This is a progress bar under Downloads folder. It sometimes doesn't go away after completing the downloads. One solution for this is to enter this command in Terminal:

killall Dock

This will reset the Dock.


How do you cancel an automatic connection to a once joined wi-fi network on 10.7.4? I wish to no longer log on automatically to a wi-fi network that I once logged on to access the internet.

I have tried everything in the advanced tab of the Network preference panel to no avail: the computer never "forget" the WEP password no matter what I do.

Any further reaching solutions I would not be aware of?

THanks.

Paul

Go to System Preferences > Network.
Select your Airport/WiFi connection on the left.
Click on the "Advanced..." button in the lower right of panel.
You should see a list of "Preferred Networks." Select the one you want to "forget" and click the minus "–" button below.
You can also un-check "Remember networks this computer has joined" – that will cause the computer to – you guessed it – NOT remember networks it has joined! :-)


Can I stream music from my laptop to my iPod Touch over wifi? Rather than running a long cable from my Laptop to my stereo, I've been thinking for a while about getting one of those wireless devices that lets you transmit audio from your PC to a receiver plugged into the stereo.

Then I realised I already have hardware that can potentially do this - I have an iPod Touch, and a Wi-Fi network in the house.

So, is there some iPod Touch App that will let the iPod act as a Wi-Fi music receiver? And presumably, a corresponding piece of broadcast software for my (Windows Vista) Laptop?

edit: Bonus points for a solution that lets me stream all audio from the laptop, rather than just streaming music tracks.

You can use the Windows version of Airfoil to send any audio to an Airport Express connected to a stereo.  The page above claims it can do the same via an iPod Touch as well.  And you can try it for free.


Unable to proceed Windows installation on Mac I'm trying to install Windows on my Mac. I got 2017 Macbook Pro (2 thunderbolt 3 ports), A1708.

I have prepared my bootable drive (Windows 10, 1903). I am able to select a boot option (pressing option key on startup, and selecting EFI boot).

Upon entering the Windows installation, it shows the language selection screen as start of installation. However, built-in keyboard and mouse are not working so I can't proceed. Tried the same bootable drive on Macbook Air, and keyboard/mouse seems to be working fine.

Anyone experienced this problem? Hope you got suggestions! Thanks!

Managed to get this working.

For the keyboard/mouse issue, this is related to the Windows support software download from Boot Camp. Boot Camp Assistant > Action > Download Windows Support Software. Mine was around 1GB. Be patient. Don't use direct links you might find from other posts linking you to Apple support downloads. The contents should be copied inside your bootable drive.

As for the black screen restart that I encountered, that was my fault. I was using a Windows 7 ISO instead of the Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft downloads.

Managed to complete installation. Able to boot to Windows no problem. Will just have to test if there are things which are not working.

By the way, I only went this route because Boot Camp is giving me issues and I had to retry a lot on Boot Camp. Would be good if they somehow cache the downloaded support software.


iOS 7 Music app crashes on startup I just upgraded to iOS 7 and my Music app is now crashing every time I try to launch it.

I've tried rebooting my iPad, disabling iTunes Match, re-enabling iTunes Match, but nothing seems to let me access my music.

Any thoughts on how I can reset my Music app?

This has been reported here on Apple Support Community. Please try the solution posted there to see if it helps you.

Basically, their suggestion is to restore a backup of the device.


Can iMessages be deleted permanently or at least kept either on a phone or a computer, but not both? I would like to stop messages on my Mac from loading up all the messages I have on my iPhone when I plug it in.

Scenario: receive 10 iMessages on my iPhone during the day. I then delete them. So messages inbox on iPhone is empty.

I then plug phone into MacBook Air at the end of the day. When I open messages on the Air, and all messages load up, even though the ones that were deleted on my iPhone.

How do I stop this from happening?

I would like my iPhone messages to stay on my iPhone only, and my computer messages to stay on my Mac only.

It sounds like you simply have iMessage enabled on your Mac (which doesn't have anything to do with plugging your phone in, since your messages are synced through iCloud).

Anyway, just open up Messages (iChat), go to Preferences > Accounts, select your iMessage account in the list on the left and then unchecked the "enable this account" checkbox.


Creating SHA-2 certificate using keychain assistant I am trying to enable https on my localhost (for testing).  Using Keychain Assistant, I have created both a self-signed CA and a certificate issued by that same CA.  I have enabled trust on the CA in Keychain Assistant. I have placed the certificate files in my MAMP folder and have updated both the httpd.conf and httpd-ssl.conf files.  When I access my local website using Safari, I get a message warning me that certificate is not trusted and a link to instructions on how to trust the certificate via Keychain Assistant.

I thought the purpose of setting trust on the CA was to not need to explicitly trust the certificates it issues.  I came across the following while trying to understand the issue.

Why does iOS 13 not trust my own Root CA?

It states that the hash must now be SHA-2 rather than SHA-1.  When I review the certificate info, its fingerprint appears to be using SHA-1.  I cannot figure out how to create an SHA-2 certificate using Keyboard Assistant.

Can anyone tell me where this hidden capability lies?  Or did Apple create a certificate requirement that its own tool cannot comply with?

Turns out this was just my misunderstanding of how to read the certificate info and the various SHA algorithms.  I saw SHA-1 and SHA-256.   I did not realize the latter was a SHA-2 variant.  Apologies for any confusion this question may have caused.


How do I check if the battery has been calibrated on my Macbook Pro? How can I check if the battery calibration has been done properly?

I followed Apple's steps precisely, but I see no change in the loadCycles, or battery capacity using CoconutBattery.

Everything you need should be here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1490

There is no indication as such that you've done it 'properly', other than your 'Cycle count' (in System Profiler -> Hardware -> Power) will go up by one. However calibration doesn't necessarily affect your battery capacity immediately; instead it improves the longevity of your battery, and the accuracy of the battery life readings (in your menu bar) when your laptop is unplugged.


Terminal.app reverse text color under cursor macOS Catalina 10.15.2, Terminal.app 2.10

In VIM:

and in for example VI-mode at the command line:

There is an o under the first cursor, and an s under the second cursor. In-person, I can just about   make out the tiniest difference, and distinguish the characters.

But it's not easy at all.

How can I make my Terminal.app invert the colors of light text when the cursor is over it?

You can go into Preferences and change the color of your cursor so the text is visible behind it. The cursor color is changed by going to Preferences/Profiles where you get a panel like the one shown in the figure below.

I changed my cursor color to red and I could see letters behind it fine. Another option is to change your cursor to underline or a verticle bar. Those optional are selectable on the same pane to the left of my red box.


Mavericks to include better window management solution? Up until now, I have used a program called Stay to maintain my preferred location and sizing of all my apps.  My main use case is that I have two external displays that require me to rearrange my applications after unplugging the displays (which is quite common going to/fro meetings).

Since Mavericks is supposed to enhance the support for multi monitor setups, I was wondering if this new support eliminates the need for a third party solution.

Using Mavericks Mac OS X 10.9.1 here with 2 external monitors and the laptop display on a MBP late 2011. One is connected via the thunderbolt port and the 2nd one via a USB external adapter/card. Mavericks does not remember window position and sizing after unplugging my MBP from the two monitors and re-plugging it. Still have to use Stay.


Absolute path to an application executable in OS X I know where to find the executable file path to an app in Windows. For instance, Adobe Reader:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Reader 10.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe

I need to give the path in a OS X because Excel is asking me for the path.
What should I write?
Will Preview work?

The absolute path to the Adobe Reader executable is:

/Applications/Adobe Reader.app/Contents/MacOS/AdobeReader

Note the space in Adobe Reader and spaces either need to be escaped with a backslash.

/Applications/Adobe\ Reader.app/Contents/MacOS/AdobeReader

Or quote the fully qualified pathname, but not both.

"/Applications/Adobe Reader.app/Contents/MacOS/AdobeReader"

You'll have to test to see which form Excel will work with.

You can view the contents of a application bundle by a ctrl-click (right-click) on the application and select "Show Package Contents", then navigate to the Contents > MacOS folder where the applications executable is.

For Preview its: /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/MacOS/Preview


Mac mini 2012 with Dell U2717D & Dell U2417H So I'm having an odd issue. I'm pretty sure this only started since macOS 10.12 but I can't say for sure.

I'm using a late 2012 Mac mini with two displays. The first display is a Dell U2717D connected via DisplayPort. Resolution is 2560x1440 @ 60hz. I've never had any problems at all with this monitor connected to the mini. The second display is a Dell U2417H, connected via HDMI at 1080p resolution. I only recently started using it with my Mac mini again, but I use to use them both together on the mini without issue.

If I start up the mini with both monitors connected everything works perfect. The problem only arises if I power down the HDMI second display or plug it in after the mini has already been running.

What happens is the DisplayPort main display loses it's signal. Nothing I do can fix it other then restarting the computer. I've tried unplugging / cycling power on both displays in every combination. Once the main display loses it's signal the mini has to be restarted. The HDMI second display continues to work fine. The mini still recognizes the main display but gathers the Display settings pane to the second display as if it knows the main display isn't working.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks.

There are two things I would try at the outset: Resetting your SMC and NVRAM. Instructions follow.

Resetting the SMC on your Mac Mini

There are a number of ways you can reset the SMC on the Mac mini. My preferred option on older Mac minis is to follow these steps:

Shut down your computer
Unplug it from power
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds
Plug it back in and turn it on.

Note: If you prefer, you can also use Apple's latest steps for doing this instead. If so, ensure you're using the option for Reset the SMC on Mac desktop computers.

Resetting the NVRAM on your Mac Mini

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionpr keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you here the startup chime.
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).

Let us know how you go.


Mail.app does not fetch mail regularly with Exchange accounts on Lion I have this stupid symptom with my mac mail since upgrading from 10.6 to 10.7.

I have multiple exchange accounts; a couple times a day the inbox for 1 or 2 of them will be blank, quitting mail and re-opening will re-download all the mail.

Search also only works by person, not 'message contains'

So - I made a new user, everything works perfectly.  Symptom gone.

I formatted and restored from time machine, still have the problem.

This is a dev box with tons of customization - I want to properly PURGE the mail and accounts settings at the file system level, since I know a 'new user profile' is a proper fix for the problem.

Emptying the mail folders doesn't fix it, it re-downloads everything and the problem is still there.

Removing the accounts and re-adding doesn't fix it either.

This is a problem with Mail.app on OSX Lion which affects Exchange accounts only when Mail rules are enabled. All other IMAP/POP accounts work fine with rules. The "fix" I received from my sysadmin was to disable Mail rules — a bit harsh, but in the end I ended up implementing the same set of rules (mostly moving to different mailboxes) server side.

Digging further into this led me to this thread, and it seems the issue, while observed among Exchange users, has also affected others. Some of the suggestions there that worked were (not counting highly specific ones):

Delete all rules that were formerly in Snow Leopard and recreate them from scratch in Lion.
Use MailActOn, a paid app that costs US$25 to set up your rules. Several users commented positively on its usefulness.

One thing in common with nearly all the complaints there (and mine) are that the rules involve moving messages to different mailboxes. Simpler ones like highlighting messages still work (for me too). So until this is fixed by Apple, I'd recommend implementing rules that involve moving mails on the server side or using the app above.


Change Terminal.app's Default Shell to BASH How can I change Terminal.app's default shell to BASH?

For some reason, my friend's Mac (10.6.6) defaults to using TCSH instead of BASH. The obvious remedy is to choose /bin/bash as the command to open shells with (as below), but then it fails to load .bashrc and .bash_profile (even if I give a --source or --rcfile parameter).

How can I switch it to use bash the right way?

Open System Preferences, select user and right click on its name.
"Advanced options..." will appear. Change shell there.
If you're die hard Apple user, you probably will have to enable right click first.
Depending on your computer model, it can be done under Trackpad or Mouse Preferences.


How to know if the System Management Controller (SMC) has been reset? I've recently uninstalled Fan Control, and one of the steps of the uninstallation is that I need to reset the SMC.

So I've done that according to the instructions from the Apple website, however how can I be sure that it has been reset successfully? In particular, I wouldn't want the laptop to overheat because of incorrectly setup fans.

Is there any way to check all this (i.e. if the SMC and the fans are working as expected)?

Actually, as per my experience if you are going to do the SMC reset and your not fully charged battery Macintosh machine is charging, the charging indicator will be the reset indicator as below.

When battery is not fully charged:

Charging indicator is orange light when machine powered off.
Keep pressing Shift + Option + Control + Power for 10 seconds and indicator is still orange.
Indicator turns to green when release all keystrokes and keeps almost 1 second.
Light turns to orange then.


I can't type special characters on my Mac firmware password request I have the firmware password enabled on my MacBook Pro. I had never used it until this morning, when trying to access from another partition I have to write it inevitably to be able to do anything; I can't even return to the primary boot partition anymore.

The problem comes here. My password includes special characters, such a #. But I'm not able to write that or other characters, which the system allowed me to include when I configured the password.

Finally and with the help of my friend Víctor I have managed to solve the problem. An important detail is that I use a Spanish keyboard layout. When you configure the firmware password from the recovery mode of the operative, your local keyboard configuration is loaded. However, when you try to enter the firmware password the distribution that is loaded is the American.

So, to enter the special characters of your password you will need to know how they're transcribed using your keyboard as an American keyboard. E.g.: in a Spanish keyboard, the # is written using ⌥ option + 3 and in an American, ⇧ shift + 3. In the login password screen of the firmware you'll have to use ⇧ shift + 3 to input it.

In honor of the truth, when you configure your firmware password a comment urges you only to use letters, numbers and punctuation symbols. I must admit that I didn't notice that warning. And being an advanced and very careful user, I established a potentially dangerous password for the integrity of my system without perceive it. I consider it's an important error in the system.

I can only reiterate the gratitude to my friend Víctor for his help this morning. We use his Mac to transcribe my password with an American keyboard layout.


OS X Terminal equivalent of Ctrl+Left / Ctrl+Right In Windows and Linux I could always hit ctrl+← or ctrl+→ to skip a word to the left or right in the terminal.  In text editors it seems that ⌥+←/→ works, but no dice in the terminal.  I've searched Google and found nothing except a Wikipedia page that claims ⌥+B/F does the job, but all it does is print ∫ and ƒ characters to my terminal (or ı and Ï if I hold ⇧). Any ideas?

This was driving me crazy too, however I didn't want a Terminal-specific fix as I don't use Terminal, and being able to SSH into my OSX box had to use the correct keybindings too.

Also, personally, I didn't care about the ⌥ key as discussed earlier; I wanted to maintain the ctrl+←/→ combination that I'm used to on Linux.

To solve this problem, I added the following to my ~/.profile:

bind '"\e[5C": forward-word'
bind '"\e[5D": backward-word'
bind '"\e[1;5C": forward-word'
bind '"\e[1;5D": backward-word'

Note the first two apply to bash in Terminal; the last two apply to bash in iTerm2 and incoming ssh connections. Don't ask me why the keyboard emulation is different ;)

For the record, I was able to find what the keycodes actually were thanks to a hint from this stackoverflow answer: You can run cat > /dev/null to monitor the exact keycodes sent during a key combination.

(Note that for me, when I run cat > /dev/null and press ctrl+← it produces ^[[1;5D. Your exact keycode may differ, but the first ^[ is represented as \e, as shown in my example code.)

BTW, if you want to see all active bash keybindings, run bind -p.


iPhone4s turned itself down then turned on by itself then turns off by itself again and again While I was charging my iPhone4s it turned itself down then it turned on again by itself then it turns on again then off then on and so on. How will I fix my phone?

A few ideas:

Try stopping all apps and then restarting your phone
Is this happening after you installed/updated a certain app? Try removing it
Backup your phone, reset it to factory settings, then restore it from the backup
Take it to an Apple Service Center


AirPlay mirroring on iPod touch 4G I've just bought Reflection app for Apple TVize Mac. It works when playing video. Now i've discovered i have also AirPlay Mirroring icon in task bar on my iPod touch (see picture). I've been expecting i'll see screen of my iPod on my Mac. Are there any further steps to do on the iPod to stream the screen?

You have an airplay icon, not an airplay mirroring icon on a 4th generation iPod. You need a 5th generation to get mirroring. On the iPad, there is an option for turning mirroring on and off. So on my iPod 4 I get sound but no video on my TV when using Netflix, for instance. On my ipad I get both sound and video.


Can't modify partitions I was beta-testing an Operating System and set up a separate 50 GB partition on my single 500 GB SSD. Now I cannot remove the beta partition. It shows up as another disk entirely. What can I do?

As you can see, I can't make any modifications to the partition structure (no + or - available, nor can I rename a partition). I should also add that the primary 450 GB partition is encrypted with FileVault 2, but the beta partition was not encrypted.

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         447.6 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:          Apple_CoreStorage                         51.1 GB    disk0s4
   5:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s5
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS β                     *50.5 GB    disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s4
                                 27FE73A1-740C-4600-B2C1-7252F1279293
                                 Unencrypted
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *447.3 GB   disk2
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 4E37E178-D9FC-4D18-8157-E57A65AB283B
                                 Unlocked Encrypted

Thanks @Tetsujin. The listing looked a little screwy so I was a little hesitant to go mucking around with the command-line diskutil. But I ended up doing a diskutil corestorage list and then

diskutil corestorage delete [UUID of 50GB Logical Volume Group]

GUI Disk Utility correctly saw the 50 GB of empty space as part of the other Logical Volume Group and I was able to delete it and merge it back in fine.


Can corrupted MacBook1,1 graphics be fixed? Can the graphics on this 2008 MacBook1,1 be fixed? I believe the OS version is Leopard with all Leopard updates installed. Everything looks fine through entering your password at the login screen, then the wallpaper appears, and the mouse, but all the graphics are corrupted after that, like so:

It is very hot here right now, could this be overheating damage? I tried resetting PRAM/NVRAM, next I will try some kind of restore with the Leopard DVD...

I would try erasing the Mac and reinstalling the OS


Reactivate AFP von Mac High Sierra OS X Server (10.13) I am having trouble with my High Sierra OS X Server's file sharing volumes. Sometimes the connection is very slow. Other times I can't connect. Then I sometimes have multiple mounted volumes of the same share, but I can't write to any of them.

I don't have any hard drives converted to APFS, so my question was, is there a way to activate AFP from Terminal?

sudo serveradmin fullstatus afp shows that there is something still there and I can start the afp demon without any error message with serveradmin start afp.

My only question is where do I configure the settings?

Thanks for any suggestions. ;-)

The item "File Sharing" is entirely removed from Server 5.4. You can still configure the settings in System Preferences > Sharing > File Sharing though.

If you you want to manage file sharing from the command line use:

sudo serveradmin ...

to enable or stop AFP and

sudo sharing ...

to manage shares.

Example:

Enter sudo sharing -a /Volumes/Share/Users -A Users to share the folder /Volumes/Share/Users via AFP and the share name Users.

Check man sharing for further options and flags.

Shares on APFS volumes can't be shared via AFP!


"System" storage on macOS Sierra is 470GB! My Mid 2012 MacBook Pro 13" says I suddenly ran out of Storage space.

My Mac barely has any data and my upgrade to Sierra was a clean install. Nothing was ported from previous backups.

If you see the image below, the "System" section in the left column says that it is consuming 466.82 GB. What I don't understand is why does my Mac require so much space? As far as I know, it should never increase 50 GB of space. Any help is appreciated.

Download OmniDiskSweeper and analyze your hard drive.

  OmniDiskSweeper will show you the files on your drive, in descending
  order by size, and letting you decide what to do with them. Delete
  away, but exercise caution.

OmniDiskSweeper will show detail of space usage:
Select System and start cleaning.

It could be the Time Machine backup file that takes almost all the free space.


Unable to unlock disk after enabling FileVault2 I just enabled FileVault2 with my personal account. After the necessary reboot my user is not able to unlock the disk which just started to be encrypted.
The only way to get access to my computer is to quickly lock in with another user account to unlock the hard drive, log back out and now log in to my normal account.

I already tried an approach I found while googling which advised to remove my user account's password which automaticlly removes the ability to unlock the disk. Then I rebootet, reset a password and enabled my account to unlock the disk via the standard dialog in the system preferences but this makes the system preferences crash. If it makes any sense to append the crash report to this question, let me know.

Any help or approach to resolving the problem will be highly appreciated. :)

This is a bug in Filevault2.

I'm German as well. :) What happens here is that the keyboard is reset to the US keyboard layout. As the keys are changed - especially non alphabetic keys - you're probably typing a different password.

You can enable to show the input method in System Preferences > User & Groups > Login Options. Then change it to German upon reboot.


iMac and Macbook Pro I have a Panasonic DV camera which I cannot download via fire wire on the Camera and the USB on the iMac. (iMac doesn't pick up the camera). Apple recommend use of the thunderbolt port. I cannot trace a firewire to thunderbolt connector cable. Firewire to USB I have, and I am able to get a female USB connector. However, I cannot find a thunderbolt to USB to make this option possible. Anyone any suggestions please?

You must have just missed it. Apple seems to sell a Thunderbolt to Firewire cable here. As always a bit pricy, but you could probably find other cheaper 3rd party ones.


What kind of SSD is compatible for MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010)? I'm about to buy SSD for my Macbook Pro mid 2010. What would you recommend for the following specification:

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010)
Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 320M 256 MB

Any SSD in a 2.5 inch form factor package will work. Pre-2013 models used standard drives, after that they went ssd-only.


Preview Fails to render zoom properly for large png I made a 32768 × 32768 pixel Mandelbrot png, because it's a fun thing to do.

It renders fine in preview, until I attempt to zoom in (which is the whole point of making the image as big as I made it).

When I do attempt to zoom in, it starts to grey out the rest of the image, and if I zoom out again, the rest of the image grays out.

It doesn't ever load. Is there a recommended way that I could render this large image?

[SPECS]

2017 15" MBP
2.8 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB RAM
Intel HD Graphics 1536MB
Radeon Pro 555 2048 MB
Image format: .png
Image resolution: 32,768 x 32,768 pixels
Image file size: 49MB

I would try to open the image in a brand new user account, you can set that up in System Preferences > Users & Groups or just use the Guest account. If you see different results here it must be something in your profile interfering with Preview.

But I'm betting the preview developers didn't account much for people opening 49MB, 32kx32k images. In the likely chance that this is a genuine glitch you could quickly report it at https://www.apple.com/feedback/ or sign up for a developer account & do a full bug report over at https://developer.apple.com/bug-reporting/.

In the short term I would recommend trying to use a different application to view this. A browser or photo editing application might be a good fit. For an image like this there is also a good chance that JPEG would more efficiently compress it & cause less issues, maybe look into converting it with Photoshop or similar.


Will iMac G5 recognize external cd/dvd rom? The SuperDrive on my G5 used to read disks without problems, but now it thinks all the disks I insert are empty. Now, I want to install different OS on it, and as I've read it can't be done with the USB. So I want to find an external CD/DVD-ROM and use it to install new OS.

My question is (I'm new to Apple stuff): will it recognize the external reader without issues, just plug and play?

You don;t say what OS version you are using on your G5, but if you use a standard non-fancy external USB attached DVD Rom drive, then I can't see any issues that would stop it from reading the drive an an OS level, but I'm not sure that this will be the case at the firmware level.  So you need to factor in how you will perform the OS install, and is this just a newer version of OS X (in which case you are probably good to go) or another OS entirely, in which case I can't say...


How to get all my iPhone apps onto my iPod touch? I've been using an iPhone 4 for a while now and have a bunch of apps, each with its own data. I just got an iPod touch and I wanted to have the same apps/data on it as well. The iPhone 4 is synced and backed up to iCloud.

When I set up the iPod, I chose to use iCloud and I tried "restoring" from an iCloud backup. After the set up process though, the only apps on the iPod were the default ones. Furthermore, it seems like none of my settings transfered over either. For example, I have exchange set up on the iPhone 4 and now it seems that I need to manually create this account on the iPod touch.

Is there any way to get the two devices to sync automatically via iCloud (or at least the first time to get all my apps/data on the iPod)? What if I was using iTunes instead of iCloud?

If you back up to iTunes, it should work to restore that backup onto the iPod touch. I've had success using that to migrate my first iPod touch to my second iPod touch and again to my iPhone 4S.

You should note that this restore will bring the device name along with it, so you'll have two devices with your iPhone's name.


MicroSD cards stopped working after OSX 10.9 installation, why? I don't know yet whether this is a problem with OSX 10.9 but I am unable to read the cards in my MBA after installation of 10.9. Any solution for this yet?

Are they NTFS formatted?  I am having trouble with flash drives that are NTFS formatted.  I use the free NTFS-3G software and am guessing that's the issue.  One post here seems to echo that sentiment:

CNET NTFS-3G user review

Also, found these Apple support posts where people indicate their problem is solved with NTFS-3G and Mavericks

https://discussions.apple.com/message/17356645#17356645

http://osxfuse.github.io/


iOS Backup Size plus Next Backup Size? If I have a limit of free 5GB iCloud, and the Backup Info states:

Backup Size: 4.28GB
Next Backup Size: 1.10GB

Doesn't this mean the next backup will be smaller? Therefore, shouldn't it overwrite/delete the existing backup and thus still be within the 5GB limit?

My backups keep failing because of lack of space.

This means your current backup size on iCloud is 4.28GB.  The next time a backup is done it will add an additional 1.10GB.

4.28 + 1.10 = 5.38GB.  That will exceed the amount of space you have in iCloud.

You can reduce what's being backed-up or buy additional storage space in iCloud.  Check out this answer to a similar question for tips on what you can do.


Terminal gives :command not found, when typing too fast I'm having the weirdest problem on my new MacBook pro, I had the same on the old one and I thought it might have something to do with that.

On my old MacBook Pro, whenever I used the pipe char in my Terminal followed by, let's say, grep I'd get a command not found.  If I then just typed grep in plain in the Terminal I'd get the standard output.

Later I discovered that the problem only occurred when I typed in the command fast:

Lets say I wanted to use tee to inherit something in a few text files.  From another Terminal I'd do:

  echo "-r base.txt" | tee -a development.txt texting.txt production.txt

I know this command and I'm able to type it all in ~3 seconds.  It gives me:

  -bash:  tee: command not found

Now if I try the exact same command but really take my time typing it, lets say I use 20 seconds on typing it, then I get:

-r base.txt

This is a confirmation that the command was executed properly.

I believed something was wrong with my old MacBook. Four months ago when I bought a new Mac it was exactly the same.

I then tried to do a fresh install. I deleted the hard drive and installed macOS from scratch. The same thing still occurs.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? If so, do you have a fix?

I also tried to install another Terminal like iTerminal2, I think that's what it's called, but with the exact same problem

Your problem is actually not Terminal.app specific.

The problem is more caused by you being slow on the keys than fast actually. When you type the | (pipe) character you need to hold down the Alt-key. When you're typing fast, you're actually too slow in releasing the Alt-key.

This means that you're not actually typing a space before the next command. You're pressing Alt-Space which gives you a "non-breaking space" - which is not the same as a space, but it looks that way in the Terminal.

The "non-breaking" space is not seen by your shell as a command delimiter, but instead a part of a command or file name. And therefore you get the error that no such file or directory exists.

To solve the problem - just remember to lift your finger from the alt key before typing space.

Alternatively you can change your keyboard mapping so that Alt-Space produces an ordinary space. You can find a guide to doing that here:

https://superuser.com/questions/78245/how-to-disable-the-option-space-key-combination-for-non-breaking-spaces


AppleTV and sorting TV Shows I've been wondering how to organize my shows by Show, then season and then episode because I have, for example, 6 entries for Bones (one for each season), 7 for Star Trek TNG, etc. and it just looks like a mess (Imagine if you had all 22 seasons of The Simpsons), is there something else to clean this up?

So far the best solution i've found with an ATV2 is just to use playlists. The files themselves are named ShowName.S01e01.ext, then i've sorted each show into a playlist so that I can watch them continuously without going back to the menu between episodes.


Can iCloud be used to export relatively large amount of data for a user to easily access? I'm trying to figure out the best way to export a large amount of images on my iOS app. There are too many to bundle up and email, and so I am looking at having them exported to iCloud. But if I do that, can the user easily access them for importing into desktop software or similar? Or are they secure and only able to be restored to my app on recovery?

If you upload anything to iCloud it will be available to all devices logged into that iCloud account provided there is a way to access the account directly. If I upload a picture to iCloud using my iPhone I can later drag it to my desktop on my Mac. In OS X (I believe in Yosemite and later) there is the "iCloud Drive" folder in the sidebar, (which may or may not be on) which you can use to access this directly. To turn this on

Go to Finder -> Preferences. (Or press ⌘+,)
Go to the Sidebar tab.
Check iCloud Drive.

Of course you'll also need to be signed into iCloud Drive and have it turned on which is possible in System Preferences -> iCloud.

iOS 9 also includes an "iCloud Drive" app which gives pretty much the same view. The only difference is non-Mac devices may not be able to open files that you put up there, but since you're uploading images that's fine as long as they're in a supported format.

On a non-Apple device there's always iCloud.com.

Things in iCloud will stay in iCloud until the user deletes them. Or unless iCloud servers get blown up. Whichever comes first.

However if these images are to be published in some way other than for personal use you should probably use FTP and allow the user to upload them elsewhere. Though this would be for something along the lines of a web design app.


Per-process CPU doesn't add up to total in Activity Monitor? Observing Activity Monitor, the per-process CPU is often very different to the total CPU.
Example
Here the sum of individual processes is > 50%, yet the total said to be (100 - 91.43) 8.57%.

Why is this? And which is correct?

The %CPU column is percentage of one [virtual] core. The total summary is percentage of entire CPU. So if, for instance you have 4 real cores, 8 virtual, the maximum possible total figure in the %CPU column would be 800%
if you want to check how many cores you have, Use either Window menu > CPU usage or CPU history.  The number of stripes is the number of virtual [hyper-threaded] cores. Halve that to get your total physical core count.
This shows 12 cores, 24 HT cores…


$PATH error on a terminal Before you raise your pitchforks, this is NOT another "How do I change my $PATH variable value?" question. I had installed Oh my zsh on my machine(Macbook Pro), and didn't like it. So I uninstalled it.

Ever since I installed it I get the following when I run the $PATH command:

Anups-xxxx-xxx% $PATH
zsh: no such file or directory: /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/opt/X11/bin

How do I get rid of the bit that says zsh: no such file or directory. Thanks in advance!

Okay, so you've got a good understanding of $PATH and how it's used, but you're mistaken in thinking that it's a command. In Bash (and other shells), words prefaced by a dollarsign are variables. You can change the value of $PATH with the export command (as you probably already know).

export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/something/you/need/bin

So in your shell when you just type $PATH you're basically telling your shell to run the command /usr/bin/:/bin/:/usr/local/bin:/etc//etc//etc/ which isn't a valid shell command.

@patrix was right, you should use echo to inspect your $PATH. I suspect that the "zsh: no such file or directory" is just your shell telling you that your command doesn't make sense.


Can't resize macOS partition (APFS error code 49187) I'm unable to shrink my APFS macOS partition in Disk Utility or by using diskutil. When I try with either method, I receive error code 49187. There appears to be no reference for these codes and I can't find any information online. I have tried deleting Time Machine snapshots and that made no difference. First Aid on my disk reveals some kind of corruption in the partition map:

I tried what it said and First Aid only lets me scan my macOS partition in Recovery Mode. Using diskutil gives me Error starting file system repair for disk0: Invalid request (-69886).

Is there any way to fix this? I'm trying to add a FAT32 partition to my disk.

This is on macOS 10.13.3.

I solved this error for myself by the following steps, (to be sure I included all)

Time Machine snapshot delete fix
Decrypt harddrive from filevault

This resulted in the persistence of the error. But then I booted in recovery mode (reboot and hold cmd+R) and started the disk utility there. To my surprise the Disk Utility showed me different values for the free space of my partition. I only had 20g free instead of the 50g I tried to allocate each time.

When I did the normal partition steps in the recovery boot Disk Utility everything went fine and I am currently running Ubuntu 18.04.1 alongside Mojave 10.14.1 without problems, be it that I only have 20g.


Track referrers and link them to actual purchases I am the owner of some content being sold through ibooks (http://www.sinkronigo.com). Some other websites are adding ibooks links to my books and I would like to know how many clicks to these links resulted in actual purchases.

I have been reading about the Itunes affiliate program. As far as I understand this is something that the referrer should join and then I would not have much control over it.

The iTunes Affiliate Program will get you a bit closer to understanding the marketing of your book but unfortunately it's not a silver bullet.

1.) To see the clicks that are generated on links to your book those other properties will need to use YOUR affiliate links.  Anyone using their affiliate links or a raw iTunes / iBooks link won't provide you with any insight.

2.) You won't be able to attribute which clicks / referrers actually resulted in sales of your specific books.  iTunes reports back affiliate sales at a category level, not a product level.

3.) iTunes Affiliate links are only active for 24 hours (or until the user clicks another affiliate links).  Any purchases outside that window are lost.

There are, however, some services, like GeoRiot (Disclosure: I am a co-founder), who offer some attribution reporting for iTunes products.  Here is a blog post about a project we did to solve exactly the problem you are wondering about - Introducing the Relative Conversion Score for iTunes


iCal and Mac Office 2011 I have a MacBook Pro user who uses Mac Office 2011 and he has been getting iCal invites from another user. When he gets them, he can't seem to respond to them (accept or decline).. the generated response seems to just sit in his outbox and never get sent.

Anyone seen this before?

Unfortunately, it is my experience that iCal and Outlook STILL do not play very nice together, although inviting from Outlook and accepting in Mail/iCal still seems to work much better than going the reverse direction.

There are some third party programs that tweak how ical sends invitations to make them more compatible

http://www.zamain.com/

But, yes this has been a known issue for years as any quick search for "ical outlook" will let you know! I thought this was supposed to be fixed once and for all with Office 2011, but I guess it has not been.


Disable bluetooth keyboard for second mac I've searched through some sites and couldn't find any solution for my problem, so finally landed here :)

I have two mac's in my job - one has bluetooth keyboard, one wired. I want to permanently disable bluetooth keyboard for that with wired keyboard. Now it automatically pairs with Mac which is first turned on. How I can do that?

Thanks!

On the second Mac, under System Preferences > Bluetooth > "Paired Devices" > right click (or control + click) the device (keyboard) > Remove. You must be connected to bluetooth to remove the device.

Under "Advanced" uncheck "Open Bluetooth Setup Assistant at Startup if No Keyboard is Connected"

Subsequently, you can disable Bluetooth altogether in the same pane > "Turn Bluetooth Off."


Is there a hard keyboard case for the iPad keyboard? Is there a hard case for the Apple wireless keyboard for the iPad?

The case is to make the keyboard safe to transport, like in a backpack or something.

I couldn't find any hard cases, but Waterfield/SFBags makes some nice soft cases you can use for transporting your Apple Bluetooth Keyboard:

(source: sfbags.com)
(source: sfbags.com)


How to 'linkify' plain text URLs (locally) on the Mac? I'm copying a slab of plain text that contains URLs into an RTF file in TextEdit, which I am hoping to automatically, (as there are a lot of them in the text), 'linkify' into rich text hyperlinks - make them clickable, and underlined in blue or as per the default appearance.

In WordPad on Windows, if you paste plain text, WordPad will automatically linkify any links, but TextEdit, Word 2011, and Pages on the Mac all will not.

I've also tried to export the text to PDF in TextEdit, Word 11 and Pages and fiddled around with Tools in Acrobat Pro itself - all to no avail.

An AppleScript would be fun, but (even if hooked into FastScripts), still not as quick or elegant as Windows' WordPad's instant and automatic linkification of URLs upon insertion into a document.

Is there something this elegant in OS X?

To convert multiple plain text URLs to hyperlinks in a rich text file in TextEdit, you must apply an action.

After pasting the text, go to Edit > Substitutions > Show Substitutions, making sure 'Smart Links' is ticked, and either select the text and use 'Replace in Selection' or use 'Replace All' to apply to whole document itself:

EXAMPLE:

I pasted same text twice for demonstration.

After pasting I selected the second paragraph (only for demonstration) and used the Smart Links - Replace in Selection:


How would I force Mac App Store to save my password indefinitely, rather than for 15 minutes? I'd like to either force App Store to save my password, or have it automatically entered (just for the Mac App Store password prompt) when it asks for my password. I want this because "require after 15 minutes" is far too limiting, since it's a pain to get my password. How can I force App Store to extend the duration of saving to indefinite, despite that it's designed to save the password for 15 minutes?

Note that I know this isn't the case for free apps. I want to purchase apps without having to enter my password. Is there a way to do this?

This is by design. It is meant to ensure that you indeed are verifying the purchase, especially since it involves money.

If you find entering password painful, consider setting up Touch ID (only applicable on MacBooks equipped with Touch ID) to authorize App Store purchases.

To configure, go to System Preferences → Touch ID and enable for iTunes & App Store. Also, go through this Apple Support document:

Use Touch ID on your Mac

In case your Mac doesn't have Touch ID hardware, consider using a password manager. A password manager lets you create, save and manage strong passwords for app and websites, and enter it for you automatically. This way you get both convenience without compromising on security.

There are many good third party password manager apps for Mac to securely store your password, so you can copy and paste it if for some reason you don't trust the keychain from Apple.

Search the Web for password manager for Mac.


Simplest h.264 to mpeg-2 converter I have a bunch of h.264 videos and an old standalone DVD player, which cannot play them.

I would like to convert them all into mpeg-2 and just burn onto a disk.

It seems, however, that it's somewhat not trivial kind of task.

When converting, I'd like to:

keep the video quality, if possible
keep the aspect ratio

What would be the best tool to do this? If you come to recommend a particular command-line tool, please consider suggesting full command, including relevant parameters.

Since you want to use the command-line I would recommend ffmpeg.

Generally speaking, it's the most capable tool you'll find for converting/encoding  anything you could imagine. It's incredibly fast and utilizes the audio command-line encoding tool LAME (my favorite), which compliments it almost perfectly. To be quite honest, it has so many uses that I would never be able to explain them all; It's definitely a winner in my book, so check it out.

For parameters that all depends on you, your setup, and what your expectations are. Without knowing which encoder you plan on using, or have installed, there are just too many variables involved to specifically to tell you which arguments should be used. If you need help with that part of it once you compile/install it then I'm sure someone here can help you out.


Payment declined to update my billing details in iTunes Store I'm trying to add my debt master card to my billing details and it says 'payment declined'. I had a chat with the Apple support and they asked me to check with the bank. I did that and the bank said the card was fine. I've been using the same card for all the other payments online and its been working properly.

I've tried doing this from my iPhone 6 and my MacBook Air (Yosemite)

Does anyone know how to fix it as the people at Apple support don't know what's wrong?

P.S. I have read the other threads saying click 'done' but I need to subscribe to Apple Music.. hence i want to pay!

You financial institution most likely rejected the pre-authorisation, you have to contact the Fraud department of your financial institution (not a bank advisor) and ask to authorise the iTunes Store

You can also use another Credit card or even better, use an iTunes Gift Card instead.


How can I remap the "`" key to "Esc" I am using a Mac after five years of Linux. I had remapped "Caps Lock" to "Ctrl" and swapped the "`" with Escape.

I was able to figure out how to convert Caps Lock to a Control, but can't figure out how to do the second. Please suggest a good tool so I don't have to undo many years of muscle memory.

(I use OSX Lion)

KeyRemap4MacBook

A preference pane with currently about 1500 remapping options. Includes Backquote(`) to Escape and Escape to Backquote(`).

Ukelele

You could create a custom .keylayout like this:

Esc on the layout above worked with all of the things I tested:

OS X UI actions like canceling a dialog and exiting full screen
On some websites with keyboard navigation like Google Search
As a meta key in Terminal.app

Modifying special keys from a .keylayout usually results in some unexpected issues though.


NTFS write not working any more after update I searched for solutions to make OS X write NTFS disks, and found this one;
How do I write to NTFS drives in OS X?
It worked like a charm, until I updated my mac recently. Now it does not want to write to the NTFS disk anymore even with the nobrowse options. But nobrowse is still applied since the disk does not appear on my Desktop.
The writing is just disabled.
Any reasons why the most recent version of OS X 10.8.5 does not allow to write to NTFS even with that uncomfortable way?

I'd go with the first rule of computer troubleshooting, which basically says that if you installed something (application, driver, etc...) and then that functionality stops working after an O/S upgrade then reinstall the app's latest version.

Also good to double check that it is compatible with your version of the O/S ;-)


Samsung Portable SSD t3 2TB drive only shows 250GB capacity I am running Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.6. My 2TB Samsung T3 only shows 250GB Capacity. I have installed the activation software from: http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/portable.html

I have formatted the drive using all available options under Disk Utility.

For an $800.00 hard drive that only has 1/8th of it's advertised capacity, this has turned out to be an enormous waste of money.

I spoke with Samsung today support today: They said I had been sold a "Tampered Model". Amazon.com did honor the request to return the item even though it was well outside the 30 day window for returns.


File modify date is not updated in Finder file properties I have a video capture of a strange behavior:

File prior to editing:

Edited at 5:15PM using TextEdit

In Finder I see the file with strange rename, and Modified date value is not updated, nor does the length (at least a few bytes should have been added).

What is the cause of this behavior?

Unfortunately, since I only have a video capture and the issue does not reproduce, I don't know if the file changed back to its normal txt form. But it does not seem to change for as long as the video run.

Sorry for the ambiguity, I'm working on getting a more accurate reproduction.

The strange edited file name is due to it currently saving a temporary file. Did you quit TextEdit after you edited the file?


How do I add drop shadow to text in iMovie? I am trying to add a drop shadow effect to text in iMovie. The problem I'm encountering is that there doesn't appear to be a drop shadow setting and the effect is applied seemingly at random. All the sites I have found online refer to this as the outline effect, but it is a separate effect entirely. I have yet to find reference to how to manipulate the drop shadow on text in iMovie.

For example, here is what text looks like when using the "lower third" text template. It appears without a drop shadow, with no means of adding it. This is the type of text I want to add drop shadow to.

And here is text created using the "scrolling credits" text template. It appears with drop shadow, but if you edit the preset text it may or may not retain the drop shadow.

Where is the control for drop shadow?

This YouTube video shows that widening the font panel reveals four controls at the top for drop shadows (opacity, blur, offset, and angle). So they're right there in the font picker window when you're manipulating your text:


Dictation under macOS Catalina not working with display microphone I have this very strange problem that dictation is not working on my laptop when its lid is closed and it is connected to an external monitor (Cinema display).
It does work fine when I use the laptop standalone.

Also, when I go to System Preferences / Keyboard / Dictation, I can see the microphone showing input (level meter does up and down when I speak).
It does not matter whether the audio input under the microphone is on "Display audio" or "Automatic", when I open any other app and start dictating, the little microphone does not show any sign of activity (i.e., input).

Even more funny is that Siri on the laptop works fine, even with closed laptop lid, i.e., it does recognize my speech commands.

I think, the real problem is that, somehow, with display microphone, something is blocking the audio input on the way to the dictation software.

Of course, I have googled and tried a few things (reboot, switch audio, etc.), to no avail. But I haven't found a problem description on the web that matches the problems symptoms I am experiencing.

Does anyone have an idea?

PS:
I recently upgraded to Catalina (10.15.3). Before, under Mojave, dictation worked.

Me too :-( I am on the phone with tech support now. Tech support said,

  "After doing some research it looks like this is something Apple
  engineers are aware of and investigating. They have a suggestion to
  consider using Voice Control as an option."

For the time being, I am using Voice Control... which isn't really a great option IMO.


What permissions do I need to give for my server setup? I am trying to have a server setup for my web app locally on my MacBook Pro. I have installed Apache, PHP successfully and checked out my web app's code to /var/www location. Now there's a script in my app that writes a file in /var/www/someDir. To do so I am using the following line:

$file = fopen($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/abc.ini", "w");

And on execution I see the following error in error log.

PHP Warning:  fopen(/var/www/someDir/abc.ini): failed to open stream: Permission denied in /private/var/www/myscript.php on line 6

someDir is owned by user abhilash.goje (that's me) and group wheel. I have tried giving following permissions.

$sudo chmod -R 755 www     -> Did not resolve the issue
$sudo chmod -R 775 www     -> Did not resolve the issue
$sudo chmod -R 777 www     -> Resolved the issue, but not safe.

permission 777 works but I don't prefer to use this solution as it is not at all safe.
Kindly let me how do I set the correct permissions to this folder.

Thanks in Advance!!

Apache is the process that needs to have appropriate permissions to access /var/www.  Apache is typically user _www of group _www on MacOS.  Verify this with:

 grep -e '^Group\|^User' /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Two lines should be printed.  My output looks like:

User _www
Group _www

This means that on my system, Apache processes run as user _www with group _www. If you're using another configuration, check the appropriate config file for the same parameters and replace _www in the following solution if yours differs.

Change the group of /var/www with: chgrp -R _www /var/www
Change the permissions to add group write with: chmod -R 775 /var/www

That should fix the error.

As an extra step, you can change the ownership of /var/www to _www and then add yourself to that group to maintain your read and write privileges.


Migrate Data To New SSD Drive Without USB to SATA Cable I just bought a SSD For my MacBook Pro. It is running Lion. I have a time capsule with a full backup, as well as an image of the entire drive I created stored on a network drive. How do I copy everything from the current drive to the new SSD? I don't have any cables, i.e. a USB to SATA, is this possible?

Is there a way if I install the SSD and boot into a safe mode, and load Disk Utility, and then simply load the image backup from the network drive?

Thanks for the help.

I used an external 2.5" USB case. As @Richard suggested above, I also use Carbon Copy Cloner.


Adobe Reader Updater legitimate? I just got the following popup:

Is this a legitimate update from Adobe?

The reason I'm concerned:

The Flashback virus started off as a fake Adobe Flash update.
The UI on the application does not look like it is using native components. It seems like it's running Java or something similar.
I didn't run anything to prompt this. It just popped up on its own.

Other notes:

This is an actual application (it appears in the dock).
The application has no about menu.
I do have Adobe Reader installed, but it wasn't running at the time. (In fact, I haven't launched it in a while.)
There is nothing related to Adobe Reader (or the updater) in my login items (System Prefs > Users > Login Items).
The process name shows up as Adobe Reader Updater in Activity Monitor.
The Details link goes to http://www.adobe.com/go/update_details which redirects to http://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/release-note/release-notes-acrobat-reader.html (However, that doesn't say much. Malware could just as easily link to the official website in order to appear legitimate.)

It seems like it is legitimate for the following reasons:

When I launch Adobe Reader, it automatically updates the UI of the application to tell me that Adobe Reader needs to be closed in order for me to install this update.
My current version really is one below the one it's asking me to update to (10.1.2).
Under Adobe Reader's Update preferences, I had it checked to automatically download and prompt me to install updates.
Adobe's website shows that 10.1.3 really is the latest version.
When I run Help > Check for Updates, the same Adobe Reader Updater application is launched (or rather focused).


18GB of Other storage I bought the game Wargame: European Escalation a while back off Steam and went to uninstall it today. I deleted it, but now my storage is filled with  18GB of "Other". I am on El Capitan version 10.11.1. How do I remove this? Thanks.

Perform a scan of your hard drive with the tool Grand Perspective. With that (a free tool), you can easily see what exact files and data are eating up space, as well as where they are in your file tree. Then, it'll be easy to root out and delete what you don't want.


"New App Preview" not available in iMovie I want to create an App Preview video for an app.  I have started iMovie but no matter what I try the "New App Preview" is greyed out.  I created a movie in Quicktime and imported it in...still nothing.

The solution is to Open iMovie. then immediately click "Project" at the top left. This displays all projects if available. Then go to File and under that menu option "New App Preview" is active and can be selected


Make a Boot Camp partition totally impenetrable? I'm thinking of setting up Boot Camp on my early 2011 MBP for gaming purposes because, obviously, VMs just don't cut it when they have to share their hardware with OS X. However, several forums I've read say that a Boot Camp partition could make the computer susceptible to malware that can somehow access the OS X partition. Short of using two separate drives, is there anything I can to totally isolate the partitions from each other, or otherwise keep the OS X partition totally safe?

Some links about it.

If your Mac OS partition is encrypted with FileVault 2, it will be unreadable when you are booted to Windows. At that point, the only thing malware could do to this partition would be to wipe or delete it.


Fixing bricked iPod Classic I tried to install Rockbox on my 6th generation iPod Classic using the Rockbox utility from this page.

When I get to the step of rebooting the iPod, it just turned off, and now it doesn't turn on. I´ve tried to turn it on pressing Select + Menu, but nothing happens. I think it is bricked.

How can I fix it?

I don't have really solid information, but I've just had a similar experience and resolved it. My gen 6 120 gb ipod has been running Rockbox for several years; I just hooked it up to my (Linux) computer to put some new music on the device. I umounted the drive ok, and when I unplugged the USB cable the iPod just went dead. Linux didn't recognize it, Win 7 didn't recognize it, iTunes didn't either, nothing lit up when I tried to turn it on. Tried every possible combination of button pushing and holding.
Finally I decided to just plug in the USB to my running Linux box and go out for some dinner. An hour later Linux recognized the drive and mounted it, and just for insurance I used RockboxUtility to update the system before unmounting and rebooting successfully.
btw I'm quite sure the battery wasn't dead. Windows and iTunes will recognize a dead-battery iPod. I have no idea what this was. Wait, yes I do, the music I had loaded just before disconnecting the device and having it die was not playable on the newly revived iPod. Got a message like "cannot load" when I clicked on those songs. That MIGHT have caused the problem.


MacBook turning on issue during high humidity For past few days, roughly 30, I've been facing issues with switching on my MacBook Pro 2015 model.

This is what I've observed.
So what happens is if during a day or night there is high humidity, Mac doesn't turn on in case it has been kept in turn off mode for 5-6 hours however as soon as I take it to an air conditioned room, it switches on just in a matter of 2-3 minutes.

Also, if I use hair dryer on it for about 30-40 seconds, it switches on without any further problems.

These problems are being faced only during high humid environment & for other period of time, it works fine. I've done hardware test on my Macbook which doesn't show any issues.

If this helps. It's been two months I've relocated to a more humid area, before that I was not having trouble with my Macbook.

What could be the possible reason for this strange issue? Can anybody help?

I waited for the sun to come out and dried my MacBook Air in front of fan. Try to keep your laptop in dry conditions. The shutdown might be a safeguard for motherboard.