How can I determine what is hanging git on my OS X machine? I'm trying to do a git pull on my Mac from a local repo.  It is hanging.  My question is, why is it hanging and how can I stop it?  That is, I'm in a repo where the "remotes" are on the local filesystem:

rcook@mymachine (paraDIS_lib (master)): git remote -v
origin  /Users/rcook/gitrepos/paraDIS_lib (fetch)
origin  /Users/rcook/gitrepos/paraDIS_lib (push)

And if I do a git pull then it just hangs, no progress, nothing.  It seems to be stuck doing something called "git-upload-pack":

rcook@RichCookHomeMac (~ (BARE:master)): psfind git
root            15840     1   0.0  0.0 git              git fetch
rcook           23160 22699   0.0  0.0 git              git pull -v --progress
rcook           23161 23160   0.0  0.0 git              git fetch --update-head-ok -v --progress
rcook           23162 23161   0.0  0.0 git-upload-pack  git-upload-pack /Users/rcook/gitrepos/paraDIS_lib

And if run with GIT_TRACE, it looks like I'm hung on "git rev-list":

rcook@RichCookHomeMac (paraDIS_lib.local (master)):    GIT_TRACE=1 git pull
16:51:50.002029 git.c:348               trace: built-in: git 'pull'
16:51:50.002479 run-command.c:335       trace: run_command: 'fetch' '--update-head-ok'
16:51:50.003491 exec_cmd.c:128          trace: exec: 'git' 'fetch' '--update-head-ok'
16:51:50.016960 git.c:348               trace: built-in: git 'fetch' '--update-head-ok'
16:51:50.017949 run-command.c:335       trace: run_command: 'git-upload-pack '\''/Users/rcook/gitrepos/paraDIS_lib'\'''
16:51:50.018872 run-command.c:195       trace: exec: '/bin/sh' '-c' 'git-upload-pack '\''/Users/rcook/gitrepos/paraDIS_lib'\''' 'git-upload-pack '\''/Users/rcook/gitrepos/paraDIS_lib'\'''
16:51:50.038192 run-command.c:335       trace: run_command: 'rev-list' '--objects' '--stdin' '--not' '--all' '--quiet'

Indeed, I can induce a hang with:

GIT_TRACE=1 git rev-list --objects --stdin --not --all

Pulling from the same repo but from a remote machine via ssh works fine.  I.e.,

rcook@rzhasgpu18 (paraDIS_lib (master)): git remote -v
origin  mymachine.net:/Users/rcook/gitrepos/paraDIS_lib (fetch)
origin  mymachine.net:/Users/rcook/gitrepos/paraDIS_lib (push)

There, git pull works great, although it's still very slow.

My question is, shouldn't the local version be way way faster?  How can I figure out what is slowing this down?  On linux, I would run it under strace, but on OS X this is very hard to do it seems, especially in El Capitan with all its weird security stuff.

Yep, occasionally this happens for me too. But it goes normal once I reboot my machine. Probably it starts to happen after update to git version 2.7.2.

I created a new remote based on SSH pointing to the same repository. Tried again with the old filesystem remote and it worked. Don't know why it worked like that.


What are your favorite Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts? What are your favorite keyboard shortcuts on Mac OS X?

ctrl+F2: Access the menu via the keyboard (Windows alt+space equivalent).


Is there an open-source iOS screen viewer/ recorder for macOS? Requirements:

better than QuickTime movie recording: it doesn't pass the sound through
Wormhole and is great but that is a paid closed source software
Open source strongly preferred

Is there a open source software which would let me view my iOS screen on macOS?

You could take a look at videosnap. It is an free and open source utility that allows you to record the screen of your iOS device from a Mac.
Note that it is a command line utility you can use from the Terminal - it does not have a graphical user interface.

If you wish to remotely view and control another device (doesn't matter what sort of device or brand) I would recommend Windows Remote Desktop. Surprisingly (by its name) it doesn't only work on Windows but also works on macOS as well. All you need to do (after you download it off the App Store) is to open the program, click 'Add A Device', type in the IP address of the device you wish to view and/or control, set all the settings to your desire, click 'set' or something similar (which will bring you back to the main menu), and double-click on the device which you wish to view and/or control and it will then connect.
Note: you will be needed to be connected to the internet the entire time you wish to view/control the selected device.
Here is a walk-through on how to download and use Windows Remote Desktop:
WALKTHROUGH FOR HOW TO DOWNLOAD - https://youtu.be/3pVtdtpNMGE
WALKTHROUGH FOR HOW TO SET UP AND USE - https://youtu.be/dJNwdJLPDS8


Need printer driver for samsung ML-1210 compatible with Mac OS X 10.11.6 I use Mac OS X 10.11.6 (El Capitan) and I would like to find and install a printer driver for an old samsung ML-1210 printer.  Can anyone help?  If yes, please tell me in simple terms, because I am not computer savvy!

It’s unlikely you will find a printer driver for this model printer.

It’s not listed anywhere on Samsung’s support site
I found a review of the printer from 2001 making it about 20 years old
A service manual I found online confirms that as it’s copyrighted in 2001 (page 79)
The specs found on C|Net lists Mac OS 8 as a supported OS and the latest release was 1999.
The most recent Mac printer driver I was able to find was for Snow Leopard (10.6.8) for the PowerPC Mac; you have an Intel Mac.

However, there may be some hope...

Though the printer specifications list the only emulation as “PrintThru” (I’ve personally never heard of it) it was quite common for printers to emulate “HP LaserJet”.  It can’t hurt to try that generic driver.
Since it supports Linux, You can try a generic CUPS driver.  I found this article How to install the Samsung ML-1210 printer on Mac OS X Lion (and higher). It uses an open source driver (not supported/provided by Samsung).

Keep in mind this article is from 2011 making it 9 years old. It is technical, so you’ll want to get someone local to assist.  It's not feasible for us to test since we don't have access to that printer.

Bottom line... I’ll be the first to applaud your efforts to continue using “useful” equipment, but there comes a point of diminishing returns and if getting a printer working will cost more in time, labor and lost productivity than the price of new one, it’s time to go shopping.

As a buying tip, I suggest you stick with familiar names like HP, Lexmark, Xerox, etc. because you ensure the widest range of compatibility for the longest time.  For instance, I have a HP 2025dn (from 2008) that not only has current drivers, but emulates HP (obviously), PCL and PostScript.  If your printer can emulate any of these, you can get it to work.  Look in either the printer specifications page or in the user manual for confirmation.

Should be availabe, right here:

https://samsung-driver.net/samsung-ml-1210-driver-download/


Copying files to the clipboard using applescript Often I find myself at the command line wanting to copy files to the clipboard, so that I can paste them as attachments in Mail.  If I have an image file, image1.png, I can accomplish this with

osascript -e 'tell app "Finder" to set the clipboard to ( POSIX file "image1.png" )'

If I execute the above command and then open a new message in Mail and press command V, the image file is pasted as an attachment.  Note that pbcopy is apparently not a solution here, because this would copy the contents of the file and result in junk when pasted with command V.

My question is how can I do the same thing with multiple files?  Suppose I want to paste both image1.png and image2.png.  This is trivial from Finder (select them both, command C, then switch to Mail and command V; voila, both files show up as attachments)… but how can I do this from the command line?

This isn't quite perfect for what you want, but I think it might get you closer. Quicksilver has a command line tool. When installed, you can pipe files from the command line to Quicksilver app, and from there send them as attachments in Mail.

To install Quicksilver command line tool, activate Quicksilver. Then navigate to Quicksilver > Preferences to open preferences window. Click on Preferences on top right of window. On the left, click on Command Line Tool and install.

In Terminal, you'll be able to type

qs path/to/file1 path/to/file2 path/to/file3 path/to/file4

Pressing enter will send those files to Quicksilver's first pane. Press tab to move to the action pane and choose the Mail/New Email With Attachment action. Press enter, and a new email with your selected files attached should appear.

Note that you will also have to install the Mail and Command Line plugins in Quicksilver (Quicksilver > Preferences > Plug Ins).

Why not just drag and drop? Sometimes techies get overly complex and forget the simple things a Mac can do.


Cutting and pasting files OS X doesn't allow me to cut files. Are there any applications to enable this?

It is possible to cut-paste files/folders in OSX 10.7 Lion's Finder (so, since 2011), but the OSX way is slightly different from the Windows way.

⌘-C (copy first)
⌘-⌥-V (now move to it's destination)

So, the steps are very similar to copy-paste, but holding ⌥ (option key) moves the file/folder instead of copies it.

You can also have a look in the edit menu after copying a file - press ⌥ while looking to see the difference: "paste" changes to "move item here".

You can't cut files, but you can:

Copy the existing file ⌘C
Delete the existing file ⌘⌫
Paste in the new location ⌘V

Given that anything you can do with keystrokes can be done by AppleScript, all you would have to do is combine the first two to give you the equivalent of Cut (although you might want to have the script pause a bit between the two…).


Open Bitlocker USB stick on OS X I have a USB stick encrypted by Windows 7 built-in tool (bitlocker). I would like to open it on my OS X El Capitan.

When I open it, all I get is a file "BitLockerToGo.exe" and another "Read Me.url"

I found some pieces here and there but no full procedure for mac.

Actually I asked after some success because I thought it would benefit everyone ;-)

Here is the complete process. Some links are missing because I don't have enough reputation to embed them all. Sorry about that.

High-level, we "just" need dislocker.

But to install it, there are some dependencies to resolve... we need:

"Fuse for OS X"

Simply download the .img on their site, open and run the .pkg installer

Xcode command-line developers tools

I'm not sure what's the generic answer.
Open a terminal, and type

xcode-select --install

If you get an error "-bash: xcode-select: command not found", you need to install Xcode from the App store, then start again this command.
If an alert windows popup asking if you want to install, click on "install" button.
If it prints error "xcode-select: error: command line tools are already installed, [...]", you're all set.

"Homebrew"

Following instruction on their website, type following in terminal:

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

If you get an error about Xcode tools not being installed whereas you did install it, then change the path to Xcode:

sudo xcode-select -switch /

and obviously dislocker !

Download ZIP (available in green button "Clone or Download" on the right)
Extract ZIP content
Open terminal and change directory to the dislocker-master directory
Compile and install dislocker:

brew install src/dislocker.rb

If you get an error about Xcode tools not being installed whereas you did install it, then change the path like this:

sudo xcode-select -switch /

Don't be desperate, it's now time to mount the USB stick !

But it's not gonna be trivial...

Identify the device of the USB stick, using Disk Utility:

Open Disk Utility and select the USB stick drive. Somewhere you should get something like "disk3s1". Replace this example with your actual value in following lines.
Keep Disk Utility open, it will be used in next steps

Eject the USB drive for example from Disk Utility (Unmount button)
Create a directory for the decrypted file

sudo mkdir /tmp/mydrive

Warning: this directory will have strange characteristics: it appears with "ls" but not with "ls -l" and not in the Finder wherever it is, moreover the content can't be listed, and trying to delete it often fails with strange error messages. That's why I put it in /tmp which is cleaned at every reboot.
Decrypt the USB stick with dislocker. If disk is "disk3s1" and the password is "MyPassword", the command will look like:

sudo dislocker-file -V /dev/disk3s1 -v -uMyPassword -r -- /tmp/mydrive

Add the disk image to Disk Utility and mount it

sudo hdiutil attach -imagekey diskimage-class=CRawDiskImage /tmp/mydrive/dislocker-file

Note: Don't try to list "/tmp/mydrive/dislocker-file" by yourself. Just assume it is there and write the path as is.

Hourray !!!, the new drive is there !

Because really nothing is easy, to clean-up you need to do the following:

Unmount the drive

For example from your friend Disk Utility, select its icon and click on "Unmount" button

Get rid of the image

From "Disk Utility", select the greyed drive, and from the menu "File" select "Eject".

Detach the fuse volume

sudo  hdiutil detach /tmp/mydrive/

Only now the directory /tmp/mydrive is a plain directory that can be deleted...

As you noticed the process is definitely complex and finally I just get a read-only drive.
I'm interested by any better answer.

Alternative solution

Use Windows in virtual machine. Pass through the USB device to the VM and share back to host macOS.

I haven't tried it but it should work theoretically.


How to bring back multi-touch gestures after it crashes without reboot? After a clean install of Yosemite, multi-touch gestures have stopped working on two occasions on my Macbook Pro 2011. Each time, the symptoms are the same:

Gestures stopped working both built-in trackpad and bluetooth trackpad.
BetterTouchTool still works. Restarting, stopping BTT doesn't help.
Hey, at least two-finger click -> right click still works.

I've tried the following:

Toggling trackpad configurations doesn't bring back the gestures.
Disconnecting, reconnecting, removing bluetooth trackpad from list of bluetooth devices doesn't work.

Restarting solves the problem. However, a restart in my case is a time-consuming process. It involves properly shutting down apps, dismounting network storage, disconnecting VPN, etc - only to revert all the steps again on startup.

I suspect the process interpreting multi-touch crashed when the malfunction happened. CPU was quite busy at both point. So I wonder if there is a process I can call up when it happens again, to avoid restarting the machine.

Type killall Dock in Terminal.

In my case, only Mission Control gestures had stopped working (three finger swipe left/right to switch spaces, three finger swipe up for overview, mission control etc).

I'm having the same issue periodically only since upgrading to Yosemite (I did not do a clean install.) For me it has been affecting only 4 finger swipes (all 4 directions are completely unrecognized) on both the built-in trackpad and on a BT magic trackpad.

Interestingly, the problem went away for me (at least for the moment) without a reboot after I killed a process that was misbehaving.  I saw errors in the console once per second with the following text: assertion failed: 14A389: libxpc.dylib + 40320  For me these messages are attributed to the Spokes app (a Plantronics helper application for my headset), though I have seen it reported for other different applications on Yosemite as well.

It may be anecdotal that the gestures started working again after I killed the offending app, but I'll watch to see if there's a correlation in the future, since this problem has come and gone a few times since my upgrade and it's not my first time killing this app nor my first time with gestures resuming without a reboot.


Is the T-Mobile iPhone 6s from Apple.com Unlocked? If I buy the T-Mobile iPhone 6s from Apple for the full price (no contract), will it be carrier unlocked?

Yes - T-Mobile phones of all versions are factory unlocked. iPhone 6s/plus will be just like the iPhone 6/plus in that regard.

This year, you can buy phones unlocked on Apple's payment plan as well if you prefer that over paying full price.

I contacted many apple repersentative and they keep saying no, but if you contact Apple in Spanish, those representative will say yes.


How do I charge my iPhone 6 without it being on the whole time? I've tried shutting off my iPhone 6 AFTER plugging it in to charge, and it will turn back on.  How can I make sure it stays off while charging so that it charges more quickly?

Plug the phone in to power
Then turn it off

If your charger is overloaded, faulty or your cable has issues, there could be an interruption of charge and the device will start up then. There's no way to prevent this necessary feature - it's a fail safe to turn on the device after replacing the battery or other system events that could cause the power to be low.

Just put it in airplane mode, it will achieve the same desired result.


Change highlight color in Mavericks preview? In Preview on OS X 10.9 Mavericks, is it possible to change the color to something other than yellow, green, blue, pink, purple?  I know it is possible to highlight in other colors because I did it while using Preview for the first time after upgrading to Mavericks, but now that I've changed I can't seem to change back.

I'm afraid this is not possbile anymore as Apple removed the workaround via the Fonts-Menu.

Discussed in the Apple Support Forum here :
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4145911?start=15&tstart=0
(same problem with underline colors)
and on MacRumors here :
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1658053
where they discussed what has changed since ML.

To change the highlight color simply right click a highlighted selection then choose another color


How can I receive FM radio broadcasts on my iPhone 4? How to listen my local FM stations in my iphone 4? Like I can listen with my old Nokia phone, without using Internet, GPRS etc.

Is iPhone 4 lacking this facility?

I heard about "Pandora Radio" but it uses the Internet to run and it's also not for Indian FM channels.

In my Nokia Express Music Mobile I can listen my local FM stations without any GPRS, Internet in mobile.

The iPhone 4 does not have a radio tuner. All it has is the appropriate cellular band, WiFi, and Bluetooth. In short, no there is no easy way to do this.

Some radio stations make apps so you can stream their content via the internet, or offer live streams. I would check out the radio station's website to see what they have available.

OK. if iphone by default doesn't have FM Receiver  then this could be a good solution

http://store.apple.com/dk/product/TY512ZM/B?fnode=MTY1NDA0Mw&mco=MTM3NzE3Mjg


Is shutting down an iMac or Mac mini really necessary? In today's age with low power standby modes & the advanced OS X that is Mountain Lion, it is simpler than ever to go for long periods (perhaps months) without shutting down your iMac (and possibly Mac mini too).

Is it really necessary to perform a complete shut down of your Mac (and what considerations if any need to be taken account of)?

The benefits of shutting down vs. sleeping is an oft-asked question. Over time, reasons to prefer shutting down have either been resolved or significantly ameliorated.

For instance:

It used to be that shutting down early macOS (then OS X) machines caused issues with timed log clean-up routines. This has been resolved with the OS recognizing when routines haven't run and rescheduling them.
Similarly, long-running systems used to exhibit instability relating to memory issues. Shutting down the computer cleared the memory, temporarily resetting things. However, memory management has subsequently improved in later versions of macOS and this is no longer a significant issue.
A shut down system used to be significantly cheaper. However, advances in hardware and software have improved the ability of Macs to sleep efficiently. In 2020, a 27" iMac with Retina 5K draws 0.27W when shutdown and 1.25W when asleep (compared to 40W when idle) (source). Apple prepares environmental reports on all its devices extending back several years that you can check. Copies are available from the Environment section of Apple's website.

In addition to these changes, features like Power Nap improve the utility of sleeping Macs.

For me, I set automated sleep and wake times and almost never reboot.

I leave all my Mac devices on all the time, has had no effect on battery life (where applicable), or performance.


What readers annotate PDFs better than the Preview app? I usually spend around 3 or 4 hours a day working with and annotating PDFs. I've always used Preview, but there's a few things that bother me about it. Mainly the large icons used when you place notes, which can get in the way in tightly formatted documents.

Is there an alterate PDF reader that is any better for annotating documents?

Skim is a pdf reader specialy designed to annotate pdf.

Skim is a PDF reader and note-taker for OS X. It is designed to help you read and annotate scientific papers in PDF, but is also great for viewing any PDF file.
Stop printing and start skimming.
Explore the links to the left to investigate Skim and consider helping out with the project.

  Features:

  Viewing PDFs
  Adding and editing notes
  Highlighting important text, including one-swipe highlight modes
  Making "snapshots" for easy reference
  Navigation using table of contents or thumbnails, with visual history
  View all your notes and highlights
  Convenient reading in full screen
  Giving powerful presentations, with built-in transitions
  Handy preview of internal links
  Focus using a reading bar
  Magnification tool
  Smart cropping tools
  Extensive AppleScript support
  Bookmarks
  Saving passwords in Keychain
  Export notes as text
  Automatic download of remote PDFs
  Support for Apple Remote Control
  Interaction with LaTeX, SyncTeX, and PDFSync
  Integration with BibDesk and other third party applications
  Spotlight support
  Highly customizable
  And much more...

To be honest if you are spending that amount of time a day with PDFs its worth buying Acrobat Pro. Its not cheap but nothing else comes close in terms of its feature set. I have found version 10 to be really stable too.


Delete iPhone MMS Messages Only I'm running out of space on my little 16GB iPhone 4S. I have noticed that a very large chunk of the space is taken up by the Messages app. I believe this is due to the tons of MMS messages I've sent and received over the years. I would like to easily delete all MMS messages (pictures/videos) without deleting any conversations and without having to manually find and delete each one. Is this possible?

On iOS 7, in the conversation window, if you hold on a message balloon you get the context menu with two options: Copy and More.

When you tap More, you will get into the edit screen where you can select and delete individual messages.

go to settings, then messages, then scroll down to mms messaging and turn off.


How to merge pictures using adobe acrobat? I want to add 20 pictures onto one page (like a collage) using Adobe Acrobat.

What am I am going to do with this one page is print it so that it consists of all pictures (on a paper like the Polaroids) and hang it on the wall as a big one.

Someone did this before and I asked for the software and he told me it was done using Adobe Acrobat. But I've now opened it and don't know how to combine them all onto one page. If I did the using a collage app instead, it will certainly lose quality.

So if someone understands and knows how to do this, please help. Or if there are any other ways to do the same on a Mac (Photoshop, something else) please explain how as I have no idea where to start.

Open Paint on windows, click "paste from" and choose a picture from your pictures or documents to load onto paint, where you can resize it,or crop it, (if you know how),
Do the same for each picture you want , it drops on top of your last picture and you just drag it alongside where you can resize to match other pictures or not..
Once you have left a picture and started another you cant go back and change the previous one...
When done close "paint" and it will ask to save,and name, it creates a new collage and all original pictures still remain as they were..


Can't install Apple Fitness app to iPad 14.3 I just updated my iPad Pro 2020 to iPadOS 14.3.  I'm also an Apple One Premier member.
When I try to download the Apple Fitness app to my iPad, the App Store doesn't let me.  I get an error message: "This app requires specific features not available on this device."
Apple's announcement states

For usage with iPad, Fitness+ requires iPad Pro, iPad (5th generation or later), iPad mini 4 or later, iPad Air 2, or iPad Air (3rd generation or later), running iOS 14.3.

It looks like there might be a problem for iPad users right now.  I can get it to work on my iPhone so I know it's available.  Is there a way to download this to an iPad?

It's looking like there is a delay in rolling it out to iPadOS devices at the moment.
I'm sure they will get this issue resolved shortly.

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/12/14/apple-fitness-plus-ipad-unavailable/

Added a link with new about the issue.

The Fitness app declares a paired Apple Watch as a requirement, which can't be fulfilled on iPad since Apple Watch is paired with an iPhone only.
The Fitness page on the App Store takes the place of the Activity app which has appeared on previous versions of iOS, but never on iPadOS due to this requirement.
This appears to be an oversight by Apple to not remove this flag from the App Store listing.


How to fix macOS Sierra language switching bug? Changing languages input does not work, you can see the video.

Go to system preferences/Siri and turn off Siri and make sure that the keyboard shortcut is set to None, and then restart.

This bothered me for almost a whole year. It turns out a very bad and messy design plus bugs caused the widespread frustration.

Solution is to only use the correct behaviors (hereafter quoted as below):

In input settings, I enabled switching input method by Caps-lock key. When everything works fine, here are the behaviors should be:

Correct behaviors

Using caps-lock to switch Chinese input method and English. That means:

when using Chinese, press caps-lock will turn input method to English
when using Chinese, long press caps-lock will turn input method to Capital English, green light will be on in Apple Magic Keyboard.
when using English, long press caps-lock to switch to Capital English, long press caps-lock to go back
when using English(whether Capital or not), press caps-lock to switch to Chinese

Incorrect behaviors

first(very common)

pressing caps-lock does switch input method, but the indicator in menubar doesn't change accordingly at all.

second(very common)

pressing caps-lock does not switch input method any more. But cmd+space still works. menubar indicator works as well.

third(less common)

press caps-lock and cmd+space both don't work. I have to use mouse to click the menubar indicator to switch input method.

fourth(rare)

press caps-lock and cmd+space both don't work. Even more, when I use cmd+space, I could see only the English input method or the Chinese input method was gray. Both were gray in cmd+space and in menubar indicator.

The original link: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/is-there-a-bug-with-language-switching-in-sierra.2020165/#post-24054565


Cannot write on TimeMachine data disk - told "Don't have enough permissions to write to '/Volumes' - files say (unknown) read&write Cannot write on TimeMachine data disk - told "Don't have enough permissions to write to '/Volumes' - files say (unknown) read&write, staff read&write, everyone read&write

Details: I have a brand new laptop but am using an old AirPort TimeCapsule - I've been able to download files directly to it from my previous Mac, but not this new one. What should I do? I'm using uTorrent to download files.

I can't seem to add username to the Sharing & Permissions - and can't figure out how to change the Information / Access of the TimeCapsule drive either?

So I assume you don't keep anything valuable in there (those files will NOT be backed up). I also suppose you connect to the TC share using SMB or AFP or the Finder windows sidebar: just check the credentials with which you are connecting (clic on TC in side bar, clic "Connect as..." in top bar). I never had any luck trying to change user permissions on a share from another machine. I believe you should check AirPort Utility/File Sharing/Secure Shared Disks/With accounts looking for user credentials, following these instructions: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202254. Hope this helps.

esaruoho... only TM should be allowed to write on a TM disk. You don't usually download anything from the disk: you should choose "Enter Time Machine" from its menu instead and restore the files you need from the Time Machine interface. Hope this helps.


Why is the number of unread messages in Messages negative? Occasionally, and with no apparent correlation with what is going on on other devices where I have Messages enabled, I get a negative count for my unread messages in Messages on OS X:

What could be causing this, and how can I prevent from happening in the future?

I believe that negative numbers show up when you read a message on another device before you read it on what ever device has the negative number. I had the same thing happen to me. I have a "-1" badge on my Messages icon.


Mac Air 13” Wi-Fi Hardware Issue I have a MacBook and the other day i spilled a little bit of water on to it, nothing big or anything i soaked it up with the towel. The next day it would not turn on but eventually i managed to turn it on. However, the wifi started displaying stating that it had no hardware installed. I tried the shift+ctrl+option+power button restart and it started working again. However, after 20/30 mins it stopped working and it continuesly said wifi off and it would not let me turn it on. I spoke to an apple worker and they said it is a hardware problem, they did a diagnostic on it. Everything else works perfectly, i just wanted to know if this could be due to the water spillage (so i can prepare myself for a big bill) or is it just a general hardware problem (also have looked into the settings and it says Thunderbolt 1 inactive). If anyone could help i would appreciate it so much. Thanks

In a word, yes.

If I may 'esplain. While it is possible that a board level repair shop might be able to resurrect the system to full functioning. Cleaning, drying and the like.

You didn't specify the model year of your MBAir but in this case I am not sure it matters as MBAirs are famous for being small and light and generally not upgradable. I believe (not sure but pretty sure) that the WiFi radio is likely integrated into the system board and not replaceable. Or not easily replaceable unless you find someone to do board level repair and have them replace the damaged components.

If a new Mac is not currently affordable you might find a USB WiFI adapter that is Mac compatible and that would give you WiFi at the expense of having a USB stick sticking out of your MBAir all the time.

I feel for you! I knocked a glass of water onto my beloved 11" MacBook Air years ago and completely ruined it. My solution, ultimately, was to get a data recovery company to extract an image of my data off of the SSD and (eventually) get a new laptop.

Steve's suggestion of using a USB wi-fi dongle is a great one! Some of the new ones are very small, so I don't think you'll feel your laptop is too bulky:

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-TL-WN725N-wireless-network-Adapter/dp/B008IFXQFU/

I haven't tried this one, but it claims Mac compatibility.


iPhone 5s: Which consumes more battery, 4G, or 4G LTE? Under Settings > Cellular, there's an option to enable/disable LTE. When disabled, my phone reverts to 4G, as indicated by the icon in the status bar.

I've read elsewhere that using 3G causes greater battery drain than 4G (in fact, Apple's own iPhone 5s spec sheet indicates that you only get 8 hours of 3G data, versus 10 hours of 4G LTE data). Which leads me to the following line of thought...

If I disable LTE and revert to standard 4G, what is the effect on battery life?

"Standard 4G" is kind of a meaningless phrase.  According to this article, disabling "LTE" means it's limited to either CDMA 3G or HSPA+.  HSPA+ is supposed to have performance comparable to LTE, so I would guess that if you disable LTE and see a "4G" icon, it means you're getting HSPA+.

PC Mag confirms that Apple (like their competitors and partners) started using "4G" to refer to any post-3G network, like LTE, WiMAX, and HSPA+.

Anyway, most of the articles I've found comparing power usage between HSPA+ and LTE suggest that LTE has slightly lower power consumption, but it seems to be a pretty small difference.  The signal strength where you are located probably has more impact than this setting.  Early LTE phones apparently sucked a lot of power even when idle, but with newer phones this seems to have been improved, e.g., this iPhone 5 user claims battery life is "nearly identical" whether LTE is enabled or not.

So you can try both settings and see which works better for you, but I wouldn't expect a huge power savings.

I have discovered that disabling LTE on my iPhone allows my phone to receive a much stronger signal (4 bars vs 1) in most parts of Manhattan. But once in a while, LTE works inside a building where 4G doesn't.


Only seeing the wrong AirPlay device I'm in a hotel equipped with Apple TVs and I can see my neighbor's Apple TV on AirPlay. I cannot, however, see the Apple TV in my own room. I went through the Apple TV settings and performed the following steps:

Double checked the network: both my MacBook and the Apple TV are on the same wireless network with a strong signal.
Confirmed Apple TV configuration:

AirPlay On
Conference Room Display Off
Play from iTunes in the Cloud Off
Apple TV Name Apple TV 808
Security Off

Restarted the Apple TV via Settings > General > Restart

But I can still only see my neighbor's Apple TV in the AirPlay Selector on my MacBook:

What, if any, further debugging steps can I try?

I don't have an Apple TV in front of me to direct you to the exact place for this, but I'd trouble-shoot this like any networking discovery issue. Make sure your computer's subnet and the subnet of your Apple TV are the same. The hotel may have it configured strangely.

To get your computer's subnet go to System Preferences > Network > Wifi and click the Advanced button then go to the TCP/IP tab. Your Subtnet Mask is shown there and it should match the one the Apple TV is using.

Also (if possible) try and ensure your Apple TV and your Mac are both updated to the latest software available. Apple's support pages also recommend resetting the Apple TV, but I understand that may not be possible in a hotel.

Honestly your best bet is to contact the hotel front desk, since they will be able to do more advanced resets if needed and change the subnet as well.


Deleted files from Macintosh HD still take up space I just deleted about 50GB of files from my Mac's onboard storage, however it only resulted in the removal of about 8GB.

What happened and how can I fix this?

It's called local snapshots which works as a backup, if you are low in space the OS will automatically delete the stuff.


Mavericks Terminal - 'Command Not Found' for everything About everything (even clear and open) is giving 'Command Not Found' on the Terminal.

If I do and echo $PATH, it gives me this.
/Users/username/Documents/android/android-sdk-macosx/platform-tools:/Users/merck/Documents/android/android-sdk-macosx/tools

The /.profile file is not even there in the Finder.

The environment.plist file in .MacOSX has this value.
bplist00—_SENCHA_CMD_3_0_0_$/Users/username/bin/Sencha/Cmd/4.0.2.67E

Can anyone give some pointers.

Look in the .bashrc file, and see if anything towards the end is overwriting (rather than appending to) the $PATH ...

I am guessing that the Android SDK b0rked it somehow.


Why won't my secondhand iPad let me activate an Apple ID? On the settings under iCloud, if I try and log in on the ID I created this morning, it says that the maximum number of ID's have been activated on this device. When I try and create a new account underneath, it says that this device is not eligible for one.

How can I resolve this?

Any device (whether iOS or OS X) has a lifetime limit of THREE (3) new iCloud accounts can be activated using it.

Once the third iCloud accounts has been activated from that device, that device cannot be used any longer to create/activate new iCloud accounts.

Apple allows the primary and the secondary account, after third they do this to you:

There is no way around that restriction.

Apple does this to prevent people from having free unlimited storage.

So unless you can use one of the exiting accounts you are out of luck.

Here is some more reading material for the one complaining that I did not provide sufficient link/references:

Can we have two iCloud accounts on our iPad?

iCloud on Mountain Lion: one account per Mac or one per user?

https://discussions.apple.com/message/20755523

Primary and Secondary account

http://support.apple.com/kb/ts4020

Another way, besides taking it to the Apple Store as mentioned in the comments, is to wipe the device and restore it.


Downgrade pre-installed Lion to Snow Leopard on a 2011 Macbook Pro? I have very recently purchased a Macbook Pro pre-installed with Lion.  After spending several days unsuccessfully trying to get it to play nicely with Active Directory I purchased a retail copy of Snow Leopard, booted it from an external DVD drive (wouldn't read the disc) erased the HDD and attempted to install Snow Leopard.  No go.  Forums suggest it cannot be done. I now have a blank HDD.

Has anyone successfully downgraded from Lion to Snow Leopard on a pre-installed Lion system?  If so, can you give instructions or point me in the direction of how to do this please?

I'm not sure if this will work in your case. But I have a 2010 MacBook Pro I cannot install the retail copy of Snow Leopard onto. That retail disc is 10.6.3, and the laptop needs a higher version.

To overcome this, I installed Snow Leopard on an external drive connected to an older Mac. I then updated Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 and copied the contents of that drive back to my MacBook Pro via SuperDuper.

Now, in your case, I'm not sure if Snow Leopard will work at all on the recent MacBook Pro. But, if you have access to an older Mac, give my solution a try.

You can do it fairly easily via target disk mode if you have another Mac running 10.6.8.

You need:
- OS X 10.6 retail disc
- OS X combo update 10.6.8
- firewire cable (400/800) depending on the mac you're using to target the machine you want to downgrade

Connect the computers via firewire cable, hold down "T" on the computer you wish to downgrade while starting up. There should be a firewire icon on the screen of the downgrading computer, so you know it's connected properly.

From there, format the hard drive in the computer you wish to downgrade - you should be able to select it using Disk Utility. Make sure there's 1 partition and format it. Then, insert your Snow Leopard retail disk and install it on the freshly formatted hard drive.

Once Snow Leopard is done installing, it will restart and boot up using the freshly downgraded computer's hard drive. From there, you can install the Mac OS X 10.6.8. combo update - either have it already downloaded and on a USB drive, or you can download it from apple's site. Once that installs, you should be able to disconnect the computers and boot normally into Snow Leopard on the early 2011 MBP.

It worked perfectly for me. Good luck.


How do I remove search suggestions from iOS Safari? On macOS, Safari can be configured to provide search suggestions "from" a chosen search engine. A similar feature appears to be present in iOS, but it doesn't not work as expected: even when the "Search Engine Suggestions" setting is disabled

search suggestions still appear:

Moreover these suggestions do not come from the search history of the specified engine (e.g., it contains entries absent from the selected engine's history) bug from somewhere else.

Where do the suggestions that appear in the list of suggested searches in iOS Safari come from? How do I remove individual items, or clear them all without erasing other aspects of my browser history or affecting my synced history on macOS?

Those entries appearing as completion suggestions in the mobile Safari drop down under "Google Search" (or your default search engine of choice) are locally cached and are from your personal search history: e.g. somebody on that icloud account had typed "stranger things" in before -- not necessarily on that specific browser.

It can be cleared in the Settings > Safari > Clear History and Browsing Data. This will clear history, cookies, and cached pages (but not bookmarks or passwords) from the browser and from linked iCloud browsers. I tested this, and suggestions disappeared from my Safari "Google Search" list.

Unfortunately there does not appear to be a way to delete cached searches without deleting cached pages.

For a walk through see for example: Cult of Mac: Clear Your Browsing History And Web Data From Mobile Safari -- iOS Tips

There is no Proper way to remove search suggestions from IOS Safari but you can clear browser history by following Settings > Safari > Clear History and Browsing Data


Why is my iPhone 4S running iOS 5 not showing in iTunes sidebar when using WiFi sync? I've enabled WiFi sync for my 4S and my first gen iPad, both running iOS5. When my phone is plugged in to my computer with a USB cable, it shows up in the sidebar, but as soon as it's unplugged it goes away. The iPad stays in the sidebar until I manually eject it.

It seems that my iPad is behaving 'correctly', at least based on This kbase article.

Toggling WiFi sync when the phone is connected doesn't seem to solve it.

I've also tried the steps outlined in this article to no avail.

This was a fresh install, I didn't import a backup from a previous device. I've restored and set up as new, and the same behavior happens.

I had originally thought it was because my computer had switched to an 802.11n 5Ghz network while my phone remained on the 802.11n 2.4Ghz network, but even when they're on the same exact network I see this behavior.

I had this problem with an iPad. I did the initial setup over USB, enabled Wi-Fi sync, but then when I removed the iPad, it disappeared from the iTunes sidebar, but my iPhone didn't have that problem.

Turned out that I had been disconnecting the USB end of the cable from my Mac first; disconnecting the dock connector end from the iPad (then removing the USB end) made it stay in the sidebar. Completely bonkers, really doesn't seem like it should be that way (or even that iTunes could discern what was disconnected when), but that's what fixed it for me.

It disappears because the "show" selection on DEVICES needs to be activated and then it wil come back


How can I expand the number of special characters I can type using my keyboard? I am aware that when I press ⌥ or ⇧⌥ on my Mac, I can type a variety of special characters. I also know that I can insert special characters using the character palette. Is there a way to expand the number of special characters I can type while using the keyboard? I am particularly interested in solutions that work in Lion and Mountain Lion.

Custom text entry key bindings

OS X has a very nice text editing system, which you can extend using Key Bindings. You can, for instance:

Set up special characters to be entered when you press a certain key command.
Insert more than one character at once.
Include navigation commands and change the selection.
Use multi-stroke key bindings — this is how I type the ⌃⌥⇧⌘ characters.

To set this up, you just create the file ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict and put your customizations there. This article describes the steps in detail.

Here's a list of the default key bindings, and here's Apple's official guide to the text system and key bindings.

Diacritics

If you're just looking to be able to type more diacritics, and you use a U.S. keyboard, consider using the  U.S. Extended keyboard layout:

This allows you to type such characters as oòôȯóöơōṯțőo̊ɵỏọţǒŏõǫȏṵṷȍ. You can enable it from the Input Sources section of the Language & Text system preferences.

"Press and hold"

In Lion, you can type many special characters by holding down a similar key on your keyboard:

(It turns out this can be customized, if you're up to the task! All it takes is to edit a plist file.)

Arbitrary text substitutions

If you have specific phrases or characters you'd like to use, you can also set up custom substitutions for them in the Text section of Language & Text preferences:

Character palette

I guess you already know this, but I'll include it for completeness. If you enable "Keyboard & Character Viewer" in the Input Sources section of the Language & Text prefs, you can open the Character Viewer and browse through the entire Unicode character set (and you can also browse characters by category):

This window is easily accessible in most applications with ⌃+⌘+space (in older versions of OS X, the shortcut was ⌥+⌘+T).

SOME IMPORTANT KEYS:

⇪ Capslock
⇧ Shift
⌃ Control(this is the one you are looking for)
⌥ Option (Alt, Alternative)
⌘ Command
␣ Space
⏎ Return
↩ Return
⌫ Delete back
⌦ Delete forward
⇱ Home
↖ Home
↸ Home
⇲ End
↘ End
⇞ Pageup
⇟ Pagedown
↑ Up arrow
⇡ Up arrow
↓ Down arrow
⇣ Down arrow
← Left arrow
⇠ Left arrow
→ Right arrow
⇢ Right arrow
⌧ Clear
⇭ Numberlock
⌤ Enter
⏏ Eject
⌽ Power
⎋ Escape
⇥ Tab forward
⇤ Tab back


Problem registering gmail in iPad I recently changed the password for my gmail account. I was able to register the account on my iPhone but when I do the same on my iPad it tells me that the user id and password are incorrect. I changed the password again but the problem persisted. When I access gmail via Safari or Chrome there is no problem.

Reset the settings on your iPad and then set up everything from scratch. Use the instructions from Apple Support article below. There's no need to change a password to use gmail account on iPad.

Add an email account to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch


iMac-Pro(Win 10) NO Ethernet controller Driver (NO BOOTCAMP) After successfully installing WIN10 on my iMac-Pro without BOOTCAMP, I was able to manually install the windows support(BOOTCAMP) drivers, and all of them work fine. Except the Ethernet Controller Driver, and that really bothers me since I'm not a fan of WiFi.

I have the iMac Pro base version

I tried every Driver I could find with no success.

Was any one able to get the Ethernet working on an iMac-Pro running WIN 10?

One of the first things I noticed about the article you link to is that there is no mention of a particular model or year Mac. It is impossible for there to be a one size fits all instructions for installing Windows on Mac computers. Second, the article is more than 2 years old. A lot has changed in two years. Any Macs capable of running High Sierra have had a firmware upgrade making many of the articles steps either obsolete or unnecessary.

Here a few comments with regard to the linked article.

I assume you used your iMac Pro to download the Windows Support Software. Using a different Mac can lead to the wrong download.
You do not need to use unetbootin. If fact, you do not even need a USB flash drive.
Starting with with High Sierra, macOS no longer creates Hybrid partitioned drives. So, you should not have to use gdisk.
The article does not mention System Integrity Protection (SIP). You should not have to disable SIP to install Windows.
I assume your installation did not include a Window Recovery Environment partition. I assume this because the article did not provide the necessary steps to create one.
The article included a step where the Windows Support Software (the legacy name is Boot Camp Support Software) is installed. Below is image taken from the article.

Note, there is a folder named WindowsSupport. This is a monumental error. If you have this folder on your flash drive, then I will assume this folder contains the folder named $WinPEDriver$. If so, then none of the Windows Support Software drivers needed properly install Windows were provided to the Windows installation software. If the WindowsSupport folder contains an AutoUnattend.xml file, then the Windows installation software did not receive any addition instructions provided by Apple to correctly install the Windows operating system.

An example of how the files should appear in the root folder of the Windows installation media is shown below. This image was taken from this Apple website.

You may want to refer the the question: How to install Windows 10 into a 2013 iMac without using the Boot Camp Assistant, USB flash drive or third party tools? The accepted answer provides a few extra steps your article may have omitted.

He was talking about manually installing the drivers. I did the same thing with my regular 2013 iMac. What am I supposed to do if the same thing is happening for me but for wifi and audio? I can hear my mac if I plug something into the 3.5 mm port but otherwise the speakers won't play anything and my wifi isnt working either. It shows no connections and I tried so many Broadcom drivers and a couple Atheros drivers for it. I saw someone use Atheros 938x and that driver installed and didn't give a message about the controller unable to be turned on. So I'll work with that.
For ethernet, maybe try some Atheros ethernet drivers. Don't use the folder, go in device manager and select ethernet controller and right click it to update the driver. Then manually select drivers (don't use windows update or the driver search) and scroll for the ethernet controller drivers and try Atheros folder and Broadcom Connections Inc. or whatever it's called.


How to make a duplicate of a photo on iPhone before I crop or edit it? There are many times I want to crop a photo using iPhoto on iOS and post to Facebook, and then possibly crop it another way (like panoramic this time), and post to Facebook, but I don't want to lose the original.
Is there a way to make duplicates of the original and edit it using iPhoto on iOS?
P.S. I also found that when you crop a photo in the Photos app, the original is not lost.  You can simply re-crop it again (or un-crop it) to get a different cropping or get back the original.  But, it still might be good to have a duplicate if you want to keep 2 different ways of cropping of the same photo.

As of iOS 9.3 you can choose to Duplicate photo directly. Pretty convenient.

iPhoto always keeps the original. When you go to the edit menu, there's a button to return to the original. And you can always preview the original by holding shift.

Of course you can manuelly use copy-paste or diplicate (cmd+d I believe) if you want to manually duplicate a picture.


What features from Lion will be lost when upgrading to Mountain Lion? I know Mountain Lion has some cool new features that Lion did not have, but will it overwrite any of Lion's functionality?

Of course.  In adding features, the behavior of previous features changes, not always for the better.

If you find features that were present in Lion but missing in Mountain Lion, please edit this answer to add your contributions to this list.

Mountain Lion drops support for some models of Macs supported by Lion.
Clicking the top right corner no longer triggers Spotlight (Spotlight's menubar icon is still present, adjacent to the new Notification Center icon).
The battery indicator in the menubar will no longer offer to show the remaining time.
X11.app is included, but that app alone no longer provides X11 functionality. When the user first runs X11.app – or an app that requires X11 – a dialogue guides the user to Apple's article HT5293 about XQuartz, which provides the functionality.
Mail.app and Safari.app drop support for RSS Feeds.

MAIL has lost its progress bar and also the belly-button indicators by each mailbox... so you don't know when servers are being checked, or when mails are being sent or downloaded nor how they are progressing... or not.

Also, MAIL has lost its DELETE button, so you have to use the Delete button on the keyboard.  Minor hassle, but why add hassle?


I have lost the prompt on Terminal on my Mac; unable to get commands to work I was trying to launch a few Java applications using the terminal. The command that I was instructed to launch it with (I was following a guide) was the following:

#!/bin/bash
cd "$( dirname "$0" )"
java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar craftbukkit.jar

It worked the first time, which was a test run, so I hide the terminal window to work on some other things. But when I opened the terminal window back up again, I noticed that I had lost my root@pcname:~$ prompt that usually starts with my terminal opening up.

I have tried to kill anything running in the background but nothing seems to work. When I enter a command it just moves me to the next line without executing anything. Please help and answer in simple terms, as I am not incredibly Terminal-savvy. Thanks!

Your command is still running. Type Ctrl-Z to get your prompt back, followed by bg and Enter to let Minecraft continue in the background.

If you want to avoid similar issues in the future, call either the shell script itself or at least java with & at the end to put it into the background directly:

java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar craftbukkit.jar &

type

su

and enter the root password, or better, use sudo in front of java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar craftbukkit.jar


Sync only Desktop folder, but not Documents, with "Store in iCloud"? (iCloud Drive) The Store in iCloud function that was introduced with macOS Sierra looks interesting to try out. It will store both the Desktop and the Documents folders in iCloud Drive instead of on the local drive.

I want it to store only the Desktop folder in iCloud, and not the Documents folder. Is this possible?

I noticed that by turning On and Off the Store in iCloud function, the files that had already been transfered to iCloud Drive (when the function was originally turned On) stayed there – and empty folders called Desktop — Local and Documents — Local were created in the user home directory.

So is it possible to make use of this circumstance, to keep only Desktop files in the iCloud? Will applications that make use of the Documents folder decide to use the iCloud folder or the local folder?

Update MacOS Catalina:

I don't think toxefa's answer below is working anymore with macOS Catalina. Upgrading the OS created a new empty Desktop folder in the user home directory. I tried deleting that Desktop folder via Terminal (rm -rf /Users/<yourusername>/Desktop) and then created a symlink per the answer ln -s /Users/<yourusername>/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Desktop /Users/<yourusername>/Desktop, but after reboot the symlink is gone and a new empty Desktop folder is always created in the home directory.

Doesn't look like there's a way to single out the Desktop via the 'Manage Storage' GUI.

However, you can always just symlink any directory from your iCloud drive; that way you can ensure that only the Desktop folder is being synced. This is with the caveat that while your Desktop files are being stored in iCloud, they're still taking up space on your HD before, during, and after sync. If you do it on every Mac then you'll keep your Desktop in sync between them all (files added, deleted, changed etc); this might not be what you're after though.

If symlinking isn't something you know how to do, instructions are below.

Backup (via TimeMachine or whatever you use).

Then fire up Terminal and run the following to move your Desktop folder into your iCloud Drive:

mv ~/Desktop /Users/<yourusername>/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/

Then just symlink it to the usual 'Desktop' location:

ln -s /Users/<yourusername>/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Desktop /Users/<yourusername>/Desktop

Now anything that you add to ~/Desktop (by dropping things onto your desktop etc) will actually be dropped into your iCloud drive. They are of course still taking up local space on your machine. When you delete something from your desktop then it's gone from the 'Cloud' as well. The benefits of this are more for sync between machines (+ access via your iPhone of course).

If you've got another mac, move anything you value from it's desktop folder into your iCloud Drive 'Desktop' folder first, then delete ~/Desktop on that machine and symlink again as above.

Why not just enable iCloud and empty out your Documents folder before you enable syncing? You can make a myDocuments folder that won’t sync or another name. Changing your system agains the clear design intent can and likely will yield instability or breakage when Apple ships updates. As you see, it's already broken once and I hope someone reverse engineers this for science (so we can all learn how this is implemented), but this seems quite contrived of an example if you are going to enable iCloud sync in the first place.

I would just let the system have the empty folder it wants to sync on Catalina and be in awe that it worked in the past.


Finder takes long time to load some folders When opening some folders, the Finder takes a long time (30-60 seconds) to load all the files in it. Specifically, these folders typically contain 10-50 PHP files (which are text files), each about 10 kb.

I also notice that sometimes, after the files are listed, their icons are still loading and the "Kind" column is also still loading. (I've got the "Name", "Date Modified", "Size", and "Kind" columns showing; "Calculate all sizes" is enabled" while "Show icon preview" is disabled.)

In addition, when opening a directory such as this and viewing Activity Monitor, I see that coreservicesd is at 70% CPU and Finder is at 30% CPU. After all the files have loaded, both services are still at these CPU levels for about 60 seconds afterward.

Anyone know how I can fix this? I already did "Repair disk permissions" and "Repair Disk", along with a ton of miscellaneous Onyx tasks, but the problem still remains.

Hallelujah! I figured it out. Okay, so first thing I did was create a new account, as suggested by another answer. The problem did not occur in there, so clearly the problem was limited to my account. I then went into Safe Mode into my account. The problem did not occur as well. So clearly something was loaded in normal mode but not in safe mode that was causing the problem.

While in safe mode, I then cleared the caches (in Terminal, using sudo mv /Library/Caches ~/Temp/ and the same for ~/Library/Caches). Problem solved! I've had other problems as well in Finder so perhaps this will fix this as well. I'm curious as to why using Onyx to clear the User caches didn't clear these as well, but anyway, from what I've read online it seems like getting rid of these two folders is safe. Also, Time Machine never backs up ~/Library/Caches (but it does back up /Library/Caches), so that's reassuring.

In addition, while this post was made in 2003, it still applied to my situation and this was what convinced me to clear my Caches folders.

My problem was solved by starting up in Safe Mode (Safe Boot)
I opened all the folders that were slow in finder. The first 2 or 3 of them were still slow. Then they started to open really fast. Did nothing more. Restarted my machine & then everything was great.
Starting up in Safe Mode
To start up into Safe Mode (to Safe Boot), follow these steps.

Be sure your Mac is shut down.
Press the power button.
Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key.
The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone, but not before the tone.
Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple logo and the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).
After the logo appears, you should see a progress bar during startup. This indicates that your computer is performing a directory check as part of Safe Mode.

To leave Safe Mode, restart your computer without holding any keys during startup.

Best wishes


Strange behavior of `hdiutil` declare -i s=${foo}; n=${bar}; mp=${baz}; cn=${qux}; mac_adr=${quux}
sudo hdiutil create -size ${s}b -fs JHFS+X -volname "${n}" -type SPARSEBUNDLE \
"/Volumes/${mp}/${cn}_${mac_addr}.sparsebundle" && echo "Done"

does not work, but

declare -i s=${foo}; n=${bar}; mp=${baz}; cn=${qux}; mac_adr=${quux}
sudo hdiutil create -size ${s}b -fs JHFS+X -volname "${n}" -type SPARSEBUNDLE \
"/Volumes/${cn}_${mac_addr}.sparsebundle" &&
sudo mv -vn "/Volumes/${cn}_${mac_addr}.sparsebundle" "/Volumes/${mp}" && echo "Done"

Works correctly

What am I doing wrong?

I used the following command in 10.9.5:

read -p "Size in GB? = " s; ((s= 10**9*s/512)); read -p "Name of image volume? = " n; read -p "External Volume name (Escape spaces with a backslash - the volume has to exist)? = " m; cn=`scutil --get ComputerName`; mac_addr=`ifconfig en0 | grep "ether"`; mac_addr=${mac_addr#*ether}; mac_addr=${mac_addr// /} ; mac_addr=${mac_addr//:/}; sudo hdiutil create -size ${s}b -fs JHFS+X -volname "${n}" -type SPARSEBUNDLE "/Volumes/${m}/${cn}_${mac_addr}.sparsebundle" && echo "Done"

and it works (with a workaround for spaces in volume names like "Macintosh HD") for internal volumes:

Size in GB? = 2
Name of image volume? = aaa
Existing External Volume Name (Escape spaces with a backslash)? = test\ 2
created: /Volumes/test 2/host_001122334455.sparsebundle
Done
host:~ user$

This doesn't work if you create a sparsebundle on a network share. Here you mustn't use the sudo command. Instead use (I also simplified $mac_addr):

read -p "Size in GB? = " s; ((s= 10**9*s/512)); read -p "Name of image volume? = " n; read -p "External Volume name (Escape spaces with a backslash - the volume has to exist)? = " m; cn=`scutil --get ComputerName`; mac_addr=`ifconfig en0 | grep ether | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/://g'`; hdiutil create -size ${s}b -fs JHFS+X -volname "${n}" -type SPARSEBUNDLE "/Volumes/${m}/${cn}_${mac_addr}.sparsebundle" && echo "Done"

So (without sudo before hdiutil) it works:

clear; read -p "Желаемый размер раздела в GB? = " s; ((s= 10**9*s/512)); read -p "Введите название раздела? = " n; cn=`scutil --get ComputerName`; mac_addr=`ifconfig en0 | grep "ether"`; mac_addr=${mac_addr#*ether}; mac_addr=${mac_addr// /}; mac_addr=${mac_addr//:/}; read -p "Точка Монтирования = " mp; hdiutil create -size ${s}b -fs JHFS+X -volname "${n}" -type SPARSEBUNDLE "/Volumes/${mp}/${cn}_${mac_addr}.sparsebundle" && echo "Done"

Желаемый размер раздела в GB? = 10
Введите название раздела? = rrr
Точка Монтирования = Data
created: /Volumes/Data/Air_60c54700b918.sparsebundle
Done

The matter of rights on the network drive:

hdiutil - verbose
DIDiskImageCreateWithCFURL: creator returned 0
::getBandEntry: chown() - 501
Сompletion...

DIHLDiskImageCreate() returned 1
hdiutil: create: returning 1
hdiutil: create failed - operation is not permitted
this file is created, but then the operation fails, before he makes the format:
DIDiskImageCreateWithCFURL: creator returned 0
DI_kextWaitQuiet: about to call IOServiceWaitQuiet...
DI_kextWaitQuiet: IOServiceWaitQuiet took 0.000011 seconds
Formatting ...
Completing ...
created: /Volumes/Data/Air_60c22700b922.sparsebundle

Do not use "sudo" to the shared network resources!


How can I browse photos on iPhone in Mac OSX? Previously, on Windows, iPhone was recognized as a camera and I could browse image folder with Explorer without a need to import/download/tranfer photo files to the computer.

Is there a way to do the same on Mac OSX? I mean, all approaches I have ever read are somehow connected to import procedure (iPhoto, Preview, iTunes, etc.) or to hacking the iPhone and installing some apps that will allow to mount the phone as storage drive work.

What is the easiest and most straightforward way to view that files without transferring them to a computer?

The Image Capture app allows you to browse the iPhone's photos, albeit not at full size or resolution, without first downloading the image files to your computer. Image Capture also gives you the tools to download all or selected subranges of the photos on your iPhone, as well as deletion.

You can open the Photos app on your Mac, then on the left side bar you'll see your iPhone icon. If you click on it you can see all your pictures, just like when you open it on Windows Explorer!


How do I negotiate dialogue boxes using the keyboard only? On Windows based machines, whenever a dialogue box pops up with multiple choice options (ie 'Abort', 'Continue', 'Retry'), you can use the 'Tab' key to cycle through those options without using the mouse.

On OSX, there doesn't appear to be an option to cycle through dialogue boxes using a key rather than the Trackpad.

Is there any keyboard shortcut to do this?

You can cycle the dialog boxes. Also note that by default esc will choose cancel.

To enable switching via the tab key this feature go to System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts → Full Keyboard Access... → All Controls

Now you can use the tab key to switch the selection:

Press Space to choose the selected button (which has a blue border around it).
Press Enter to choose the default button (the blue coloured button).
Press esc to cancel.

You can press Control+F7 (or fn+Control+F7 depending on your keyboard preferences regarding default function keys) to turn this option on/off on the fly.


How to reset the iPad without PC and iTunes I have an iPad and I forgot the passcode. I can't remember email ID or Apple ID.  Now I only have the iPad and bill. Many stories I've read suggest to reset the iPad and then login.

How do I do that?  I don't need the data so it's ok to wipe it out.

The iPad has been unlocked with help of Apple Support. :)

Thanks everyone.


How can I use the TrackPad's force touch as copy paste function in terminal? Since MacBook Pro 2015, Apple introduced the "Force Touch" in the Track Pad. When you click it in the Terminal, by default it gives you dictionary/Wikipedia search results.

I would like to change it to a "middle button"-like function as in Ubuntu: copy the selected text into the prompt, without passing via the clipboard and without the need to use the annoying ⌘C ⌘V sequence. Any ideas?

edit: shift  ⌘  V   does the part of copying without passing via the clipboard. now I need to have force touch doing this.

Check out BetterTouchTool. This application will let you customize  actions based on trackpad gestures (including Force Touch).

Here is the action I have defined:

With this setting, I can select text in an application (this works well in Terminal and iTerm), and without explicitly copy/pasting, paste with a 3-finger force-click.

That isn't possible. It would have to be an option built into MacOS Touchpad preferences.


Scroll lock on USB keyboard does not enable scroll lock I have a Windows keyboard that attaches to a KVM that I use to control my Macbook Pro and my desktop. Pressing scroll lock twice on the KVM switches between the two computers. On the Macbook scroll lock is mapped to the decrease brightness button, and pause/break is mapped to increase brightness. I can switch between the two machines, but the screen changing brightness is a bit of an annoyance.

Is there a way to map the scroll lock button to using scroll lock on just the USB keyboard?

Take a look at Karabiner.  It isn't very user friendly for this level of customization but it has amazing power and flexibility.

The PrintScreen, Scroll Lock, and PauseBreak buttons are actually F13, F14, and F15.  You would have to configure the custom private.xml with something like this.  In this example, it will remap F14 (the Scroll Lock key) to nothing but only on a Microsoft Sculpt keyboard.  It will continue to be the same on the MacBook's keyboard.

<deviceproductdef>
  <productname>SCULPT_ERGONOMIC_DESKTOP</productname>
  <productid>0x07a5</productid>
</deviceproductdef>
<item>
  <device_only>DeviceVendor::MICROSOFT,DeviceProduct::SCULPT_ERGONOMIC_DESKTOP</device_only>
  <name>Disable F14 on external keyboard</name>
  <identifier>private.external.disable.f14</identifier>
  <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F14, KeyCode::VK_NONE</autogen>
</item>

Read thru the docs regarding the device definitions and how to add your own if it isn't in the predefined list, as I've done in the example above.

The KVM switch will still detect the double Scroll Lock keypress and switch between systems.

None of the answers above were working for me (MacOS Mojave), so I wrote up a simple tool to send the double scroll lock signal to my KVM – it can even be assigned to a key combo: https://github.com/benjaminstout/osx-kvm


Change Screen Resolution for Mac Built-in VNC (Screen Sharing) I am attempting to connect to a MacBook Pro from a Mac Pro with a 2560x1600 monitor using the built in screen sharing client.  I would like to be able have the connection fill the entire screen, but currently the best I can do is set the MacbookPro's resolution to 1680x1050 which fills about 2/3 of the 2560x1600 monitor.

Since the built in client is really a vnc server, I would like to be able to set the 'served' resolution to 2560x1600 instead of the native resolution of the MacBook Pro.  On a linux server this would be as simple as $vncserver -geometry 2560x1600 and then connecting to the created server.  Is there a way to get the native mac vnc client to do this?

For what it is worth, I found the location of the client (on Sierra):
/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/AppleVNCServer.bundle/Contents/MacOS/AppleVNCServer but can't figure out what arguments it might take (if any)

This post seemed to use ARDAgent to activate and configure the VNC server but did not mention anything about setting the resolution for the server.

I found the solution in this article:How to change Macbook Screen Resolution Manually.
I used the DisableMonitor application.
https://notebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/disablemonitor-resolution-menu-1024x754.png


Safari will not "Remember Me" on Facebook My question is very similar to this question:

Safari 7.0.4 doesn't remember my login status. "Remember me" not working (OS X 10.9.3)

Except it differs in 3 key ways:

The solution did not work for me This occurs ONLY on Facebook.com;
reddit, twitter, netflix, etc.'s "remember me" function works fine.
The erasure of the cookies does not occur during restart of the
browser. In fact, I can restart safari and still be logged in.
The
erasure happens when I put the computer to sleep and wake it up
again.

I have confirmed that the cookies are being reset. The cookie list is entirely different on wake, and I am booted out of Facebook.

The curious thing is that it only occurs for Facebook. This is really annoying though, and my next resort will be a full reinstall.

Extra info:

Newest model Retina MacBook Pro (August 2014) running OS X 10.9.4
Safari 7.0.6

EDIT

It seems to have been resolved for now, with a "Repair Disk Permissions" from Disk Utility, although I suspect it will occur again.

EDIT

This is a long time after I asked the question, however I did eventually figure it out. It turns out that I had connected my Skype to my Facebook account, and that was somehow triggering a logout every time I opened Skype (that's why it seemed so random). So solution for anybody who's having this problem: just disconnect Skype and Facebook. Never had this issue again.

add site to cookies/cache approved list in browser settings


Changing Apple ID on iPhone - how is non-iTunes data affected? My sister's iPhone had been irreversibly damaged. When she got a new one some time later, she had forgotten her Apple ID's password and created a new one. I managed to reset the password just yesterday, and she'd like to use the old account again, as she's bought many apps with it.

How would changing the account affect all data unrelated to the Apple ID on the phone, like call history and text messages? Are they somehow tied to the account, or can she simply change the account both on the phone and the computer and create a new backup without losing anything*?

* Except the apps from the new account, of course. No problem, she only downloaded free ones.

Any purchases that she made with the previous account are the biggest problem as they are non-transferable. This would include music and movies, as well as apps. Since you mentioned that she only downloaded free apps, it shouldn't be a monetary problem. Because updates will require you to login to the old account, it would probably be better to re-download the apps with the new account. That way updates are seamless and easy.

iMessage (or SMS and MMS for that matter) shouldn't be a problem at all. All the old threads and messages should stay in tact and be usable like nothing ever changed. Call history isn't something that iCloud, or an Apple ID has anything to do with, so the change will also be without consequence there.

Yes, change Apple IDs, create a new backup and you're good to go.

Side note: iPhone actually handles Apple ID changes very easily and smoothly. Some people have two Apple IDs in general - most by accident - and they will change back and forth for app/music/movies purchases.

On mobile devices os 10 lets you keep the iCloud seperate from the Store. You can get that option when you do the update after the Hello startup.


Corner radius of Macbooks? I'm working on a sticker which I'll attach to a 15 inch MacBook Pro. I know that the size is:

Height: 0.71 inch (1.8 cm)
Width: 14.13 inches (35.89 cm)
Depth: 9.73 inches (24.71 cm)

but what about the corner radius? And is it the same as the other MacBooks? I'm using a 13 inch MacBook Air and don't have access to a 15 inch MacBook Pro.

Thanks!

tl;dr

What's the corner radius of a 15 inch MacBook Pro?

It is 11 mm to 12 mm. Try measuring mine.


How can I make auto-hide/show for the dock faster? I really like the auto-hide feature of the dock in Mac OS X.
However, the animation for the dock to reappear is just a bit too slow for me. Since this is quite annoying, I disable the feature.

  Is it possible to manually shorten the time for the dock
  to reappear?

Btw: I am aware that one can use the key-combo ⌥⌘D to toggle auto hide/show for the dock. But I want solution without using the keyboard.

To make the Dock instantly leap back into view when it’s needed, rather than slide, open a Terminal window and type the following:

defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -int 0;killall Dock

I find this useful, but if you’d like the animation for the dock to reappear to last for a split-second, try the following:

defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0.15;killall Dock

To explain, changing "0.15" with any number can let you tailor things as it represents the time in seconds taken for the dock to reappear fully.

To revert back to the default sliding effect, open a Terminal window and type the following:

defaults delete com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier;killall Dock

via Cocktail.app

You can modify almost everything with this app.


Sync iOS iBooks to OS X iBooks Is there a way to sync the iBooks that were not purchased from iTunes on my iOS device with my OS X iBooks? Specifically, I have some PDFS I'd like to sync.

Please note I am seeking to synchronize the books themselves, not just highlights and notes.

I have a similar problem. Non-iBook store epubs don't sync with iOS devices, no matter what options are switched on/off.

Looking at the directory they're now stored on in Mavericks (~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books), they seem to have been converted to a different format (from .epub to a folder with xml/html files), and i suspect that's why they don't sync.

Any suggestions on how to sync these would be most appreciated!

EDIT: To answer my own question, check that iTunes is actually syncing all books. It had changed my previous preference to selected books, and preferentially un-ticked all non-iBook store epubs. Changing that fixed the syncing problem for me...

I found a simple way to transfer PDFs from iBooks to any  computer, or app you have on your iDevice... However, you must be jailbroken for this to work.

Here's how:

In Cydia, download and install a file manager like "Filza" (it's in the BigBoss repo)

Note: your iDevice might respring once installed

Solution A) To your computer:

Open Filza
Click settings icon in the right top corner and enable WebDAV server.
Open a browser on your computer and navigate to the address given by Filza
You will find a file manager / ftp like solution. Navigate to "/var/mobile/Media/Books/Purchases" and download pdf files.

Solution B) To another app:

Open Filza and navigate to "/var/mobile/Media/Books/Purchases" without quotes.
Long press on the file, select "Open in" option that appears and select your app of choice.

Normally it will either copy or link the file to your application. If it's linked , then the original file will stay where it was.

Alternatively, assuming you use Filza, you can select "Move" (or copy). Then press on the Favorites (star) icon, and tap on "Apps Manager". Find the app of your liking in the list that follows and tap on it.
Enter the "Documents" folder that you will find, and paste file there.
(Note: sometimes I experience the required folder is called "Inbox")
Open the app, and start reading.

It's really simple and faster than syncing through iTunes.


Best way to share all photos with partner I want to create a comprehensive cloud photo archive together with my girlfriend, for all our mobile devices and laptops.

This is what we want:

Photos should be archived in full resolution
Photos should be automatically uploaded from iPhones

I’m a bit desperate because everything I tried so far failed:

Dropbox: uploads everything into one folder and would mix up the sources of the photos; plus it would require sharing my Dropbox ID
iCloud: it’s only possible to share albums, so sharing the entire collection is cumbersome. Plus, backing up shared albums seems difficult (I’d need to manually save them and would create redundant copies for all photos I uploaded before to the shared album)

I’m now eyeing at Google Photos. It seems to be best at sharing libraries and - of you pay - allows you to upload full scale pictures. While I’m worried about Google’s tendency to grab data, I’m willing to accept that.

Now my questions:

What so you use for sharing entire photo libraries from different devices with your family?
Would you recommend using one account for our collection, or two separate ones? With two separate accounts, can you share full resolution photos using the Shared Library function? With ohne, is there a way to separate between sources (i.e. what she uploads from her iPhone / why I upload from my iPhone / why she uploads from laptop / ...)

I guess google developed a feature that is exactly what you have been looking for:

Share your Google Photos library with a partner
https://support.google.com/photos/answer/7378858?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DiOS

I've just enabled it with my wife and so far seems to work greata

But you should be aware of that Google Photos will separate meta info from photos. So later if you want to download them all you will get JSON files and photos.
Only way to get with meta data, is to download they by hand, you can select 500 at a time.


Character Accent Menu doesn't appear anymore in macOS Sierra Before upgrading to macOS Sierra, I really liked the Character Accent Menu by doing a long press on a key (for example, the character e) and being able to add an accent on it.

However, this functionality seems to not work anymore, and so far, I can't find out why?

Also, before, doing a long press on the delete button, would repeatly delete characters. Now, it is doing only one character deletion disregarding how long I'm pressing the key. So if I want to erase 10 characters, I need to press the delete button 10 times...

Also, I am not able to log off or shut down. When doing it, all applications are closed, status bar disappears but nothing happens. The dock remains here. I have no way to shut down or log out without doing a long press on the power button.

Is someone facing the same issue?

EDIT :
Logging with a new user account or guest account fix all the problems. But I still would like to know what, in my user account, became corrupted during the upgrade.

I got the same issue after a recent update now, found the answer here and it worked for me. In Terminal type

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true

and then log out and log in again, this should fix the issue.

You just have to hold: option + e than press your letter to put the accent.


Is iWork for iOS a real office document editor? Can I use iWork on my iPhone and iPad as a complement to my employer issued Windows PC? I know that iWork boasts some Microsoft Office compatibility but how is it implemented? If office documents are imported and converted to a iWork format and then have to be exported to a Office format on save, isn't there a risk for dataloss?

Ideally iWork would edit actual office documents but I'm not sure if this is the case.

There surely is a risk for data loss, mostly in the formatting of documents. As you suspected, the files are converted when opened (and saved) to the iWork format. Certain features in Office aren't present in iWork, such as SmartArt or VBA applications.

For handling simple letters it could be a compliment, but for business critical documents that shouldn't change their formatting all the time I would stick to one of both. Since your employer decides what you use at work I don't think iWork would be a very good option in this case.

Pages exists and many people use it - yes it a real option for editing Word docs on iOS. (most use it happily and productively as well)

Convert and not support 100% of the features that any one PC version of word does - no Not only is it not Word and has a different UI and different philosophy on how toolbars and controls are organized, it's not as complicated as Word by any measure.

In fairness, word on the PC doesn't support 100% of the features from one version to another and has many formats and conversions - so it's more a degree of what subset of the features you and your colleagues actually use and whether you stick to pre 2007 formats or have jumped to the new Office document format.

The good news, is you can try out the conversion from word to pages and back (or even try pages using word format exclusively) for free online using iCloud.com and the iWork for iCloud beta.

If you want to edit a specific version of Word on the PC that you need to interoperate with, I may be able to provide some more guidance on how groups of people have felt when using Pages on iOS with a body of document that for years were crafted and edited in a Word only / PC only environment.

As a compliment I say jump in and get working in Pages. If you use Macros and VBA you will quickly learn that those just don't make the transition and work on documents without those attributes and get quality work done since you are clearly a power user. If you are not a power user, I say jump in - the less complicated Pages may make you more productive and you'll quickly learn that there is or there isn't a conversion issue and can make an educated plan on how to proceed if you run into that.


My iPhone front camera won't work (it freezes) I dropped my phone in the water and everything works, except my front facing camera. When I go to change from back to front, it freezes and won't let me go back to the back camera, and it's blurry.

Deleted Pinterest, suddenly works for me


Safari: Any way to initiate pinch-to-zoom without trackpad? Command + (Zoom in) and Command - (Zoom out) are different from pinch-to-zoom on a trackpad. The former changes the layout of the page, whereas the latter just enlarges the page as if a magnifier was used.

Is there any way to initiate pinch-to-zoom without a trackpad? Any methods such as a keyboard shortcut or an API.

My mouse has a scroll wheel as its middle button.
For zoom out or in I can use command with scroll up or down.

I don't remember if that was the default behavior, or I selected it at some past time.

This is set at:

System Preferences > Accessibility > Zoom


"Time Machine must erase your existing backup history and start a new backup to correct this." Why is that? I seen this message for the past two days:

"Time Machine detected that your backups on “SynologyDS216.local” cannot be reliably restored."

"Time Machine must erase your existing backup history and start a new backup to correct this."

I can access the backup history just fine. The NAS (which have RAID 1) is fine as well.
When I look at the backups:
~ ᐅ tmutil listbackups | tail -n 5
2020-10-15-144522
2020-10-15-151447
2020-10-15-154125
2020-10-15-184439
2020-10-15-195406

We can see that it stopped doing backups exactly 2 days ago, so I decided to do a check:
tmutil verifychecksums /Volumes/Time\ Machine\ Backups/Backups.backupdb/Thomas-MBP

and an error that popped up is:
/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Thomas-MBP/2020-07-08-200220/Macintosh HD/System/Library/DirectoryServices/DefaultLocalDB/Default: error 257 enumerating path

The directory exists:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root  wheel   102B Aug 25  2019 .
drwxr-xr-x@ 5 root  wheel   170B Sep 29  2019 ..
drwx------+ 7 root  wheel   238B Aug 25  2019 Default

but the permissions are an issue. This file has extended attributes, so I look to see what's up:
/Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Thomas-MBP/2020-07-08-200220/Macintosh HD/System/Library/DirectoryServices/DefaultLocalDB ᐅ sudo ls -le Default
total 0
drwx------@ 2 root  wheel   340 Aug 25  2019 aliases
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown
drwx------@ 2 root  wheel   102 Aug 25  2019 computers
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown
drwx------@ 2 root  wheel  4420 Aug 25  2019 groups
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown
drwx------@ 2 root  wheel   102 Aug 25  2019 networks
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown
drwx------@ 2 root  wheel  3468 Aug 25  2019 users
 0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown

When looking on the host machine:
/System/Library/DirectoryServices/DefaultLocalDB ᐅ ls -l

    total 0
    drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel    96B Jan  1  2020 .
    drwxr-xr-x  5 root  wheel   160B Jan  1  2020 ..
    drwx------  7 root  wheel   224B Jan  1  2020 Default

the permissions are not the same and the data can be accessed.
It looks like TimeMachine claims it can't use the backup due to some permission issues...
I tried to ask about it on the Apple forums but my post got removed because I'm running a beta version of the OS...
Has anyone seen this problem before?

“Has anyone seen this problem before?”
I have, and from what I have heard from reading forums over the years, it sounds like a very common problem with Time Machine: every once in awhile, it says “I need to delete your backup and start over.”
Or it says “I can’t backup because your backup device is full” (even though Time Machine is supposed to prune itself as needed).
Or something else comes up that causes Time Machine to choke.¹
Howard Oakley has cataloged a long list of issues with Time Machine, and even has some free apps to help work with Time Machine archives (unfortunately, nothing that can “repair” a “damaged” Time Machine backup, as far as I know).
In response to this I have developed the following attitude towards Time Machine:

Never rely on Time Machine as your only backup.

Use Time Machine to multiple locations (e.g. a Time Capsule or other remote Mac plus a local Mac) with the expectation that if one gets corrupted, you will still have the other one. Note that Point #1 still stands, even with Point #2

In addition to Time Machine, also use at least one (preferably two) of:

Backblaze
Carbon Copy Cloner
SuperDuper
Arq

¹ This is usually where someone will chime in and state that they have used Time Machine since it was first released and never had a problem with it. I do not doubt that there are some people who have had that experience, but I tend to consider them sort of like people who win the lottery: I am happy for them, but I would never expect to be one of them, and have decided to assume I never will be. YMMV.

This happens for a simple reason. Network errors get flagged as hard drive errors, making NAS destinations too fragile for use. Don’t waste your time on any NAS that says they support Time Machine unless you can get them to actually support you when you get errors like this. When you call them, they will point their finger at Apple and Apple doesn’t support Time Machine to anything but a physical drive now.
Apple built in a failure detection mechanism and when you have too many minor errors, any drive is flagged as unreliable for adding new backup intervals and you are forced to make a decision.

Keep the drive in read-only mode. The data there is fine for a restore, but no new backups can happen. Put it on the shelf in case you have to restore data from when it has data, but put a new drive in the rotation to do new backups.
Erase the drive to start a clean slate. You lose the history, but you can then see if the drive passes the tests and can store new data safely and reliably.

If you must back up to NAS for reasons, also back up to an attached drive occasionally so when the NAS fails you, you can erase it and start fresh.


How can I install Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger) on a Mac without a DVD drive? I have an iMac G3 that does not have a DVD drive, which was gifted to me along with install media for Mac OS 10.0-10.4. When I received it, it had Mac OS 10.4 on it, but I have since wiped the hard drive and am installing my way back up to it (I'm currently on 10.3).

However, I'm not sure how to install Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger) since it comes on a DVD, but this iMac doesn't have a DVD drive. The original owner said something about how they put Tiger on an iPod to install it, but didn't remember the details. I could probably scrounge up an iPod if I need to, but I'd also be interested to know if there are other ways to install Tiger on a Mac without a DVD drive.

If you are looking for old MacOS Versions you can go to the download site of https://developers.apple.com and get an old version of MacOS. I didn't see your particular 10.4 Version, but I did see 10.3.9 and 10.5 Leopard.
The different downloads can be found here. You can download them to your desktop and install it.


Two persons independently using one MacBook Pro Is it possible for such a setup as the following: Hooking one MacBook Pro up with two separate monitors, two separate mice, and two separate keyboards, allowing two different persons to work independently on their monitors, sharing the computer's performance?

Perhaps this is a strange request, but it would actually be useful for me in certain situations. With enough adapters, simply connecting the computer to the necessary monitors, mice, and keyboards should be possible; however, the interesting part is how to allow to share the computer's performance and sending independent data to the two monitors.

no, in fact you cannot SIMULTANEOUSLY use a system with two separate users logged in simultaneously on two different monitors.

several other options may allow something similar:
1 user logged in on the display.
2nd user logged in via SSH to terminal as any available user..

However this won't allow the computer to drive 2 displays - the 2nd user would be able to do terminal commands only, and could in fact overide any actions done by the first user (depending on permissions, user account, etc)...

Unfortunately it is not possible to have 2 separate users on the same machine both using their own mouse/keyboard/monitor.


How do I search all hidden files that are in hidden folders using Terminal? I need to find some configs buried in some hidden folders and can't recall where they are to navigate to them directly Cmd+Shift+G.

I did a sudo find -name Foo* (slow), but none of the returned files were in hidden folders.

What is the easiest way to search all hidden files?

mdfind seems to ignore a lot of hidden files. mdfind 'kMDItemFSInvisible==1&&kMDItemFSName==filename' does list .DS_Store files, but not for example .bash_history. I haven't found any way to search for files in some hidden directories like /private/etc/.
Anyway, Find Any File is a lot faster than find.

Find Any File is a program for Mac OS X that lets you search for files on your disks.

Contrary to Spotlight, it does not use a database but instead uses the file system driver's fast search operations, where available. This lets you search for file properties such as name, dates, size, etc., but not for file content (use Spotlight or EasyFind for that).
Find Any File can find files that Spotlight doesn't, e.g. those inside bundles and packages and in inside folders that are usually excluded from Spotlight search.
Finally, it is quite fast. A search only takes a few seconds on an internal hard disk or SSD. Try for yourself!

If you want to search .DS_Store hidden files, this command works well.

du -a | grep .DS_Store


Can a Mac act as Bluetooth receiver for sound? This is my setup to play music:

Mac with iTunes
2 Airport Express' connected to two pair of active
B&O speakers

I also have a turntable/record player that I want to use wirelessly with this setup. I therefore just ordered a Bluetooth transmitter. Now the question is if my Mac can receive A2DP (low latency AptX) from this device with its built in Bluetooth support or do I need to buy a separate receiver for the computer?

My plan is to use Rogue Amoeba's Line In app and redirect the sound from my turntable/Bluetooth combo to my Airport Express' but while waiting for my transmitter to arrive I have googled and it looks like a Mac can't act as a Bluetooth A2DP server. However, I also have a small portable Bluetooth speaker and that can act as a speaker phone and in Line In I can select this speaker both as output destination and input source, which seems to indicate that my Mac actually can receive sound from a Bluetooth source.

I found a solution using Airplay instead of Bluetooth, but I guess that is better anyway. The solutions is described in detail here

http://davidbo.livejournal.com/795.html

(page is added to Wayback Machine in case it disappears).


Wifi issues with multiple devices I have about 4 devices always using the internet on my home wifi network. Everything is fine and dandy until I start to do intensive bandwidth stuff like gaming and streaming movies. So I thought this was an issue with my internet speed so I upgraded to 100mbps down and 20mbps up but this hasn't improved the issue.

I have a 3 year old Linksys E4200 router. I've tried different DNS servers and i've looked for the optimal wifi frequency so that there's no interference with neighboring wifi. Because of the distance of my devices I cannot connect anything to ethernet.

Please help. My hulu keeps glitching and I can't use my laptop and xbox at the same time with out something slowing down.

One other thing is I have my xbox on DMZ would this cause any issues?

Thank you in advance for you time and help!

The 100/24 Mbps are actually good numbers.

The question is are those actually arriving at your computer.

One suggestion I would make is for you to switch to 5GHz router/Network.

That should eliminate lots of neighborhood interference.

5GHz also has much higher data transfer rate between your router and your computer.

On Mac the Transfer Rate is shown in the WiFi profile and it is the one key measure how fast is your connection to the router.

My Transmit Rates are 70 on a 2.4 GHz network and 250 on my 5 GHz network.

PS, try turning off the dual frequency on your Router.

I think the 30mbps is correctly enough via wifi for your 100mbps bandwidth that's from your ISP to your router which is wired connection not the wifi connection;

My iMac used 2.4ghz because 2.4ghz more stable than 5ghz in a serious environment, and I got the simlar result: 32+-2mbps from www.speedtest.net;
Googled Linksys E4200, it marked 750M，2.4Ghz 300Mbps，5Ghz 450Mbps,
so check your wifi environment: distance, walls, and use wired connection as possible.