texts:
I have gmail as the main mail account on my iPhone.  Each time I set the account up, it works for a while — a few days to a month — but the becomes unable to fetch/send mail, giving the message

  Cannot Get Mail. The mail server “imap.gmail.com” is not responding. Verify that you have entered the correct account info in Mail settings.

Once this problem appears, it doesn’t go away of it’s own accord (I’ve tried waiting up to a week).  The only way I’ve found to fix it is to remove the gmail account from the phone (under Settings –> Mail, Contacts, Calendars –> Accounts), and then re-add it.  This restores functionality fine, for another a few days/weeks, until it breaks again.

This has happened about 5 or 6 times now.  It doesn’t seem to be related to a particular wifi network or data connection — I use my phone with my home wifi, two different wi-fi networks at work, many miscellaneous wi-fi networks while travelling, and on a mobile data plan, and the timing of the gmail “breakages” doesn’t seem to correlate with any of this.  (One one occasion, it worked fine on my home wifi in the evening, and then was not working when I tried it first the next morning on the same network.)

My only guess is that it could be a password issue — this problem started soone after I restored my phone from backup a few months ago, and between when that backup was made and the restore happened, I’d changed my gmail password.  So perhaps the outdated password is still present somewhere, and although each time I re-setup gmail on the phone I give the new password, something later causes it to switch back to trying the outdated one?  But I’ve gone through my iCloud keychain in Keychain Access on my MacBook, and checked that all passwords for imap.gmail.com and smtp.gmail.com there are up-to-date.

For reference: it’s an iPhone 5c, running iOS 9.0.2.

This question sounds similar, but just a one-off, without the problem recurring.


texts: I had connected my iPad mini to my net-safe card which creates a virtual debit card and lasts for 48 hours and automatically gets void after that for security purpose. But now I want to remove that information because the virtual card has expired but I am compelled to put some information. It does not have "none" option in payment method which most of the people say that it has. It is related to country?


texts:
I want to replace the keyboard shortcut for
⌥Option  + d = ∂
with
⌥Option  + d = ð

How can I do that?


texts: I tried to install Windows 10 with Boot Camp and I got an error. When I tried to reboot my MacBook and held Alt, I have two partitions: MacintoshHD and Windows. If I click on Windows I have a blue Windows screen with "Recovery". So how I can delete this partition?


texts: How can I boot Windows bootable USB for Mac book pro 2018 mojave?

texts:
I want to install Windows in memory stick or USB SSD Drive (I have both)

At first I made USB bootable memory stick by Windows OS.

My memory stick is like this.

Then I boot my mac with [option] key ,then there appears EFI BOOT (orange disk mark).

However when I click memory stick, windows installer doesn't launch, but mac os recovery mode starts.

My memory stick is like this ( sorry there is two byte character).

How can I boot windows installer in memory stick on mac??


texts: Can I Use iTunes Match To Stream My Library To My MacBook?

texts:
I've got iTunes match, and my whole library is backed up in the cloud. Is it possible, with the service, to host my music in the cloud, delete my whole local copy that takes up a whopping 50 GB on my small hard drive, and stream to my MacBook from the iTunes servers like I can on my iPhone?

Thanks!


texts: How can I create a CD installer in ISO format for macOS High Sierra?

texts: For the last couple of macOS versions, it has been standard to upgrade the system from a downloaded package, or to create an installation USB drive. However, how can I make an installer that boots from a CD-ROM?


texts: Can I use a Mac os x 10.6.6 that came with a newer iMac to install it on another one?

texts: I recently purchased a brand new 27" iMac that came with snow leopard as the default os. I was wondering if I could use the back up disc that it came with to install it on my old 21" iMac that is 5 years old. I have seen on various forums that the discs that come with computers are machine specific, and thus the result is a message stating that "Mac OS X Snow Leopard cannot be installed on this computer." But I've heard there are workarounds to this. Does any one know what they are? Thanks.


texts: How can I Change Letter Cases in iTunes?

texts:
I have some iTunes music files that are all capitalized letters and others that are normal small case letters. Instead of me going through and renaming each capitalized music file’s data is there a way that I could make iTunes default all music files and their data to small caps? …a way in Terminal or through and the iTunes Music Library.xml file, or…?

I have swapped out the iTunes Music Library.xml file and the iTunes Library.itl file with new fresh files from an unused iTunes from another computer, but when I reinstall music files back into the Music folder it goes right back to being capitalized letters even though I had changed those large caps to small caps earlier.

I prefer not to rename 100’s of music files so I’m hoping there is a simpler way of doing this via some forced code somewhere. Any suggestions?


texts: Does Mobile Safari have an image file size limit?

texts:
I'm developing a website which contains, by its nature, very large images. When testing on an iPad, I'm noticing that any image on the page larger than 2MB is not showing up, just showing the dreaded blue '?' instead. The only reason I can think of is that there is some sort of built-in resource size limit.

I've tried Googling, but there doesn't appear to be any published limit, and the only reports I've found mention 6.5MB... but I'm way below that.

Does anyone have any concrete sources that indicate if this limit exists, and what it may be?


texts:
Is there any audio player for iPhone that has a sound waveform display and most importantly lets you slide/swipe on that waveform display to left and right to go back and forth a few seconds on the audio file?

I am looking for the iOS version of this android app: Auto Repeat Player - listening


texts: How does iCloud Photos for Windows "sync" photos and videos?

texts:
Here are some possible options I can think of:

One-way cumulative copy from iCloud to My PC. Example: Files added to iCloud will be added to My PC but Files deleted from iCloud, will remain on My PC. This can either happen in near real time or on demand.
One-way mirror of iCloud maintained on My PC. Example: If files are added or deleted from iCloud, they will be added or deleted from My PC. This assumes iCloud as the master of record for all files generated by connected Apple devices.
Two-way mirror between iCloud and My PC. Example: If files are added or deleted from iCloud, they will be added or deleted from My PC and vice-versa. This assumes the acting system as the master of record. This is a more advanced option and may require that changes made at each side be either (1) queued/tracked so they can later be applied, or (2) applied in real time in an ordered fashion.
None of the above.

I would at least expect that:

One copy of each file is maintained on My PC. Right now, clicking "Download photos and videos" on iCloud Photos more than once seems to create duplicate files.
The association between files and their albums be retained when files are transferred to My PC (maybe using a similar directory structure).
The software gives me the option to pause, stop, continue, or cancel the "sync" process.

Any ideas on how iCloud Photos for Windows really "sync" our photos and videos to our PCs?


texts: What will be removed if I sync my device with another iTunes?

texts: I had to blow my old iTunes installation. I have all my music and a up to date backup, but I still want to sync my device to change some content. iTunes warns me that "the content of the iPhone will be deleted". What is "content" here? Does it include contacts, messages, apps? Or is just music, books and pictures?


texts: Can I plug my iPhone 7 directly into the 87W USB C power adapter?

texts:
I have a lightning connector to USB-C I use for programming and development.

What would happen if I plugged the USB-C end into my late 2016 Mac Book Pro power supply (87 W)?

*Disclaimer, I already did it, and it works. It charges quickly, but not sure if it's safe to do going forward.


texts: how do I "un-partition" my MACINTOSH HD into one big hard drive?

texts: So I was derping around on my computer (it has a 250 gigabyte hard drive) and thought,"hmm I wonder what happens if I partition off 75 gigs of this". believe it or not, it partitioned off 75 gigabytes on my hard drive, so what's the problem? well I have no idea how to make it one big single 250 gigabyte partition again. I tried everything, I did the minus on the partition, I did the slide, I repaired with disk utility, same thing with disk utility from the restart CMD+R, and spent hours on the internet looking for a solution. Is there anyone who can help me here?


texts: Safari searches instead of connecting to localhost

texts:
I am launching a jupiter-notebook on port 8888, but when I try to connect with Safari the browser goes automatically to search.

Firefox and Chrome work just fine, as Safari did before the last update.
Anyone else with the same problem? I checked a couple of posts recommended by StackOverflow (mostly about commenting the "::1 localhost" line in /etc/hosts) but it did not work.

Anyone else with the same problem?


texts: I want to search for files that have certain tags, and don't have other tags. Right now, when I use finder I can list the tags I want (e.g. searching for files that have tag1 AND tag2 AND tag) but I don't know how to query for for files that e.g. have tag1 AND NOT tag2. Is there currently a way to do this?


texts: Moving back to the front or end of a long URL entery with out having to use delete?

texts: Is there a way to move to the front or back of a long sentence you type in the URL area on a iPhone with out having to get close as possible and then having to delete then retype?


texts: Inbound video streaming over lightning port accessory

texts:
I am exploring the feasibility of building an accessory (through MFI) that will feed streaming video that will be rendered by an app resident on the host device.

Looking at some similar products (for example EyeTV Mobile accessory by Elgato -- which is also MFI approved), I can see users reporting that the device does not work for iOS > 9. This is reportedly due to:

  "[...] latest iOS versions may deactivate Lightning devices depending
  on their use of electricity - this may affect the use of EyeTV Mobile
  despite its MFI certification"

...which looks odd - if anything this would cause termination of the stream due to inactivity rather than causing the app not to work.

Is there any reason why inbound video streaming over the lightning port would not be feasible using the latest iOS releases (11, 12)?


texts: gpg-agent + launchd maxing out cpu overnight.. plus other stability oddness lately.. any ideas why?

texts:
I woke up this morning to my MBP whizzing along (i.e. the fan that is).  Looking at Activity Monitor, I saw gpg-agent taking up 97% of cpu, and launchd taking 60%, plus maybe one or two that were also high (one of them was font related -- fontd? I forget).

I am using Mozy, and it was doing a backup over night, but it has been for the last few weeks.

After killing all my apps, these runaway processes remained, so I restarted, and the issue resolved itself.

After restarting, and googling a bit, I checked console, and see hundreds of messages for just gpg-agent, and this is just over the course of a few seconds.  I'm guessing this may have been going on for longer since these were the first entries in the log and started at 6am.

9/23/11 6:07:24.504 AM org.gpgtools.macgpg2.gpg-agent: gpg-agent[110]: accept failed: Too many open files

Mozy was my top suspect, but I don't even know if Mozy uses any of those cpu-spending apps I mentioned.  Other apps that were running: TimeMachine, Dropbox, Skype, Adium, Chrome, Eclipse, Evernote.  Perhaps something with Lion?  or KeyVault2 (my disk does have encryption on)?

Other computer weirdness that may or may not be related:

I've had my computer restart on me twice this month overnight (i.e. I go to use the computer in the morning, and it's at the login screen).  Sleep should be activating (it is at default MBP settings w/ computer sleep at 12 minutes or so).  This may be coinciding with Mozy install, but can't say for sure (Mozy was installed last week, and my first overnight crash might have been before, but I don't recall for sure).

Another issue I've had a few times since installing Lion is I'll go to use the computer after it being in my bag for a few hours, and all the applications are there, but won't respond to my keyboard nor closing.  I can interact with the windows (i.e. Cmd-Tab, dragging), but not much else.  Sometimes/always the Restart option in the Apple menu doesn't respond, but pushing the power button once does bring up the menu to sleep/restart/shutdown, and I can restart from here. (This issue I reported to Apple as potential Lion bug)

I just remembered, I installed the recommended updates yesterday afternoon (bios update for Lion and Thunderbolt, some security update, and other update for Thunderbolt).  It had me restart, then after it seemed to install, brought me to a screen which said, "Hold down the power button until your computer turns off, then turn back on".  I assume this was part of the bios update.  I think when the computer came back on, it did some installing. Then when OS boots up, OS tells me "it had to restart for unknown reason" and had me send a report to Apple.  I sent that along, and continued working on the computer since then (no other restarts).  This doesn't seem like it would be related, but figured mention it just in case.

About my system

MBP early 2011 15" base model, Lion built from scratch, KeyVault2 hard drive encryption turned on; SSD and Crucial memory were upgraded after purchase; TRIM turned on via some 3rd party instructions a month or two ago (I can find the how-to article if it seems relevant).


texts: Does iOS backup include the OS and related questions

texts:
I had an iPad stolen recently. I had deliberately not updated the iOS as an app I used was not being updated and worked well on the old iOS.

Now I need to restore the back up to another iPad. I thought this would be easy but it seems not.

For the app I want to use to work I need iOS 8 or earlier. Specifically I had 8.4.1 but it was the upgrade to 9 that killed the app.

I am unsure of a few things and would value some advice:

Does the backup include the iOS? Ie if i buy an old iPad that can run ios8 will the backup automatically include the iOS? Can I just restore and get everything back.

Or will the backup just add apps and data to the existing iOS? In which case will it refuse to do it if the existing iOS is less than the 8.4.1 with which the back up was saved?

If this is the case I need to put iOS higher than 8.4.1 yet lower than 9 on an iPad and then restore. How can I do that?

Thanks for any help. I have a lot of work in this app so any suggestions are welcome.

J


texts: Exclude a mailbox from "All Inboxes" or compose a custom multiple inbox view

texts:
I have recently added my work mailbox to my iphone.

I have several other mailboxes that I use for non work purposes. I like to look at the mail from my non work mailboxes as though they were a single mailbox, so I use the "All Inboxes" option in the mail app.

I would like to exclude work emails from the "All Inboxes" view, is this possible? Failing that is there a way to create a view of my own that only includes my non work mailboxes?

I've had a look at Exclude mails from specific Inbox in “Inbox” view but nothing there fits my situation, and that's for mail.app anyway.

I can't see any way to create a multi inbox entry, is there a way?


texts: Mac mini Mac OS 10.6 server migration to new hardware

texts: I have a Mac Mini with Mac OS X 10.6 Server installed. It has two external drives attached to it. One is for Time Machine and other contains data. I have bought the latest Mac Mini with Mac OS X 10.7 and two new hard drives. I want to migrate to the new hardware (the new Mac Mini and the new hard disks). Can Migration Assistant do that for me or do I have to transfer the data in the external drive manually?


texts: Remote access of an iPad display from another iPad

texts:
I've got an iPad and I was searching for new applications with new features. Currently I'm searching for an application by that I can remotely access another iPad screen just like Teamviewer.

Is there any iPad application available which can be useful to access another iPad's screen.


texts: Cannot go fullscreen by dragging a app in mission control

texts:
Steps I'm doing:

4 Fingers up to open Mission Control
Dragging any app to the top (e.g. Finder)
Nothing is happening it is not going full screen.

Did I do something wrong on settings and never noticed? I cycled through many boots it seems like a permanent thing.

How can I fix this?


texts:
EDIT: My request is to know whether or not Screen Sharing supports this feature still in anyway. I'm aware that other solutions do, but am not interested in other solutions for this question. Thanks!

Screen Sharing used to support showing a "curtain" when connected to a remote machine, so people at the same location as the remote machine couldn't interact with the machine in anyway. I don't know if this feature was very publicly available or not, but it could be enabled by editing a plist in the past.

Can this still be enabled in anyway?

I know that Apple Remote Desktop supports this feature as well, but I'd prefer to use Screen Sharing if possible, since it's free, and well supported in every other way.

Note: I'm aware that if another user is logged in, then when I connect with Screen Sharing, it will give me the option to not take control of the main screen, which is ok, but requires our users to remember to login as another fake user before leaving, which is hard to remember all the time


texts: Is this a good strategy to optimise web images for iphone?

texts:
I have a lot of old assets (html and image files) I need to optimise for mobile devices. The existing assets were created for desktop and did not have mobile device in mind.

I am planning to make the following changes:

1) In front end, if it is running on a desktop device, its content will be loaded form the existing url (e.g. static.example.com/document1/index.html). But if the website is loaded from an  iphone6, it will switch to static.example.com/document1_iphone6/index.html

2) document1_iphone6 is basically a duplicate of document1. All the image assets will be resized to fit 750x1334

Is there any problem/flaw with this plan?


texts: Is there a shortcut key to make a macbook sleep?  Sometimes I want to save time and just use the shortcut key to put it to sleep.


texts: MacBook Pro overheating after being repaired

texts:
I've recently had my MacBook Pro 15" model late 2011 repaired, it was a graphics card problem, they changed it and now it's working.

The problem that I've encountered now is that it is overheating a lot, compared to how it used to be. I used to have temperatures of about 30-40 °C 2000 rpm (ambient temperature of 20-30 °C) using integrated graphics and a workload of CPU of about 5% max (internet browsing, and stuff like that).

And after being repaired, in the same ambient and work condition I have 60-70 °C! I don't know what they could have done to my macbook in order to have this temperatures.

I first made an SMC and PRAM reset just in case, but no things changed. Then I reinstalled OS X El Capitan, but again nothing changed. So I thought that they could have incorrectly applied the thermal paste (or it was a bad quality one) so I reapplied some of my EVGA Frostbite thermal paste, and I've finally noticed some change. The temperature (again in same work and ambient conditions) is of about 40-50 °C 2000 rpm. But it is again far from what it used to be.

Long story short (UPDATED):

MB Pro late 2011 got graphics card broken, and repaired by certified apple repair center
I used to have temperatures of about 30-40 °C, 2000rpm
Now it is of about 60-70 °C, 2000 rpm
OS X El Capitan reinstalled and PRAM, SMC reset done
AHT made and no problem found

What can I do in order to solve this problem. I want to have my old macbook temperatures!

UPDATE: I've performed a SMC, because I've done it before the new installation of OS X. And for my surprise, the temperature values that were displaying were wrong. Now after SMC I've got the exact same range as before changing the thermal paste :/


texts: Disable shift key slow animations from command line

texts:
The sole answer for Remove shift key augmentation for Mission Control animation that works is a GUI-based answer. I like to store all of my mac configuration in a version-controlled dotfiles repository so I can quickly get back to ground zero when I make a new mac.

How can you disable the shift key slowness that occurs when you do Ctrl+Shift+Up Arrow and Ctrl+Shift+Down Arrow from the command line?

I've tried defaults write com.apple.finder FXEnableSlowAnimation -boolean false; killall Finder, which I found at How to disable slow motion effect in Mac OS X (shift key)?. This does not work for me.


texts: Understanding inconsistent behaviour of template layout in Pages for Mac

texts:
I came across the problem when I was trying to adjust a layout of CV document, based on one of those available in Pages for Mac. On the shared screenshot there are two freshly created documents in Pages for Mac (well, I've just removed contact text area on the left to indicate that it has no impact on the problem).

The one on the left is created from "Contemporary CV", the one on the right - "Business CV". In both documents the body box is shifted about 6,5cm from left edge of the page. However, in "Contemporary" this is clearly indicated in document properties (also header & footer seem to follow the left margin setting). On the other hand, the "Business" one seems to have the document body shifted to the right by some kind of "magic setting". Left margin is set to 2,12cm - which is respected by header and footer, yet document body is still intended by ~6,5cm. Moreover, it is not possible to change left margin to negative number, so document body is always shifted, even at value of 0. This remains whether I choose portrait or landscape. With 'facing pages' on document body is shifted from right edge on even pages, unsurprisingly.
My intention was to take the "Business" template but make document body occupy full page width. This would be easy with "Contemporary". But I couldn't find ANY difference between the two documents, that would cause the document body box to shift. Is there any hidden or not so obvious setting that is causing this irregular behaviour?


texts: Diary App which supports Tags with values

texts:
I am looking for a diary app, which supports tags with values. Which means I can define custom tags, and with each entry I can add tags and define values for it.
Example:

01/01/2013 had a great party today, mood:5, health:7, moneySpent:152
02/01/2013 met Tina today, went to the pool, mood:7, success:3

It should provide some line charts to see how the values go up and down.

I couldn't find it using my search terms, maybe you know how to call this feature, or know an app implementing this?


texts: When I try to download a free app it keeps sending me to the settings info about my card number. Then it says that there was a billing problem with a previous purchase. And to update my payment methods . I no longer have a credit card so how do I download free apps???


texts: How can I stop someone to forward their iCloud e-mail to my Gmail address?

texts:
Since early september, I'm receiving all e-mails sent to firstname.lastname1@icloud.com in my Gmail inbox firstname.lastname@gmail.com.

In both case, first and last names are mines, but I don't own the iCloud one (I own firstname.lastname@icloud.com without the "1" though but I don't think that's relevant here). I verified this by trying to reset password for the firstname.lastname1@icloud.com iCloud account only to discover that the associated phone number was not mine.

What I think happened here is that my namesake, owner of firstname.lastname1@cloud.com must also own a Gmail address similar to mine and has redirected his iCloud address to my Gmail address by mistake.

Is there a way I could contact him or Apple about this ? Of course I could create a Gmail filter to get rid of his e-mails, but I'd rather warn the iCloud address owner about the mistake.


texts: After updating OS X on my Macbook 2011 to 10.9.5 I've started facing Firefox (32.0.3) freezing for a minute when macbook is resumed from suspend. Does anyone have thoughts, where to look for a cause of that? As far as I know, no other software is affected.


texts: Is there any native Mac OS X 10.15.3 keyboard layout that contains all ASCII characters plus č, ç, è, ǩ, ò, š, and ž?

texts: I am creating a conlang that uses all ASCII characters plus č, ç, è, ǩ, ò, š, and ž. Is there any natively supported Mac OS X 10.15.3 keyboard that contains these special characters?


texts: The other part of my Mac hard disk is full?

texts:
On my MacBook, I only have 250GB and out of this 250GB my MacBook is taking up 129GB in the other section.
I looked everywhere to the best of my knowledge.
Please note my home directories is only 45GB.
Can you here somehow please help me?

This question How can I figure out what's slowly eating my HD space? does not answer my question.


texts:
I've tried the apps and I've tried to apply pressure this hasn't worked at all, so I phoned Apple they tried helping over the phone. That didn't work. They said my warranty covers it but I want to know what it is? They said it sounds like a dead or stuck pixel.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014)


texts: Best way to clear up space and dump to computer when getting iCloud storage backup prompt?

texts:
When i sync my iphone, I am getting an error message saying it can't do a backup because i have more than 5GB of space used.

I went to:

Settings --> iCloud -->  Storage and backup --> Manage Storage.

I see it says Next backup size 5.0 GB and 4.6 GB of that is coming from Camera roll. So i have a few questions on how to clean this up:

When looking at my photos, I see:

Camera Roll (500 pictures)
Photo Stream (655 pictures)

Since it says, Camera roll on the iCloud storage page, I am assuming if I just delete some pictures and videos from this, it will free up space.

Is this correct?
Does iCloud simply backup latest state of camera roll at sync time and if i have previously backed up pictures and i deleted them on camera roll, it will be deleted from iCloud backup?

My second question is around getting all of these pictures down to my computer (I have a Windows XP computer).  I am currently NOT syncing pictures in itunes as I find it was making the sync time go from around 45 seconds to over 10 minutes.  After a bunch of research the advise everyone gave was to not sync pictures via iTunes.    Is there any easy way to download these all to my Win XP computer so I can free up space on my iPhone ?


texts: How to allow ONE app to run while Mac is locked/sleeping?

texts:
I want one app, Google Drive Backup and Sync, to be allowed to run in the background at all times. However, to save power I don't want this to apply to other apps since they should sleep while the computer is closed.
I'm aware I can go into settings and allow background apps to run while the Mac is sleeping, but unless this is configurable I don't think it would be a good fit.


texts: Excel 14.4.7 - Issue saving "read only" excel spread sheets

texts:
When I save “read only” spread sheets that I receive as attachments, excel doesn’t save them as their original name. The pop-up window shows the title of the document as “Untitled”. We work with project specific excel files that are constantly being updated. This problem is especially frustrating when we have a specific name that may be long due to the complexity of the project.

is there something I can do to solve this?


texts: How To Use '`launchctl print`' as a Replacement for '`launchctl bslist`?'

texts:
man launchctl' remarks that:
LEGACY SUBCOMMANDS
     Subcommands from the previous implementation of launchd are generally available,
     though some may be unimplemented. Unimplemented subcommands are documented
     as such.

⋮

     bslist [PID | ..] [-j]
         This subcommand is not implemented and has been superseded by the print
         subcommand, which provides much richer information.

at least as of OS X v10.11.x 'El Capitan.'  (Presumably, this was also the case in v10.10.x 'Yosemite,' as that was the OS release that first included 'launchd 2.0,' if I'm reading/recalling my history correctly.)  What arguments, then, would one pass to 'launchctl print' to get output like what the 'bslist' sub-command used to provide?  Would you need to filter it any (using grep, sed, awk, etc.) to get the desired result(s)?
('launchctl print system' spews a bunch of data out, but I'm not clear on whether that includes the same information the 'bslist' sub-command would have output in the past or, if so, where in the former's output said information might be.  Its 'endpoints' key contains a list similar to the example provided in Listing 1 in the 'Mach Bootstrap Basics' section of this old, outdated Apple documentation on 'Daemons and Agents,' but I'm uncertain if that's what I'm looking for, particularly since it contains a couple extra columns.)


texts:
I have a Macbook Pro 2018 13 with Touchbar. I had bootcamp + mojave installed, but accidentaly removed the macos, mac recovery and bootcamp recovery partitions ... Im left with a non working bootcamp and stuck.

what i’ve tried:

resetting nvram
reinstalling windows by bootable usb*
reinstalling macOS by bootable usb*
cmd+r for recovery*
cmd+option+r for recovery*
cmd+shift+option for recovery*
use of internet recovery*
tried booting gparted by bootable usb*
cloning an existing mojave drive (another mac that works) to an external drive and tried booting*

all of these where tried holding the option key during startup, but no matter what I boot to, I always get to internet recovery. Once in internet recovery (after trying with multiple wifi networks and the router being at 10cm of distance), The globe just starts spinning, with no progress bar. I left it for more than 14 hours and nothing. I have 50mbps internet.

How can a “new” mac become unrepairable?

sigh


texts: Detect if Apple Certificate File is Development versus Distribution

texts:
When building an iOS App, Apple requires that you obtain a Development or Distribution certificate through their Apple Development Program.

Using only the file itself, how can the type of certificate (Development versus Distribution) be determined?

The intention here is not to rely on filenames or human verification.. I need to write a program that can programmatically determine the type of a given certificate by reading its contents.

Thanks.


texts: My external USB Keyboard types wrong Keys on Macbook Pro

texts:
i have an external USB Keyboard connected to my owc thunderbolt 3 docking station to my MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017) running Catalina 10.15.3 (19D76) and get a complete wrong keymapping, like qwertz becomes x4lz16.

If I use a direct USB adapter this also happens. Keyboard Sharkoon / Skiller https://sharkoon.com/product/Skiller

I can not find a button to update the keyboard when i am going to settings.

I have a Windows Boot Camp Partition, and running this in the same setup with only a restart not changing the hardware it runs completely as it should be.

I don't know how to solve this anymore and gave up after endless searches not finding me any similar problems. But maybe you know what up?

The Keyboard doesen't make any sense as i know, enter becomes ü..

I have another keyboard of this type and its the same problem. Another 2.ghz adapter keyboard by Logitech runs fine.


texts: Somebody used my Apple ID on a new iPod touch

texts:
One of my friends got this error on his iPhone (this is the translation of message in English) :

  Your Apple ID and telephone number are in use in iMessage on a new iPod touch.

There is no iPod touch so someone used the account. What is wrong? Has somebody hacked the iPhone?

In the list of messages, there are lots of Chinese numbers and messages!


texts: Why does secondary screen turns black when selecting "Mirror Display"

texts:
I have a MacBook Retina.

Whenever I attach a secondary screen, projector or monitor and select the "Mirror Displays" option, the secondary screen turns all black.

It does not matter what connection I use. I've tried the following, and they all have problems:

MiniDisplay port to a Cinema Display
HDMI to HDTV
MiniDisplay -> VGA/DVI converter -> projector

It does not matter what resolution I use.

It all started after connecting it to a projector, where all other presenters using PC was having similar problems.


texts: Why Does a Shell Script Trapping SIGTERM Work When Run Manually, But Not When Run via launchd?

texts:
Okay, quite simply I have a shell script that needs to wait for something to happen, but it has a lock-file and some child-processes that I need to ensure are tidied up if the script is interrupted.

I've achieved this without issue by using the trap command to set some appropriate actions, and have come up with a script that looks a bit like this:

#!/bin/sh
LOG="$0.log"

# Create a lock-file to prevent simultaneous access
lockfile -l 86400 "$LOG.lock" || $(echo 'Locking failed' >&2 && exit 3)

# Create trap for interrupt and cleanup
on_complete() {
    echo $(date +%R)' Ended.' >> "$LOG"
    kill $(jobs -p)
    rm -f "$LOG.lock"
    exit
}
trap 'on_complete 2> /dev/null' SIGTERM SIGINT SIGHUP EXIT

# Do nothing
echo $(date +%R)' Running…' >> "$LOG"
sleep 86400 &
while wait; do sleep 86400 &; done

This can be run just fine in a terminal via sh Example.sh, and terminating it with Ctrl + C, causing it to remove its lock-file without any fuss.

I then tried creating a launchd job for this script like so:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>org.example</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>sh</string>
        <string>~/Downloads/Example.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>EnableGlobbing</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Creating Example.sh and Example.plist from the above in the ~/Downloads folder allows me to run the launchd job via launchd load ~/Downloads/Example.plist and end it via launchd unload ~/Downloads/Example.plist. However, ending the job doesn't cause a SIGTERM to reach the script, which is instead SIGKILL'd after the 20 second timeout.

So what I'd like to know is; why isn't my script receiving SIGTERM, and how I can ensure it does?


texts: Podcasts showing twice in the "My Podcasts tab" on iTunes

texts:
In the "My Podcasts" tab, almost every podcast of mine is appearing twice at the left column like this:

However, in the Episode List display mode, everything is just fine:

Is there any way I can get it fixed for the Podcasts display mode so that every podcast only shows up once?

For the record I'm using 12.3.2 (the latest version).


texts: Share Internet between two Macbook Pros (thunderbolt)

texts:
WHAT I WANT TO ACHIEVE

I have two Macbook Pros (Mojave 10.14.6) with me in a country different than US. A and B. What I need and requirements:

I want computer B to be connected from a US IP address at all times.
I cannot install a VPN in B, but I can install anything in computer A, including a VPN.
WHAT I THOUGHT IT COULD BE A SOLUTION AND WHAT I TRIED

I thought I could make computer B to connect to the Internet through computer A's (through A's VPN) Internet connection so that that if I check computer B's IP address shows the US IP address.

I've been able to share the internet connection from A to B with Thunderbolt 3 cable. However, when I check https://www.whatismyip.com/ within B it shows still the IP as if I was connected to the router in the local region and not the US location.

How can achieve this? Please let me know if you need any clarification.

Thanks a lot.


texts: App that tells me what app is using data (Big Sur)

texts:
We just installed Eero and it has the ability to report which devices are using how much data. I was surprised to see one of our family's laptops uploading a ton of data. Nearly twice as much as downloaded.
Odd thing is that the laptop does not seem to be running anything thing that should be uploading that much. Most of its cloud backup services are synched and when you look at the activity monitor I can't get a complete enough picture to see what is driving the usage.
Is there an application out there that people trust that can monitor and log what apps and/or processes are using data and when? It would be nice to get a picture over a couple of days to see what is going on.
I fear there is some sort of malware or another process that has been installed that is acting as a bit of a resource vampire that has hidden well enough from the usual activity monitor filters I have been using.
I have TripMode installed but it struggles with the history look, I also have explored LittleSnitch, but could not tell if it gave the full picture. Happy to go that path if you think it will sort me out.
Thanks!!
I am running 2019 MacBook Pro 16" Big Sur 11.1


texts: How to install Windows 10 into a 2013 iMac without using the Boot Camp Assistant, USB flash drive or third party tools?

texts:
First of all, let me state the following. I did use the Boot Camp Assistant to download the Windows Support Software, but because of the iMac's drive partitioning, I can not use the Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows 10.

The iMac has an internal, 512 byte/sector HDD with 235 GB free space at the end of the drive. The command diskutil list reports the following.

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *536.9 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Chicken                 150.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS Turkey                  150.0 GB   disk0s4
   5:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s5

Both Chicken and Turkey have High Sierra (macOS 10.13.1) installed. I have downloaded the latest Windows 10 (Version 1709, OS Build 16299.15) iso file. Here is what I wish to accomplish.

Install Windows 10 Pro 64 bit.
Boot Windows using the EFI boot method.
Include a Microsoft Reserve partition before the Windows partition.
Include a Windows Recovery partition after the Windows partition.

I would desire to preform the installation without any of the following.

No third party software
No optical drive
No USB flash drive
No Boot Camp Assistant
Without disabling System Integrity Protection (SIP).

I would prefer not having to boot to macOS Recovery via the internet, built-in recovery or an USB flash drive macOS installer. But, since macOS Recovery is not a third party tool, I am not opposed to its use.

So basically, I am asking how to install Windows when macOS is already installed, but the Boot Camp assistant will not assist in the installation.


texts: How to make VirtualBox / Ubuntu work well with Retina display on the Mac?

texts:
I am running VirtualBox 6.0 and Utbuntu 19.04, and it is showing the screen really small as it doesn't seem to adjust to the Retina display.

So I have to use VirtualBox's View -> Scale to make the screen to a more normal size, but the font appears fuzzy because now it is "forced" magnified (scaled up), rather than native.

Is there a way to make them work well? I already installed the Guest Additions but there is no use.


texts: I am wondering if the owner of the phone I am tracking using find my iPhone can see that I am tracking them in real time or any other way.


texts:
I was performing a routine restart this evening, and all went as per normal until I logged in with my password to my user account. The computer encountered a kernel panic towards the end of the decryption progress bar and insisted on restarting. So far, despite what I have tried, I have not been able to get beyond the login.

FileVault 2 was recently enabled on my computer.

I have tried the following, to no avail:

NVRAM reset
SMC reset
Apple Diagnostics (returned all OK)
Disk Utility First Aid

I am yet to try the following:

fsck_hfs
complete wipe and reinstall

My data has been backed up as this is the beta system.

Specs:
Mid-2014 i7 MacBook Pro 11,1
MacOS Sierra Public Beta 4


texts:
I have IPhone 4 running with Version 5.1.1 (9B206)
I would like to update the firmware, but not to the current latest version (7.1.1) which is known to be slow on IPhone 4.

In the phone settings I can only choose the latest available firmware version.
Is there a way to update the phone to an earlier version such as 6 ?


texts: Will ejected internal HDD really stay ejected until I mount it again?

texts:
I want to get 2TB HDD in addition to 512GB SDD I have.

I want to be able to "turn off" that drive so that it stays off even after sleep cycles and everything... I'm worried because now when I have an external HDD and I eject it, it wakes up sometimes - for example just by launching Finder which accesses it... not sure, maybe it happens only after I wake computer form sleep, but still... I really don't want such behaviour in an internal HDD. It should stay "dead" until I resurrect it only when needed. Is this possible?

I don't know why is this information so hard to find - nobody reported it, just guesses and partial solutions on forums... So anyone with such setup - can you try?


texts: My Mac is getting really slow, what should I do?

texts:
I bought a Mac (13", early 2011) almost 5 years ago. When I first got it, it was running under OS X 10.7 and it was pretty fast. I've being upgrading it ever since and it's now running under Mac OS X 10.11.

I guess it didn't totally survive the upgrades because, today, there's a lot of bugs, freezes, lags, "spinning beach ball" appearing,... for example, when I write something on a normal program/editor, the cursor freezes for a few seconds, then catches up to what I'm writting.

As you can guess, that's really annoying! I've been thinkning about upgrading the hardware but I don't know what to do: should I change the RAM to 8 GB - 1 333 MHz (currently my computer has 4 GB - 1 333 MHz)? Or should I upgrade to an SSD (which is pretty expensive and difficult to install)?

Thank you very much.


texts: Rosetta stopped working in a virtualized Snow Leopard hosted in Mavericks (Parallels or Virtualbox)

texts:
I have successfully installed Snow Leopard in a VirtualBox on my Macbook Pro Retina Early 2013 (running OS X Mavericks).

While I can start the virtualized Snow Leopard in Oracle's Virtualbox or Parallels, I have no luck starting any Rosetta Application from within Snow Leopard. This happens even after a fresh install of Snow Leopard before any updates.
All Rosetta applications fail to start or even to be install.

Anyone know a configuration which allows using Rosetta in a virtualized Snow Leopard Environment?

The software versions I am using:

Virtualbox Versions: 4.1, 5.0, 5.1
Parallels Version: 8


texts: Every time I click on a application, both Apple and third party applications refuse to open. The little blue dot appears below the app on the dock, and then it disappears. I've restarted the computer multiple times and no luck. It's a late 2008 MacBook. Any ideas?


texts: Camera app on iPhone 4 suddenly deletes the sound of 5 previous videos and all future ones!

texts:
I use an iPhone 4 to record videos with the Camera App. Suddenly, the 5 most recent videos got muted sound for no reason at all. The rest of the Camera Roll still has audio. Just those 5 videos got their sound deleted.

I record a new video, and it also has no sound. Why did that happen? I know this isn't caused by dust in the tiny microphone hole by the headphone jack. That would only make future recordings have no sound.

I record a video and shout into the microphone. I play-back the video at maximum volume, and zero audio comes out. That's how I know it's not a problem with the microphone.


texts: new SSD - APFS not in list of options for format

texts:
I just put a new SSD in my 2011 Macbook Pro. I booted into Internet Recovery (CMD+R), ran Disk Utility and followed the instructions to go to 'erase' and format as APFS. Unfortunately, the 'Format' dropdown menu only shows the standard Mac OS Extended options, MS-DOS and ExtFat.

Do I need to boot into Mac OS from a flash drive and then format the SSD from there... or what am I doing wrong?


texts: Unusual hdiutil behaviour auto-mounting DMG Volume

texts:
I'm trying to debug an issue occuring when I install DMG based brew casks, but as I'll explain this is independent of that.
When installing a DMG cask using brew install --cask <cask-name>, I receive the below error and the install fails.
hdiutil: attach failed - Resource busy

I ran the brew installation with the flags --verbose and --debug and was able to narrow this down to a command run by brew cask that attaches the DMG file and mounts it to a folder in the /private/tmp/ directory. That command is:
hdiutil attach -plist -nobrowse -readonly -mountrandom <path-to-mount> <path-to-dmg>

If I run this command on it's own with any DMG file, I get the Resource busy error. Therefore I concluded that the issue is not caused by brew cask specifically. I've also verified this on another Mac as working as expected with the same command being run. The MD5 hash of hdiutil and the DMG file are the same on both macs (as are the OS version 11.3.1).
The busy resource seems to come from the mac that is experiencing this error, automatically mounting the DMG file to /Volume/<dmg-name>. I've also noticed that the GoogleSoftwareUpdater is also trying to mount a dmg to update and I assume failing as well (but it keeps mounting that updated volume).
The difference between the working mac and the mac with the issue appears to simply be this automounting behaviour of these DMG volumes.
One work around that I found is Using diskutil info to inspect the volume that is incorrectly mounted, extracting the UUID of the disk and adding that to /etc/fstab and attempting to mount the disk again or run brew install --cask <cask-name> allows the cask to complete installation successfully, but I can't add the disk to fstab each time I need to install a cask.
The second workaround that I discovered (a little easier to manage) is I updated the brew source code on my local to change the attach command to:
hdiutil attach -plist -nobrowse -readonly **-nomount** -mountrandom <path-to-mount> <path-to-dmg>

Here is the respective diff:
diff --git a/Library/Homebrew/unpack_strategy/dmg.rb b/Library/Homebrew/unpack_strategy/dmg.rb
index f758c1a78..66f13661c 100644
--- a/Library/Homebrew/unpack_strategy/dmg.rb
+++ b/Library/Homebrew/unpack_strategy/dmg.rb
@@ -177,7 +177,7 @@ module UnpackStrategy
         without_eula = system_command(
           "hdiutil",
           args:         [
-            "attach", "-plist", "-nobrowse", "-readonly",
+            "attach", "-plist", "-nobrowse", "-readonly", "-nomount",
             "-mountrandom", mount_dir, path
           ],
           input:        "qn\n",

and as long as I pass the environment variable to brew to prevent updating it's source before installing (HOMEBREW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE=1) then it is able to install casks successfully and the automounting of the casks into /Volumes/ doesn't occur and therefore the Resource busy error does not appear.
At this point I'm stumped as to how to correct this for the Mac as a whole (including that Google Software update that I mentioned). I'll leave my local brew source code patched for now but I'd ideally like to understand what is going on and fix it.
Thanks for any help in advance.


texts: How to copy the entire contents of a Time Machine backup drive to a new one?

texts:
I have a Time Machine backup drive (also used for other archival purposes)  which has a damaged file-system.  I am able to mount it "Read Only," but fsck_hfs will not repair it.  *(Apparently it's just a problem with "extended attributes," but this is enough.)

I've ordered a replacement drive, and now I need to know what is the best way to reliably copy all of the information from the old drive to the new, properly preserving permissions and everything else that Time Machine (in particular) requires.  Is there, for instance, a Time Machine function to "move backup to a new drive?"

(OS/X Catalina 10.15.3, current.)


texts: How to clear the cache or do a hard refresh in Safari?

texts:
I am used to doing this in Windows with FireFox or IE by pressing Ctrl+F5.

Is there a way to do this for Safari on a Mac?


texts: Apple Mail warning: Unable to verify message signature

texts:
After upgrading from Sierra to Mojave (macOS 10.14), Apple mail started to display the warning Unable to verify message signature above all signed and encrypted emails. When clicking on Details, it says:

The digital signature is incorrect. The message may have been tampered with or corrupted since signed by (sender's name).

We are using S/MIME certificates signed by a self-signed root CA, but I doubt that this is the problem. When checking the certificates in the Keychain app, they are reported to be valid and good. However, if in Apple Mail, I get the above message and click on Show Certificate, the root certificate is reported to be valid and trusted, but the S/MIME certificate is nonetheless invalid for no obvious reason.

Note that some report similar problems for emails with attachments only.


texts: Does setting a perspective wallpaper rather than still in iOS drain battery (significantly) faster?

texts:
Thinking logically setting perspective wallpaper requires some constant recalculations of background position. When I hold my iPhone and move hand, I see that effect. It's nice and pleases the eye but I'm sure that it requires some CPU calculations and that triggers higher energy consumption since nothing's for free…

Question is - how much energy is consumed by this setting over still and can this have a significant impact on battery life in a longer time perspective?


texts: Microsoft Remote Desktop via Ethernet Cable

texts:
I use a MacBook Pro regularly, but I also have a Windows 10 box that's sitting right next to me. I use Microsoft Remote Desktop (MRD) from the Mac to occasionally remote into the PC over WiFi for the quick odd job.

Now I have a game on the Windows box that I'd really prefer to play over on my MacBook Pro. Trouble is, MRD is too sluggish for the game over my WiFi. Is it possible to connect these two computers with an Ethernet cable so that I can still use MRD to access the Windows box? I assume the greater bandwidth will allow me to play the game without lag.

Appreciate any pointers how to make this work. Thanks!


texts: Needed: easy program for inserting symbols and Unicode characters

texts:
On MacOS 10.11 I am constantly going to the Emoji & Symbol viewer to bring in arrows and other kinds of symbols:

Problems with this interface include:

It it bound to the current program, rather than operating system level. So you need to make the window appear for each application you use.
It doesn't allow searching by Unichar
It doesn't let you see the entire character set

I'm looking for a program that keeps my favorite symbols all in one place in a floating window and lets me easily insert them into the current application. Does such a program exist?


texts: System Sounds Not Playing on iPhone 6s, iOS 9.0.1

texts:
For whatever reason my new iPhone 6s doesn't always play system sounds, such as  the Siri chime (there's also no Taptic feedback), the "magnetic click" when I lock my iPhone (which sometimes does work), and others. Even though some other sounds do play, such as the charging chime.

When I had my iPhone 5s running iOS 9, though the Siri sound didn't play, I got vibration feedback when I summoned Siri. My iPad Air (also running iOS 9) does play all of the sounds.

So is this an iPhone 6s specific thing, where Apple's trying to limit sounds to make a more Apple Watch-like experience, a software bug, a Setting that I missed, or something else entirely?


texts: iTunes Match uploading slowness with eventual error -9810

texts:
After several weeks now and still in dialogue with Apple third tier support still haven't resolved an upload problem, can anyone help?

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

Any one cured this one before?


texts:
I am looking for a vector image creation/editing tool for the Mac.  My primary focus with be creating/editing images (mainly icons) for application development.  I think I will be purchasing the full icon set from http://www.iconeden.com/ as a starting point and them go from there.  I already have pixelmator for standard image creation/editing so diffidently looking for a tool that is geared specific for vector based images.  A few basic things:

Support SVG format
Be able to export to png file format
Support Illustrator file format (nice to have)

I know there is Inkscape which is free but what other tools are out there that are just as nice or maybe better.  I am also willing to spend money, it does not have to be only free tools.


texts: I Can connect Mac OS Lion to Win 7 via cable but not via wireless...help!

texts:
I have a macbook pro, and netgear n600 modem/router (DGND3700) and a win7 PC that is working nicely with homegroup networking.

when I plug the macbook into the router via a network cable I can 'connect to server...' and get the the win7 shares just fine. but when I try whilst using wireless it refuses to connect.

What should I tweak to make it work? I assume its a problem with the mac because other non-mac computers can see the shares on my win7 box just fine via wireless.


texts: Slow internet speed with an ethernet adapter on my Mac

texts:
With the internet connecting to my windows laptop, the ping/download/upload speed is 16ms/157.15Mps/10.21Mps. However, when I connect the same internet cable to a USB 2.0 ethernet adaptor and then to my MacBook Air (2017 model), the ping/download/upload speed is just 24ms/30.07Mps/10.00Mps. This speed is even slower than the internet speed when I connect to wifi.
In this post, I see some comments suggesting that only Apple's brand of ethernet adapter works for MacBooks. Can anyone give me advice if that comment is right or any other possible solution to fix the slow internet speed when using an ethernet adapter? Appreciate!


texts: Restricting remote user to a single directory in 10.11

texts:
I need to confine remotely logged in users to stay in 1 directory only, so
I would thought I should attack this problem via SFTP or SSH, so I asked in

Restrict sftp user to a single directory in El Capitan.

But since sshd_config requires each component in the directory path must be owned by root, this requirement is not even possible in our case. So I guess both SSH and SFTP are not the solution.

What other approach can I take to do this task?

PS: After further reading, I think /bin/bash -r might be the way forward. Not sure if I can set up ssh to load /sh/bash -r by default.

PS: Tried to specify /bin/bash -r in Login Shell field within the user's Advanced Options in Users & Groups. Now the user cannot even login; password prompt keeps returning. In system.log, I get

PAM: authentication error for illegal user

Removing the -r option then the user can log in. I think a bit more config in sshd_config or /etc/pam.d/sshd will do the job....


texts: Why are emails from Find My iPhone in the wrong locale/language?

texts:
I'm a native English speaker and I can only understand English. For some reason, every email notification I get from the Find My iPhone service (such as a "locked" or "alarm" confirmation) is in French. At least, it looks like French. Before today I've never set my locale to anything other than English on my phone or iCloud.

I tried switching my locale on my iPhone 4 and on iCloud, but the email notifications from Find My iPhone are still in French.


texts: iChat: Very slow transfer speeds/Port Restricted

texts:
I have a 12mbps connection, so I know that my ichat transfers should be super fast.  When I receive files from some people, my transfer rate is about 1k/sec, which is horrible.  Why would this be happening?  Do I need to do something with my router?

In the Connection Doctor it says Router Type: Port Restricted.


texts: How do I post a screenshot from Mac OS X Lion on askdifferent?

texts:
How do I take a screenshot?  On the other Mac I was using, grab was installed, but paying for screenshots seems excessive.

System Software Overview:

  System Version:   Mac OS X 10.7.5 (11G63)
  Kernel Version:   Darwin 11.4.2
  Boot Volume:  Untitled
  Boot Mode:    Normal
  Computer Name:    a MacBook
  User Name:    thufir (thufir)
  Secure Virtual Memory:    Enabled
  64-bit Kernel and Extensions: No
  Time since boot:  53 minutes

More specifically, how do I post that screenshot here on askdifferent?

I see that you can take a screenshot...but...where is it saved?


texts: Using VirtualBox on Mac HighSierra - installing Windows 10 via external hard drive, not working!

texts: Installed VirtualBox on my Mac (HighSierra), my version 2014, doesn't have a CD-ROM/DVD drive so I'm using a portable drive to install Windows 10 64-bit. VB isn't recognizing the external drive. Frustrating, not sure what to do? Any help? TIA


texts: Which adapter is best on last Macbook Pro 2016 for Thunderbolt 2 dual monitors?

texts:
My typical setup is to plugin in my MBP with lid closed into dual monitors. I typically bring back and forth to work in backpack, where I also have dual monitors. All of my monitors go from DVI port into a Thunderbolt 2 like so:

Now I just got the new Macbook Pro delivered and the lack of ports is really frustrating. Looks like this:

The ports on my old MBP is really nicely set. All are on one side and work nicely with my desk setup so that the wires all run behind my desk. On my new MBP each side only has 2 ports (except for the headphone jack). I am not able to find a way to get both displays into one USB-C where I can use the other for my USB hub for example.

My question is, is there any sort of adapters that I can use to get to a similiar setup? All I've been able to find is the Thunderbolt 2 -> 3 converter adapters, but since there is only 2 ports on each side, I'd still have to pull in more stuff into the other side of the MBP (USB, power, headphones).

Feels like Apple went all in for the pretty minimalistic approach in expense of convienence.

Is there no USB-C hubs that support dual monitors?


texts: What is the loopback interface lo0 on Macs? What's the use of it? Does it have any vulnerabilities?


texts: I would like to re-order my 15 accounts with folders that appear in the sidebar in Thunderbird.  You can drop and drop folders, but you can't re-arrange accounts.  Does anybody know how to do that?  Thank you.


texts: What happened to the Finder window 'jellybean' in OS X Lion?

texts:
Before I updated to Lion, whenever I would mount a disk image (.dmg) the Finder window that would pop-up would always have a little 'jellybean' in the top right corner that would expand this window into a 'full' Finder window with the left-side panel, thus allowing quick and easy access to be able to eject the disk image.

I do not know if this feature has been completely removed from the OS or if its just disabled. Is there a way to get this back? I miss the jellybean!


texts: ipod touch 4g is unable to play music on docking station

texts:
I am not sure how to word this or even if there is an answer.
I have a iPod Touch 4th generation that I upgraded to 5.1.1 last week. Since then I have not been able to play tunes through my docking station. It 'sees' the song and I can see the play count but there is no volume/song heard.

I can put my daughters 2nd generation iPod Touch on and it works fine so I know it isn't the docking station that is the problem.

Anyone know how to fix this?


texts: how to make different apps use wifi vs ethernet?

texts: I'd like to route some apps through WiFi and other apps through ethernet.  Given that OSX has a wide array of system tools and utilities as well as a rich ecosphere of apps, how can I make that happen?*


texts: Applescript - Get information from terminal command

texts:
I'm creating a little script to allow quick changes to the network settings of my Mac. I have got it all working, but I wanted to be able to see what the settings are before I change them in the first dialog pop up.

The command that gets this information is "networksetup -getinfo device"

The result is like this:

Manual Configuration --This may also say DHCP Configuration--
IP address: 192.168.0.100
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Router: 192.168.0.1
IPv6: Automatic
IPv6 IP address: none
IPv6 Router: none
Ethernet Address: (null)

How can I get the IP address, Subnet mask and Router as 3 variables in my script so I can output them to the user over the following prompts?


texts: How to downgrade subversion to version 1.7

texts:
I'm on OS Sierra.

I currently have subversion 1.9 and I want to downgrade to 1.7.

I tried this so far with no luck:

$ brew tap homebrew/versions
$ brew install subversion17
Error: No available formula with the name "subversion17"
==> Searching for similarly named formulae...
Error: No similarly named formulae found.
==> Searching taps...
Error: No formulae found in taps.
$ brew search subversion
homebrew/versions/subversion18

What other options might I have?

Edit:  More background:

I'm getting this message when I run svn commands in my working directory:

> svn: E155036: Please see the 'svn upgrade' command svn: E155036: The
> working copy at '/Users/MyProject' is too old (format 29) to work with
> client version '1.9.4 (r1740329)' (expects format 31). You need to
> upgrade the working copy first.

I'm worried if I run the upgrade I won't be able to talk to the server anymore?  And I have no control over what version the server is running and I don't think they would be willing to upgrade it.


texts:
My earphones would not longer go all the way in / click into the earphone jack on my (out of warranty) iPhone 3GS. The sound was fine but the earphones fell out with the slightest knock.

I removed some lint with a needle; now it fits but sound isn't right. It's distorted, sometimes all treble, etc. Sound is fine if I pull the earphone plug out a little bit (to the depth at which it used only be able to go) but fall out at the slightest knock.

Could there be any other reason other than lint causing this? And if so, how can I troubleshoot and resolve the problem(s)?


texts: I'd like to force a sync or repair on my AppleRAID set as part of a regular maintence. Under Linux (md) I can do this by writing to control devices. Diskutil does not seem to offer me such an option.


texts: Checking apps for a "GateKeeper" Developer ID?

texts:
Is there any way for a Mac user currently running Snow Leopard or Lion to check, maybe from the Terminal command-line, whether some application downloaded from the net was digitally signed with an Apple issued Developer ID?

If so, what might be the benefits for a Mac user to do such checking now?

Apple has been encouraging Mac developers to digitally sign their Mac applications with an Apple issued Developer ID, which Apple announced will be used by the Mac OS at some point in the future.


texts: How do I get my iPhone to type the word "Period" instead of the punctuation while dictating?

texts:
I love using my iPhone to dictate long emails, first drafts of documents, and such.  It does such an amazing job and I can capture my thoughts quickly.

Unfortunately, a lot of the work I do is associated with accounting periods but however I say "period", it always puts the full-stop punctuation.

Is there a way to get it to actually spell out "period"?  I end up having to use a word that will not be in the final text (penguin) and then do a search and replace at the end.


texts:
I am a new user to OS X (MacBook Air, 10.6.7) migrating from Ubuntu and extremely happy with it. I use terminator running on X11 for my terminal program, and I'm using SSH: OpenSSH_5.8p1, OpenSSL 1.0.0d 8 Feb 2011

My problem is that when tunnelblick VPNs reconnect all my SSH sessions hang and I must close the terminal and re-open it. In Ubuntu what would happen is the sessions would automatically continue working again once the VPN connection was re-established.

Is there any way to make it so these connections re-establish once the VPN is back up? Occasionally my VPN hiccups and its annoying to close all my windows. I'm aware I could use screen but it doesn't really solve the problem as easily as it was working under Ubuntu.


texts: I have a iPhone 4, which is IOS 4.3.3. Now i need to upgrade it to the latest OS version, WITHOUT deleting any data. I have not tried to update my phone contacts in the last few years fearing it would delete the data. Can someone help me out?


texts: windows 8.1 bootcamp screen macbook pro (Early 2015)

texts:
my problem is when switch from os x Yosemite to windows 8.1

when windows 8.1 is boot the screen make that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpXidvzBvMM

the screen is work fine when run os x Yosemite

i don't know this problem because windows 8.1 or bootcamp

when restart windows 8.1 sometime screen work fine and sometime it stay that


texts: Migration Assistant (going from 2011 MBP running Mavericks to 2013 rMBP running Mavericks) broke Apple Mail

texts:
I recently ran Migration Assistant on a 2011 MBP running Mavericks to a brand new, fresh install on a 2013 rMBP and it has completely hosted Apple Mail.

It moved over all of my accounts in the Internet Accounts prefpane, but Mail itself thinks that it has no accounts.  So when I launch Mail, it asks me to add an account, and if I hit cancel it quits because it thinks it has no accounts.

If I remove the accounts from the Internet Accounts PrefPane and add them through the Mail interface, the Mail check-box associated with the account gets unchecked.


texts: How to Restore the Mail Symlinks to External Drive on 10.11?

texts:
My Mac Mail has been working using an external drive for the library and all messages since 2013.  However I upgraded to 10.11 today and need to find a way to reference everything on the external drive again.  Any thoughts on how to update the Symlinks for 10.11?

I don't have enough drive space on the HD to move or import the folders back plus it would be extremely time consuming...


texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  iMac not logging probably due to keychains problem

iMac OS X Lion here.

I have two accounts in the iMac. Both with password.

I'm not sure what happened, but now, when I startup the iMac, when I try to enter the first account, I enter the password, the screen goes blank for a moment, and throws me back to the login screen. No messages pop up.

But I CAN enter my second account.

What am I supposed to do?

Edit: More info
I remember I was messing with that account's keychain stuff (keys/certificates/etc), possibly deleting keys or even replacing them with other keys etc... Maybe that's related.


texts:
A coworker of mine has recently noticed that for any person with whom he has a long SMS history, and with whom iMessage routing has started, the messaging logs with that person are now being truncated. He can only hit the "load more messages" button five times before  it hits the apparent end of the logs. Is anyone else noticing this? No one with whom I share that much history has upgraded to iMessage yet.

I'm a bit worried, because my girlfriend will be upgrading to iOS 5 soon, but we both like the fact that we can scroll all the way back to before we were dating, and sometimes do so just to laugh at the random conversations we've had. We're talking about thousands of texts over two years, and I really hope the default isn't to clear that.


texts: Why are there sometimes app icon on the iPhone lockscreen?

texts:
Sometimes an icon is shown in the left bottom corner of the lock screen. Sometimes I can see some logic in it - when I plug the earphones, then the streaming radio app icon appers. I cannot start the app tapping the icon though. But sometimes an icon is just there without any visible connection to my actions, for example the Stack Exchange app icon:

Why is that? What is it useful for and what can I do with them? If I tap them nothing happens.


texts: New Macbook Pro 2019 has high temperature with low CPU usage

texts:
I got a Macbook Pro 2019 with Intel Core i9 Processors and it seems to heat up and get the fans spinning even with very low cpu usage.
For Example, today when I was on a video call, Both my fans were spinning quite loud and my CPU Temperature was at 57deg Celcius. When I looked at Activity Monitor, my CPU was 97.44% idle.
Is this a problem with the computer or is this normal?


texts: What's the ios app that gives you share options when you take a screenshot?

texts: I remember taking a screenshot on my iPhone and being given additional options to share that page from the app, i.e. the app knew that I took a screenshot and proactively gave me the option of sharing that page. Do you guys know what app that might be?


texts: Apple Business Manager Error not covered on support page - Account Update Not Allowed

texts:
We have begun the processing of syncing Apple Business Manager with our Microsoft Intune instance (all Azure Active Directory accounts) via SCIM.  In the logs, for 2 of our accounts, I am given the error "Account Update Not Allowed."
This error is not included on this page: https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/apple-business-manager/apddc1fec242/web , nor is Google bringing up any hits, so I don't know what it means or how to fix it.


texts: Disable tracking location by app, and other privacy features

texts:
I own a macbook and a old Android phone that needs to be replaced.
To protect my privacy i had installed X-Privacy on my phone. Among other things, this allowed me to turn off location tracking by applications that do not need location and that cannot be trusted with it, specifically Whatsapp.

I am thinking of buying a iphone next, but a second hand, because i do not need a flashy phone. It will be easier getting my pictures from the phone to the computer, if nothing else.

My questions are:

From which version onwards does iphone support turning off location access for specific apps? I'm under the impression this is possible on new iPhones, maybe i'm wrong.
What other privacy related features can i expect? For example can i prevent an application that does not need it from accessing my contacts?


texts: Preview: reorder pages in pdf increased file size?

texts:
I have scanned 58 pages into a PDF. The file size of this orginal pdf was 8 MB. Unfortunately the page order was a little messed up when I scanned so I used Preview to reordered some of the pages by simply dragging the pages around in the thumbnails bar. After doing this and saving the pdf the size had increased to 23 MB! What happened? And how do I reduce the file size?

I tried the reduce file size quarts filter but it reduced the resolution which made the pdf unusable.

I see no reason for the file size to increase from just reordering existing pages, is there?


texts: Can I disable wifi automatically if there is an ethernet connection?

texts:
When I wake my machine in the morning, it often stays blank because there's some conflict between my 4k monitor and the 'Your computer name has changed for the 3950th time' dialogue that means both screens are off until I dismiss the dialogue I can't see.

I don't want to have to turn wifi on and off manually - we have computers to do things automatically for us - and I need a wired connection while I'm at my desk.

So can I tell the Mac only to enable to wifi if eth0 is inactive?

Or turn the 'Your computer name has changed' dialogue into a notification that doesn't need manual dismissal, because I really don't care what number Apple has decided to add to it today?


texts: Connecting Two Thunderbolt Displays to a Single MacBook Pro

texts:
I'm looking to connect two Thunderbolt displays to a single MacBook Pro. I've seen another thread here which mentioned hubs and display ports, but it seems this can be accomplished natively with the ports.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP1thwUcO9c

However, when I plug the second display into the first, the second one does not power on.  I think the issue might be because the Thunderbolt displays are slightly different. One is a newer Thunderbolt which has the little "thunderbolt" icon on the video cord. The other is a little bit older and has a "video" icon on the video cord. The "video" Thunderbolt doesn't have a Thunderbolt port on the back, while the "thunderbolt" monitor does. Both screens will work independently, but when I plug the "thunderbolt" display into my MacBook and try to get the other to display by plugging the "video" cord into the thunderbolt port of the first monitor which on, nothing happens.
Does it sound like an adapter issue, or something I need to adjust via preferences or a software update?


texts:
It's always bothered me that certain directories on OS X will open like this:

And others will open like this:

To my understanding this has to do with the permissions of the directory in question, but I was wondering if anyone knew of a way to have all directories open complete with the favorites bar and horizontal toolbar items, independent of write-ability.

I ask this because I used to (up until my most recent format) be able to double click on "Macintosh HD" and then navigate anywhere, either from root or from the sidebar shortcuts. For whatever reason Macintosh HD has been opening in restricted view as of my latest install.


texts:
I’ve recently changed the password on my iPhone SE (running iOS 10.x?) and now I’ve forgotten it. I was able to use my iPhone for a few days from TouchID but after the iPhone restarted today, I can’t get into it. It's a 4 digit passcode.

I still remember my iCloud password. But the phone is not currently configured to back up to iCloud.

Would I be able to recover the Messages if I take my iPhone to an Apple Store? I don't have any trouble proving the iPhone and its data belong to me (I purchased the iPhone with my credit card, signed into my Apple ID and iCloud accounts). But my understanding is that they can't do anything either even if they want to.

Is there any way I can get back into my iPhone? Everything else can be erased, but I just really need access to my messages. For example, would I be able to jailbreak it given that it’s running a pretty old version of iOS?


texts: How do I escape a bad VPN sign on request

texts:
I get stuck and have to wait until the request times out when I enter a bad VPN request. I would like to cancel the request and enter a different VPN address. I tried control break like on Windows but it doesn't work.

I am using Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client version 3.1.05170.
I use the company's default. Depending on how I am connected the VPN client doesn't recognise the .com address and I need to go to terminal mode and "ping" the site to get the IP address. Then cut and paste that to the VPN address bar.

Does anyone have better ideas?


texts: What Does Spotlight Indexing Actually Do?

texts:
A similar older question already exists, but even that has no definitive answer. I hope somebody can give a clear explanation and answer with regards to macOS Mojave and above, and my doubts below.
I use Spotlight only to open applications quickly and not for searching.
For sometime now, there have have been some issue with spotlight indexing not hapening on some drives properly, slowing down or hanging up both Finder or spotlight or the whole system because of it. So I have finally disabled it on some volumes out of frustration (I tried everything - deleting the index, reindexing it etc.):
$ sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/Backup/
/Volumes/Backup:
2020-12-01 05:02:08.758 mdutil[848:47342] mdutil disabling Spotlight: /Volumes/Backup -> kMDConfigSearchLevelFSSearchOnly
    Indexing disabled.

Disabling indexing has made my system, and especially Finder, more responsive. I can still do all file search using Finder. So what exactly does spotlight indexing do? Is it only to enable searching for something through Spotlight? What disadvantages are there (if any) in turning it off)?


texts: Catalina Notification: iPhone in Use: This iPhone is in use by another user on this Mac

texts:
Got a new odd notification after "upgrading" to Catalina (10.15.2) that's never manifested before in Mojave or previous releases.  This happens with both iPhones and iPads even though there are no other users logged into this Mac concurrently:

Any idea as to the ramifications of this message or how to eliminate it properly (I'm guessing I can find something about it in the Notifications' settings, but I'd prefer to get to the root of the issue)?


texts: MacBook 5,1 (unibody) getting kernel panics if memory bank 0 is populated

texts:
Any configuration of ram that uses bank 0 on my MacBook causes a kernel panic after about an hour of use.

The slot looks fine: all the pins are there, and are straight (no visible bends or breaks)
it's not a RAM problem; I've tried four different modules in total, all of them leading to the same results.
My EFI/SMC is up to date
PRAM and SMC resets don't help
OS X reinstallation doesn't help

How should I proceed to troubleshoot/fix this?


texts: Can we partially jaibreak our iOS devices for enterprise management?

texts:
We manage a large number of iOS devices in an enterprise environment and are finding Apple's management utilities lacking. I wonder if there are any options for jailbreaking which do not entail completely opening the system up.

I have no intention of thwarting the code-signing system and having to deal with the complications that raises, or installing unauthorized apps; my thoughts are merely that our administration options would be greater if we were able to access the system partition so we could manage plist files through ssh or another tool.

Is this possible? Or is access to these setting files intrinsically linked to the code-signing system for apps?


texts: Mounting a disk image without the "nodev" option

texts:
I need to mount a disk image. From terminal, I issued:

hdiutil attach <myImage.sparseimage>

Now if I run mount I get:

/dev/disk2s2 on /Volumes/<myDisk> (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, journaled, noowners, mounted by administrator)

The nodev flag is creating problems for my next commands. Is there a way to disable it?


texts: Reverse search is not working on mysql terminal on my mac

texts:
I was using the mysql in ubuntu terminal. Reverse search was working fine on my ubuntu terminal. Recently I switched to mac, on mac terminal reverse search works fine normally but when I logged in to mysql the reverse search was not working.

Please suggest some answers I will be using reverse search frequently.

Reverse search is a bash functionality where you search your command history on the fly. More on reverse search can be found here


texts: Does iOS have a transfer/write speed limit?

texts:
Any time I want to do a batch transfer over FTP to my iPad (Using AVPlayer or Photo Privacy) the transfer only lasts for a short while before the application shuts down and I'm back to the iPad dashboard. Is this due to some internal security meassures in the iPad breaking any application that writes too much data? If not, what could it be that makes FTP servers on completely separate apps crash in the same way?

Any answers even remotely helpful would be appreciated

Thanks

EDIT

I am of course running the application in the foreground. Also the iPad is not going to sleep. I simply start the FTP transfer, and after a few seconds or minutes the application abruptly quits and I'm back at the iOS dashboard.


texts: How to sync Home Videos on TV app from macOS Catalina 10.15 to iPhone?

texts:
Since the update to Mac OS 10.15 (Catalina) split the iTunes app into Music, TV, and Podcasts I can no longer transfer home videos from my Mac to my iPhone.

I used to do this by:

Adding the home video to iTunes.
Dragging it to the iPhone icon that appears when the phone is connected via USB cable, and
Using 'sync'.

Although the iPhone icon appears at the same place in the TV app, I can no longer drag home videos to it. I also tried right clicking on the iPhone icon and using 'Sync' -- but the home video never syncs onto my iPhone

How do you do this transfer now?


texts: Constant "Not Delivered" errors in iMessage

texts:
I am getting incredibly frequent "Not Delivered" errors when sending messages on my Macbook. They're iMessage messages (as opposed to SMS messages), and I just get spats of them where it seems like every message I try to send throws up this error:

The super frustrating part is that the messages ARE sending. The other party seems to be receiving them just fine. I hit resend and it succeeds, or I hit ignore and it's not a problem. But this damn error window opens up constantly.

I've tried deleting the conversation with the person (or people), re-linking my iPhone to the Macbook, disabling the Jabber account, and signing out and back into my Apple account. Nothing thus far has worked. Is there any way to get additional details as to what is triggering this error?


texts: How to use automator to create a service which converts an ebook (using calibre commands)

texts:
I am trying to figure out a way to be able to right-click on an .epub file and convert it to a .mobi file. Currently (thanks to calibre command tools) I can to the following within the terminal

ebook-convert test.epub test.mobi

So  the fist file name test.epub is the original, existing file, and the second file name test.mobi is that it will be converted to.

Is it possible to create a service from automator which could allow we to right-click on the original test.mobi file and then just convert it?

Thanks


texts: iMac will not boot after Catalina auto-update

texts:
I woke up the other morning to a prohibitory icon (circle with a line through it) on my iMac. I believe this was due to a failed Catalina update but I am not sure. I had it set to auto-update.

I am getting some strange results. I have booted into recovery mode and have a bootable flash drive as well as a 2T external drive that will also boot. I can not mount the main partition disk0s2. When I select that and click 'mount' it does nothing.

When I first boot into recovery mode then go to Disk Utility, there are a couple drives that are in RED. Then after I 'ignore' the fix that will delete all my data, they turn black (the normal text color).

I tried to continue the installation and I have gotten a few different issues tahat all amount to not being able to select my main drive.

The weirdest thing is that this is a 3T drive but in Disk Utility it is showing that it's 123.33GB.

Here are the results of running:

diskutil list

and
gpt -show /dev/disk0

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


texts: Remove any numbers at the front of a file name or remove the first two numbers for Mac

texts:
I have a thousand files that are named like this...

01 heartbeat a.wav
02 heartbeat b.wav
03 heartbeat c.wav

I'm looking for a terminal command that will remove the numbers at the front of the name.
And when I use the code do I start with

"cd_"
drop the folder in terminal
enter
"ls"
enter
Copy and paste the command?

Thank you!!


texts:
I'm not sure what just happened...
I was just about to rename a file, and just mis-clicked off. - After that point there was a constantly floating yellow bubble with the file name in it, on the finder window. I couldn't click it or drag it, however if I showed desktop it would float off screen along with the finder window.

I force closed Finder, and it was gone when I re-opened. Just very intrigued as to what this was? As it didn't seem like a bug (As it tended to float and act in unison with the finder window).

Any ideas?

iMac
OS X 10.8.2


texts: Using family sharing, can a child account do in-app purchases without approval?

texts:
I recently added my son to our "iTunes family"; I have set his Apple ID up as a child account and have checked the "Ask to Buy: require approval from parent for all purchases ..." checkbox.

Yet today I received an app store invoice for an in-app purchase my son made in one of the games he plays. Do in-app purchases not fall under the "require approval from parent" rule?

(I know that I can prevent in-app purchases by configuring "Restrictions" on his iPad, but that is not the point)


texts: What's kern_sploit proccess that apears in my iPhone 4?

texts: After jailbreaking iPhone 4, I was noticed that some processes were added to the process list, like kern_sploit. What is this?


texts: Big Sur - unable to focus any app or make mouse/keyboard inputs after waking from sleep?

texts:
Problem Description
Since upgrading to Big Sur I have been experiencing, sometimes multiple times per day, an issue where after waking the machine from sleep:

I am unable to enter text input with the keyboard. Typing into text inputs produces the system alert sound, as if typing is not allowed. Some shortcut combinations like Cmd+Tab still work. Using the on-screen keyboard produces the same results, so it appears not to have anything to do with the keyboard hardware.

I am unable to click on some kinds of UI controls with the mouse. Clicking on a window will bring it to the foreground. But links on webpages have to be double-clicked to navigate, as if the first click is ignored. Other kinds of controls such as the sidebar in Finder don't respond to clicks at all.

When clicking between windows belonging to different apps, the active app in the system menubar does not update. So I may have a Finder window in the foreground, but Chrome's menu will still appear in the menubar.

If I switch to a different desktop space, a different app may appear in the menubar (depending on what is open in that space) but then the menubar becomes complete unresponsive and does not respond to clicks after that.

It's obvious when looking at some apps like System Preferences or Activity Monitor that even when their window has been brought to the foreground, the app isn't fully "focused", as some controls remain greyed out in the way they do when the app is in the background. (I think this gives a big clue about what's going on - is something stealing focus and won't allow any other app to be focused?).

Putting the machine back to sleep does not resolve the problem, it remains in the same broken state after waking again. Using fast user switching to jump to another user profile reveals the other profile to be unaffected, but switching back to the first user returns it still in the broken state.

I have tried force quitting Finder and sending kill signals to SystemUIServer and the Dock process, but this has no impact.

The only solution I have found is to log out and log in again, or restart. Sometimes it is not even possible to log out, as the menubar may become unresponsive and the Cmd+Shift+Q shortcut doesn't always work, in which case a forced restart from the Login Window is required (the Login Window itself behaves normally throughout).

This issue began immediately after upgrading to Big Sur, so I think it must be a macOS bug - but as I have been unable to locate any other reports of this issue by Googling all the terms I can think of, it is conceivable that the problem results from a particular combination in my system of third-party apps or peripherals.
My machine is a MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) with i9 and Radeon Pro 5500M. Running Big Sur 11.0.1. I usually have a Thunderbolt 3 dock attached with external display, USB keyboard and mouse, but the problem has also occurred when roaming with nothing plugged in.
Question
Going with the focus-stealing theory, is there a way to debug this by determining which process owns the currently focused app/window in macOS? (I am able to run terminal commands by ssh'ing in from another machine when the problem occurs.)
Alternatively, is this a known issue or has anybody else experienced this? Are there other solutions or workarounds I can try to resolve the problem without logging out?


texts: Is there any official reason why OSX does not have a native package manager?

texts:
I’m new in the OSX world, after a few search on internet, I realized that all package managers for OSX are 3rd party tools.
OSX as a Unix-based system, I just can’t imagine that Apple hasn’t thought about a built-in package manager.

Is there any reason why Apple didn’t provide a packet manager ?
Does Apple (officially or not) support one of the existing 3rd party package managers ? I heard that the author of Homebrew is now working for Apple


texts: Firefox 54 launched from Dock on Sierra crashes

texts:
I'm running macOS 10.12.5 Sierra with Firefox 54.0 on a MacBook Air. A Firefox icon is present in the Dock. When launching Firefox from this icon (or double-clicking the icon in the Applications folder), it immediately crashes. However, if I launch it via the command line ($ ./firefox in the app folder), it does not crash. Launching via open -a Firefox also crashes.

I launched Firefox from the command line in safe-mode and disabled all add-ons, but it still crashes when launched from the icon in the Dock.

I'm using the new Compact Dark theme. I disabled this and tested again, but Firefox still crashes when launched from the Dock icon.

Removing the icon from the Dock and adding it back did not solve this.

Downloading a fresh copy of Firefox 54.0 and installing over the previous version of 54.0 did not solve this.

Suggestions to fix this?

Update: This is not resolved in Firefox 54.0.1.

Update: This appears to be resolved in Firefox 55.0.2 (64-bit).


texts: What other "Superdrives" are able to replace the UJ-868?

texts:
I suspect my MacBook Pro's Superdrive is faulty. It refuses to burn Sony DVD+R discs.
I'm now looking at replacing the drive, but I see there are many "Superdrives". I have a Matshita DVD-R UJ-868, but I see different type numbers are sold as a Superdrive.

Which Superdrives, besides the UJ-868, are compatible with my 15 inch, mid 2009 MacBook Pro 5,3?


texts: The Apple TV doesn't support native VPN configuration - is there another way to use VPN?

texts:
TL;DR: Apple doesn't allow for native VPN configuration on Apple TVs, is there a reliable way to use a VPN service with my Apple TV?

As someone who lives abroad, a VPN can be a real life saver when it comes to  catching up on shows from home. However, one thing which continues to annoy me is the lack of an option to configure a VPN on an Apple TV. With iOS and macOS, using a VPN is as simple as downloading an app and pressing one button, but this is not the case with the Apple TV.

I understand that some VPN providers offer smart DNS solutions, however, the truth is that this is limiting as it fails to provide the same amount of security offered by standard VPNs and completely omits the option to specify a geo-location which would be my primary use for such a service.

As a result, I have been trawling the Internet trying to find a solution. I have come across guides which explain how to put a VPN directly onto a router, however, it is impossible to do so with my router firmware and even if it were, it would come with a few downsides including speed. Other guides suggest using something like a Raspberry Pi to act as a repeater but I do not think this is a reasonable solution for me and it would also prevent my Apple TV from being used as the hub for my HomeKit setup.

Is there a reasonable alternative (software or hardware) for VPN access on AppleTV other than the ones listed above which would solve this issue?

Currently, to circumvent the problem I have been using a VPN on my iPad and then using AirPlay to mirror the video, however, this is rather irritating as it is bottle-necked by Wi-Fi speeds and thus can sometimes buffer and result in low quality.


texts: Which MacBook supports Thunderbolt 3 and has regular USB 3 ports?

texts:
I'm looking to upgrade my MacBook Air to something with the new Thunderbolt 3 ports, but also has USB 3 ports. There seem to be so many models out there, but I didn't find one.

Which MacBooks have Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3 ports without the need of an extra adapter?


texts: I have two bootcamp partitions but not my original 500GB

texts:
I have a mid 2014 MacBook Pro running Mojave. I recently tried to dual boot windows on my MacBook but in the process corrupted my original Macintosh HD  and am left with a 85GB bootcamp partition. I wanted to revert back to the original so I saved that 85GB with time machine on a external hard drive. I tried to erase the 85GB drive and then delete it from internet recovery and go back to my original 500GB. That didn't work and I was left with a blue screen saying enter to try again, f8 for something and another something but I can't remember what it was for. From there I reinstalled Mojave on the 85GB partition and went to disk utility on my MacBook. I tried to restore the 415GB partition and somehow screwed up and am left with 2 bootcamp partitions of 85GB and 415GB.

Here are pictures of the two in disk utility.

And here is a picture of when I type in diskutil list

And here is a picture of diskutil afps

Is there any way for me to get back to my original 500GB partition and restore back to the data that was on my 85GB partition.

Any help would be immensely appreciated.


texts:
Device: MBP 13 2017 no Touch Bar
Problem: can't hear anything. Sound is not working at all


texts: High Sierra's Finder don't index files in storage unit

texts:
Finder (macOS High Sierra) not show any files or folders that I know are there. It occurs only in with units of a storage appliance (Tiger-Box). In previous macOS versions it works fine. I can see all files and folders using Adobe Bridge but its not a good tool for that.

So. Can you guys suggest me a way to fix it? Or may be a "alternative Finder" that works.


texts: Canon Camera Connect to Iphone to Cloud to Mac Issue

texts: I just started using Canon Camera Connect with my PowerShot. I am connect via wifi to my Iphone.  The photos move well to the phone and then to the Icloud.  I then did a usb transfer to my MacBook Pro and they were there.  Then to clear space on my camera I deleted (having already seen them on my Laptop).  When I deleted them from my camera they are now gone from everywhere.  What did I do wrong?


texts: I updated my iPod 5 gen to iOS 9 and now it has a 6 digit passcode

texts: I updated my iPod to iOS 9 ( i think, its the current one right now 10/24/15) and my pass code was 5-6-8-9(4 digits) and now after updating it and recovering it through iTunes to prepare to sell it to someone it now has a 6 digit password. What do I do, how do I unlock it now because I really need it to sell it for the money.


texts:
I'm working as a technician and would like to learn the capabilities of these cables.

I know a USB-C 3.1 gen. 2 can do it, but I'd like to know if a Thunderbolt-3 cable would do it.

I know that you cannot use the thunderbolt 3 cable to connect a Macbook 12-inch to a Mac with Thunderbolt-3 port, as Thunderbolt ports seem to only accept Thunderbolt cables for data transfer (and I tried to and didn't work).

Can you use a Thunderbolt 3 cable to connect two Macbook 12-inch in target disk mode?


texts: US keyboard layout on macOS Sierra switches backtick to other key on external keyboard

texts:
I'm using a US keyboard layout on two Swiss (CH-de) hardware keyboards. On the builtin MacBook Air keyboard it works, while on an old external Apple keyboard (M7803) I've the problem that the key which usually produces a backtick (`, i.e. the one left to the z on a US keyboard) doesn't work, producing a § instead.

Showing the Keyboard Viewer displays the backtick in its proper place (clicking it with the mouse also works), but as soon as I type a character, the keyboard layout shown changes (having no key left of the z) and the backtick moves to the key left of the number 1. Actually pressing the key left to the 1 actually produces a backtick, so I guess I could get used to that...

But what's going on here? Why are the ` and § keys switched on the internal and external keyboards? The odd behaviour of the external keyboard started appearing only when I upgraded from El Capitan to Sierra.


texts:
I'm trying to add a rule to my computer which was working on my work computer. strangely enough there's no rdr program on my Yosemite. should I install a particular package to obtain it?

sh-3.2# rdr pass on lo0 inet proto tcp from any to any port 80 -> 127.0.0.1 port 8080
sh: rdr: command not found
sh-3.2# which rdr
sh-3.2# wtf
sh: wtf: command not found
sh-3.2# uname -a
Darwin sathias-iMac.local 14.0.0 Darwin Kernel Version 14.0.0: Fri Sep 19 00:26:44 PDT 2014; root:xnu-2782.1.97~2/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64