Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Recent Questions - Ask Different

Recent Questions - Ask Different

How can I move my files from the iPad storage to Document Cloud?

Posted: 24 Mar 2021 12:00 AM PDT

I use Acrobat on my iPad to read PDFs. They are currently stored on the iPad. How can I move all my PDF files from the iPad storage to Document Cloud?

Note that I can't transfer multiple files+folders at once from the Acrobat app on iPadOS 13 or 14 directly to my computer, which runs Windows 7.

How to change this terminal customization tutorial for usage in zsh rather than bash?

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 11:46 PM PDT

This tutorial gives instructions on how to customize the look of macOS's Terminal application. I followed the instructions but used zsh where it said bash in hopes that it would work, but it didn't. I changed the shell to Bash to see how it would work, and it did, but I need to use zsh for work purposes. Is there a way to adapt the tutorial for use in zsh rather than Bash, or is there a tutorial for customizing your zsh shell?

Thanks in advance.

Is this possible specific key to change specific language?

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 07:44 PM PDT

I am using a Japanese keyboard layout MacBook.

and now I am using Right Command key as [F18] for [Select next input source in menu]

enter image description here

and Japanese layout MacBook has keys to change language directly to English and Japanese.

enter image description here

So, I would like to use Right Command key to change input source to another Language(Korean)?

Is this possible to change only language?

I don't want to change keyboard layout.

Finder cannot see any files on ntfs mount

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 07:59 PM PDT

Since today, after brew upgrade yesterday, Finder cannot see any file in ntfs root or folders, though they show up in terminal.
I installed osxfuse and ntfs-3g and it worked well till today.
I see macfuse is installed too, maybe from brew upgrade ? To solve the issue I uninstalled macfuse, ntfs-3g and osxfuse, and the files show up again in Finder (but not writable). Then I reinstalled osxfuse and ntfs-3g, and I get the same issue again (files not showing up).
Version is Catalina 10.15.3

Any idea how I could solve this issue ?

Can I delete files from my dyld folder?

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 06:24 PM PDT

I have a 13-inch Early 2015 MacBook Air (OS 11.2.5) with 128 GB, and I'm trying to clear some space for a game I want to install. So far, I've transferred my school assignment files into my external hard drive, and I've safely cleared my Music cache, which took over about 40% of my storage before. I currently have 51.36 GB available but I still want to clear more space. I saw this dyld folder and it had the largest amount of gigabytes I've seen ever since I cleared the Music cache folder; 9.78 GB!

Location: ~/System/Library/dyld

Can I delete my dyld folder, or at least several items of it only?

Thanks in advance.

List of Linux programs which are not in macOS

Posted: 24 Mar 2021 12:35 AM PDT

I know the following programs are in Linux but not in macOS.

Are there more? Where can I find the list?

Please ignore BSD counterparts.

tree  watch  wget  wdiff  gdb  autoconf

Why are “Messages in iCloud” still taking up storage on my Mac if they’re supposed to be in the Cloud?

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 06:01 PM PDT

I have all of my messages stored in iCloud, but for some reason they're still taking up SSD storage on my Mac. This behavior doesn't happen on my iPhone, but it does on my Mac and I'm not sure why. If they're in iCloud, why are they still taking up the internal storage on my Mac? It seems strange that my iPhone doesn't store messages on its internal storage, but my Mac does. Is there a way to prevent this from happening on my Mac somehow?

Switch Bluetooth controller to external dongle

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 05:33 PM PDT

Due to the lack of Bluetooth 5.0 on my 2014 MacBook Pro, I've purchased an Asus BT500 as I've seen reports of people using it successfully with macOS. The dongle is listed as USB device, but I can't activate it such that my Bluetooth devices would connect to the dongle rather than to the internal Bluetooth controller.

Is there any advice on how to force macOS to use the dongle or how to debug the process? I still can return this Asus dongle, so if you do know of an alternate manufacturer's dongle which does work for you, I would also welcome your suggestions!

Environment

macOS Big Sur 11.2.3 (but I've also tried latest Catalina)

MacBook Pro Retina, 15", mid 2014

The dongle is recognised as usb device:

dongle is recognised as usb device

Things I've tried

  • I've tried to deactivate bluetooth, connect the dongle, reactivate bluetooth (source)

  • I've tried sudo nvram bluetoothHostControllerSwitchBehavior=always (source)

  • I've tried switching the controller with apple's "Bluetooth Explorer" (source). The dongle is listed there. But if I activate it, bluetooth devices are disconnected, then reconnected again; then the internal controller is displayed as [ACTIVE] again in the Bluetooth Explorer, not the bluetooth dongle.

    Bluetooth Explorer

  • I've tried sudo kextunload -b com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport to unload the kernel module for the internal controller, but I get: Error Domain=KMErrorDomain Code=71 "Kernel request failed: (iokit/common) unsupported function (-536870201)" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Kernel request failed: (iokit/common) unsupported function (-536870201)}

AppleScript script to Save MS Outlook Attachments with the File Extension Added in the Middle of the File Name (On a Mac Computer)

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 03:34 PM PDT

I would like to save the mail attachment but to also include the file extension string (e.g. PDF) in the middle of the file name, e.g., This_is_my_PDF_document.pdf instead of This_is_my_document.pdf. The code shared only gets me to save the attachment's full file name (Original basename and file extension). Any help would be highly appreciated.

tell application "Microsoft Outlook"      set msgs to current messages      set myDocumentFolder to POSIX path of (path to documents folder as string)      repeat with msg in msgs          set this_attachment to attachment of msg          set subj to subject of msg          set msgSubject to subj as string          set saveToFolder to myDocumentFolder & msgSubject          tell application "Finder"              if not (exists saveToFolder) then                  do shell script "mkdir -p " & quoted form of saveToFolder              end if          end tell          save msg in saveToFolder          save this_attachment in saveToFolder      end repeat  end tell

How much disk space do I need to upgrade Xcode on macOS Big Sur? [duplicate]

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 03:26 PM PDT

I'm on macOS Big Sur (11.2.3). I would like to upgrade my Xcode to the latest version and have this disk space available

$ df -h /  Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on  /dev/disk1s5s1  234G   15G   30G  33% /

However when I go into the app store and attempt to upgrade, I get this message ...

enter image description here

Is this message a false flag? Do I really need more then 30 GB to upgrade Xcode?

pinyin input candidate window doesn't show up

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 03:19 PM PDT

I'm using Mac's Pinyin - Simplified to type Chinese characters. It always worked well but recently it has refused to show candidate characters. A similar problem was reported on Apple's forum but no useful answer. Any suggestions?

I've lost my Airpods Pro serial number complely. If i use a friends serial number will that stop them in the future using it?

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 03:06 PM PDT

In order to get a replacement case I need a serial number.

I've fully lost mine (unpaired, no case, no packaging and no invoice as it came from amazon)

If I use a friends serial number will that give them issues in the future such as the "This is a serial number for a product that has been replaced" warning?

iMovie built in music and audio effects missing

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 02:51 PM PDT

This problem also happens to me in Final Cut. Since one week or so the common audio effects and music clips are missing. I have removed these two applications, rebooted the computer and installed again iMovie, with the same results. Any idea?

Unable to upgrade recent 1Password through App Store in macOS Big Sur 11.2.3 (20D91)

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 02:44 PM PDT

For the very first time I cannot upgrade the app through App Store. It fully downloads the upgrade, but when it comes to installation it fails because it cannot quit itself I assume.

enter image description here

I can force quit all 1Password-related processes except of the Extension Helper. When I try to do this via ps aux and kill -s TERM PID, it immediately spawns itself with another PID.

Any help? I'm on Big Sur 11.2.3 (20D91).

When will the M1 macbooks come with only software that is completely native? [closed]

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 02:53 PM PDT

Has apple announced a timeframe of when the macbooks will ship with only native software for M1 chip? Currently software goes through a translation process in order for it to work on the m1 chips.

Some sites not blocked, /etc/hosts

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 05:12 PM PDT

macOS layman here,

I'm trying to block websites natively with mixed results through Terminal using sudo nano /etc/hosts

My syntax is

127.0.0.1 www.website.org  ::1 www.website.org

I've tried various iterations, with space, with tab, but there's a pesky little website that I can't manage to block.

eg. I've blocked lichess.org but haven't managed yet to block 4chan.org. I've searched the web but I didn't get any wiser. I don't understand how I can block one site with exactly the same syntax but I can't block another.

macOS Big Sur Version 11.2.3 (20D91) / Safari Version 14.0.3

Ideally I would like to do this on the back end without using Screen Time or Parental Control. Any help is appreciated.

EDIT:

127.0.0.1       www.4chan.org  127.0.0.1       4chan.org  127.0.0.1       https://www.4chan.org  127.0.0.1       https://4chan.org    127.0.0.1       https://boards.4channel.org  127.0.0.1       https://boards.4chan.org      ::1             www.4chan.org  ::1             4chan.org  ::1             https://www.4chan.org  ::1             https://4chan.org    ::1             https://boards.4channel.org  ::1             https://boards.4chan.org

Does this cable support 1440p/2k 144Hz?

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 09:14 PM PDT

I would like to connect an external monitor (1440p/2k 144Hz) to my Macbook Air M1. My monitor has Mini displayport and HDMI outputs. Does this cable support 144Hz on 2k? https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HN8B2ZM/A/mophie-usb-c-cable-with-mini-displayport-connector Or can I use an adapter instead of this cable?

Thank you!

Homepod Mini "no peer to peer" warning

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 07:33 PM PDT

Seeking some resolution with a Homepod Mini. Recently replaced our 11+ year old router with a Linksys WRT3200 ACM dual-band model, running OpenWRT. After initial setup everything on the network connected immediately, including the Homepod. Unfortunately this didn't last long. Homepod is now showing as unavailable in AirPlay from any iOS device. It shows in the Home app and if touched there will display comnnectivity, settings, etc. but lists "controls are unavailable". The device is clearly on network - it shows as connected from the router interface, responds immediately to ping, and appears as an available AirPlay option from my MacBook - if and only if I am connected to ethernet. Over wifi, it is unavailable.

What's especially maddening is that the two Ikea-branded SONOS speakers we had prior to the Homepod show in AirPlay all the time and work immediately from all our devices. I can stream to our Roku devices via AirPlay as well. I simply can't use the Apple-branded speaker. I can't figure out what the issue might be.

I've tried completely resetting the Homepod. I received a warning on setup that peer-to-peer communication was not available. I'm unclear why, as there's no setting in the router wifi config that makes me think mDNS is unavailable, and I have ensured the mDNSresponder package is installed on the router. The ONLY thing I can think might be an issue is that the Homepod is connected to the 5ghz radio (radio0) whereas the other AirPlay devices are on the 2.5ghz radio (radio1). Signal to noise ratio is consistently solid, it does not appear to be related to weak signal or interference. I've read that AirPlay can have issues crossing between radios in a dual-band setup, but my iPhone is on radio0 and plays through the SONOS speakers on radio1 just fine - and can communicate but can't PLAY to the Homepod also on radio0. If it's a cross-band issue I'd think the reverse would be true.

I don't know if it is an OpenWRT issue or an Apple issue. I'm new to OpenWRT (was running TomatoUSB for years). It's frustrating that this single device seems to be the only one giving me any real trouble. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Which partition do I need to format or fix in order to install Sierra or lion?

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 09:06 PM PDT

I have tried in vain to get my MacBook Air back up and running. I did a system restore or reinstall a while back and something broke.

I've tried command+R and a bootable USB, there doesn't appear to be a time machine partition or option.

enter image description here

enter image description here

Which partition should I format? Can I clear them all and start from scratch?

If someone could show me how to get this issue resolved so I can use my laptop again that'd be great.

Macbook Pro 11,3 No longer has a serial number

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 02:36 PM PDT

THE ISSUE:

Mac OS No longer has a serial number and shows "Serial Number (system): Not Available" in system profiler.

STEPS TO PRODUCE THE PROBLEM:

  1. I had a botched filesystem runnig mac os Catalina 10.5.7, and so i decided to do a clean install, and then do an internet recovery. To be sure my ssd was totally clean including the efi partition, i zero'ed the drive with dd. Then, booted to internet recovery, which oddly booted up to Big Sur recovery even though i never upgraded to Big Sur. I decided to install Big Sur anyway via internet recovery, and after the install, i noticed that in "About this mac" as well as through a terminal command, that my serial number was labeled as "unavailable", and is no longer recognized in the MLB of the "Mail logic board."
  2. Furthermore, i noticed that my icloud automatically signed my mac out from my icloud interface in the settings panel on my iphone. I never signed myself out before erasing.

EXPERIMENTS AND QUIRKS:

One more strange quirk is that apparantly, this somehow also deactivated all of apples DRM (digital rights management) for any of the apps that i had purchased. I concluded this, because after the clean install from internet recovery, I DID NOT SIGN INTO ICLOUD. Then, instead of importing my files with migration utility, i simply dragged and dropped my digitally purchased app store apps from my time-machine backup, onto my clean install. After removing time machine drive, i opened the apps, and low and behold, all of them worked perfectly without asking me to sign into icloud, or log into the app store. How is this possible?

MY IDEAS PERTAINING TO THE ISSUE:

  1. Supposedly, once a certified apple technician burns a serial number into your logic board, it is impossible to remove unless you have specialized software that contacts apples servers with a registered signature and encryption key, and waits for apples servers to send authorization to write or remove the serial number from the logic board. Assuming that apples technology is impenetrable, then you would have to assume that someone stole apples special software and one of their keys, and used it on my logic board remotely to deserialize my mlb.

  2. The other possibility, is that apples hardware and logic boards are flawed, and they can erase their oen serial numbers. other than that, im out of ideas.

MY QUESTION:

  1. Can someone explain how i lost my serial number, and explain the weird quirks (missing drm, unauthorized deregistering my mac from icloud) that are happening as a consequnce?

  2. Then, can someone please tell me how I can get my serial number burned back into the mlb so that i can use imessage on my mac again?

  3. I found a website with some software called BlankBoard Serialzer at https://www.macintoshrepository.org/26584-blank-board-serializer?ns=1 Could anyone tell me if this sofware is safe to use and if I should use it to re-burn my serial number into my mac?

Thanks for any help! Check screenshots below!

About this mac, serial number unavailable Macos big sur serial number unavailable

Is there automatic hyphenation in Pages for ios

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 05:43 PM PDT

Question is very simple, but my web search skills have not been sufficient: Is there automatic hyphenation in Pages on the iPad (with iOS 13.5.1) and if yes, how to turn it on?

My web search did not show up anything (I always get to websites on Pages on the Mac which looks notably different…).

How to disable swipe navigation on Edge for Mac

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 07:31 PM PDT

Like Chrome, Edge for Mac supports browser navigation by dragging horizontally left or right with two fingers on the trackpad. I know how to turn this off in Chrome, but is it possible to turn this off in Edge? Bonus gratitude for a command-line solution.

I've tried, without success...

  • to access edge://flags/#overscroll-history-navigation, which appears to have been removed
  • to deduce an equivalent of defaults write com.google.Chrome AppleEnableSwipeNavigateWithScrolls -bool FALSE
  • to find an equivalent of Windows 10's HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\EdgeUI\Allow Edge Swipe

MiniDisplay port to HDMI to optical 5.1 audio only has 2-channel output

Posted: 24 Mar 2021 12:05 AM PDT

I have a Macbook Air 2017. My goal is to have an optical output capable of 5.1 audio for my home theatre. My series of connections are, mini display port to hdmi and the hdmi connected towards hdmi to optical output and optical connected to my 5.1 home theatre. My midi setup and audio out setting automatically detected the hdmi out and and the hdmi icon appeared in both settings. But in my midi setup, it is showing 8 channels but, volume level of all of them is shown as disabled.

All of the channel volume sliders are disabled.

enter image description here

When I go for configuring, it shows 5.1 out. But when I tried to test each channels, only left and right are heard. All other channels are silent. When I played a 6 channel audio, it is missing every surround except from left & right.

I tried everything like soundflower, soundflowerbed app, MonitorControl etc. Nothing worked, still hearing only 2 channels.

Is there any solution for this? I need a 6 channel audio output.

macOS: Can't mount exFAT External Drive

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 03:20 PM PDT

I have a Western Digital MyBook (25EE) 8TB External Drive. It is formatted with exFAT. I can't recall exactly how it was formatted, but I believe it was done with Synology's DiskStation for my Synology NAS. I am able to mount and read the drive when I connect it to the NAS, but not on macOS Sierra 10.12.6.

The drive shows up in Disk Utility, but mounting does nothing. I have run "First Aid" with no errors.

enter image description here enter image description here

Disk Utility incorrectly thinks that the usage is 8/8 TB. As can be in a screenshot below, usage is around 4.2/8 TB. The drive mainly contains a Synology HyperBackup file (.hbk) which makes up almost single-handedly all of those 4.2 TB.

According to Synology DiskStation, the main partition is exFAT and I think the EFI partition is vfat:

enter image description here

The drive also shows up in diskutil as disk2s2 but I can't mount it:

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):     #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER     0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *8.0 TB     disk2     1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1     2:       Microsoft Basic Data WD My Book              8.0 TB     disk2s2    $ mount disk2s2  mount: disk2s2: unknown special file or file system.    $ diskutil mountDisk disk2  One or more volume(s) failed to mount

NB: (I tried following these instructions for FUSE for macOS, but I suppose they're not really relevant since exFAT should be supported natively in macOS these days.)

I don't have the faintest idea where to start on this issue – what could be the problem here?

Edit 1: Block Sizes

macOS:

$ diskutil info disk2 | grep "Block Size"     Device Block Size:        512 Bytes    $ diskutil info disk2s1 | grep "Block Size"     Device Block Size:        512 Bytes    $ diskutil info disk2s2 | grep "Block Size"     Device Block Size:        512 Bytes

Synology SSH:

Used fdisk -l. Notice the GPT PMBR size mismatch – maybe it has some relevance?

GPT PMBR size mismatch (4294967294 != 2743150591) will be corrected by w(rite).  Disk /dev/sdq: 7.3 TiB, 8001562869760 bytes, 15628052480 sectors  Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes  Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes  I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes  Disklabel type: gpt    Device      Start         End     Sectors  Size Type  /dev/sdq1      40      409639      409600  200M EFI System  /dev/sdq2  411648 15628050431 15627638784  7.3T Microsoft basic data

Edit 2: GPT

$ sudo gpt -r show disk2            start         size  index  contents              0            1         PMBR              1            1         Pri GPT header              2           32         Pri GPT table             34            6                      40       409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93E####         409640         2008                  411648  15627638784      2  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B726####    15628050432         2015             15628052447           32         Sec GPT table    15628052479            1         Sec GPT header

Edit 3: Mounting EFI

Apparently macOS is able to mount and Finder list the contents of the EFI.

$ diskutil mountDisk disk2  One or more volume(s) failed to mount

enter image description here

The volume that fails to mount is the primary exFAT volume. macOS requires the EFI volume to be unmounted or it will complain about not properly ejecting disks.

Can iOS-devices take sound in and send to Airplay?

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 03:39 PM PDT

I plan to find an old iPhone to make my record player connect to Airplay. Is that possible?

What I want to do is to take stereo line signal and "input" it into the phone and then playback it on the phone to an Apple TV. Is that possible? What hardware do I need to get the stereo signal into the phone and what software would allow me to redirect the in-signal to Airplay?

Clear Terminal command history

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 04:38 PM PDT

I'm trying to clear the history of commands that have been run on Terminal, I found an article which said I can do it with rm ~/.bash_history

However, I am still able to see the previous commands that I've ran by pressing the up arrow

How to get current input language of the input source

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 09:38 PM PDT

I use a third-party input source on Mac. This is the case I encounter:

  1. I input some English characters when I want to input Chinese so I have to delete the characters entered just now. Then switch to Chinese and type again.

  2. If I know what is the current input language, so I can switch the input language first.

  3. The input source can't display current input language but I have press Shift to switch between Chinese and English to see whether the current language is what I want.

  4. After some research, I find this repo bitbar. This repo can display some script output at the menubar. So I want some script to get the current input language of the input source.

  5. I also find this question, however this question is different from mine. It just find the input source name, not the input language.

After Googling for a long time, I didn't find a way to do this. Any one can help me? Thank you so much.

Xcode Hangs at Startup

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 10:36 PM PDT

Xcode fails to open on my machine - OS X 10.8.2. It opens the main screen and just hangs there with the spinner spinning becoming unresponsive. If I double click a project, it just hangs sating it is loading.

I tried:

  1. Uninstalling and re-installing;
  2. Removing my project tree;
  3. Deleting some recommended preferences, most of which did not actually exist on my machine to begin with.

Things of note:

  1. This is a new computer. The first time I ran Xcode, it opened fine, though I didn't try using it. The problem appeared when I first opened an existing project.
  2. I created a new user on the machine. When that user is logged on Xcode loads successfully. Apparently it is a user settings issue.

Can't find Trash in Finder or on Desktop

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 05:56 PM PDT

I can't find the trashcan icon anywhere.

I'm using OS X 10.7.4. I'm not sure when it went missing.

I can still move items to the trash, but since I can't find it I can't empty it.

Is there a way to get the icons back, or an absolute path to it?

Note: I'm not using Time Machine.
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