Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Recent Questions - Ask Different

Recent Questions - Ask Different

After converting SSD to APFS MacBook 2014 doesn't boot anymore

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 11:00 PM PDT

Good morning,

My MacBook 2014 with TouchBar doesn't boot anymore when going from its original Sierra to newer operating systems, e.g. High Sierra or Big Sur. One morning the computer just refused to boot, and got stuck in the login process. I was able to still log in, sometimes, but after opening an app, the Mac gave a kernel panic. Various tests later, reformatting the drive, and resetting everything, eventually I was able to use Internet Recovery, to install the original Sierra OS, which still uses HFS+. Naturally I tried installing Big Sur first, but got the same issues right after upgrading. I then tried going in steps, using gibMacOS, from Sierra, to High Sierra. But even High Sierra produced the same issues. I was in Disk Utility that installing High Sierra, already formatted the drive to APFS, so my conclusion now is that something makes the computer stop working after the converting to APFS.

Ideally I would love to get Big Sur again up and running, but I don't know what steps I can take to make that happen. My hunch is that some sectors on the drive are just so damaged, because of wear and tear that it's now impossible to get it formatted to APFS. I hope I'm wrong though.

Summary:

MacBook refuses to boot after its drive gets converted to APFS it seems. Restoring Sierra makes the computer work again, but any upgrading attempts to High Sierra or Big Sur, resulted in the same issues the Mac had, which started this entire problem.

Time Machine Backup Drive Shows Empty Files

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 11:00 PM PDT

I have backed up my MacBook using Time Machine to an external hard drive. Now, when I try to open it on a Mac Mini, it doesn't detect my .backupdb files. I were able to see some of the .backupdb file previously, but now they are gone.

Note:

  1. I believe the files are still there since it's still occupying 100GB+ of my external hard drive.
  2. I have checked the permissions of the hard drive and it's read and write.
  3. 'Browse Other Backup Disks' list is empty

Is there any way to see my files on the backup drive?

Thank you

Grayscale nightshift

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 09:07 PM PDT

is there a way on the Mac to activate a greyscale monitor option after a certain hour of the evening, just like you can do on samsung galaxy smartphones?

How switch multiple instances of the same app in MacOS?

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 07:16 PM PDT

There is a shortcut to switch the same instances of multiple apps in Ubuntu. It was Super + backt-tick. Is there any short-cut for mac to do the same?

Speaker sounds exactly like a blown out one on MBP 16" but... it's not? I need help

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 05:45 PM PDT

The right speaker on my relatively new Macbook Pro 16" 2019 Model sounds like it's blown out - the same exact rattling - it rattles on medium+ volume and things with bass in it - it is very disruptive. It's fairly new (less than a year old) and the strange thing is earlier I've had the same exact issue before on multiple occasions but I just blew in my speakers, shook it a little bit, cleaned it up and it stopped... But this time it won't stop the whole day. I think there is some little rock thingy or just some particle stuck in there but is that even possible?? How do I fix it since i got this machine from the US and I live in a country with no apple stores? Should I just do a full speaker replacement?? How did I actually manage to fix it on the earlier occasions?

Note: I very rarely play full volume and I do it just for a couple seconds at most. I do use the speakers frequently tho, but is it normal for the speaker to blow up this early?? I've only heard about it happening on like 5+ years old machines.

Unlocking iPad purchased from Government

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 05:17 PM PDT

I have an iPad that was purchased from a previous employer (government local council). I have tried to factory reset it, but when setting up, I am told that this needs to be completed by the administrators for the council that I used to work for. Is there anyway of getting around this, without talking to the administrators from my previous employer?

How to disable a floating right arrow button that makes FaceTime calls

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 05:39 PM PDT

My mom keeps accidentally FaceTiming me and we think it's because of a floating gray button with a left angle bracket on it:

floating right arrow button

I've been trying to help her remotely turn it off. She must have accidentally activated it somehow today, but she is unaware of how it happened.

Assistive touch is turned off (confirmed via screen share*). Nothing in control center is highlighted. I've tried searching for it on my phone to figure out what enables it, but I cannot figure it out. I have googled and all I find is suggestions to turn off assistive tough, but that is off. I don't even know how to google it. I've been trolling through assistive access, FaceTime, and phone settings and can find nothing related to that button.

What is this button and how do you disable it?

*UPDATE: I screen shared with my mom and had her go to settings > Accessibility > touch > assistive touch. It was off. I had her turn it on and a second floating button with a white circle appeared. I had her turn it back off and the circle button went away, but the arrow button remained.

Reviving unmountable & unformattable usb drive

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 03:20 PM PDT

I have a USB drive, which was a bootable Windows drive, which I seldom used. Recently I tried to format it, and it went corrupted (I hope). I'd like to find out if it's broken or not.

I'd tried to format it on the company comptuer, and I believe Symantec had blocked the autorun (been a while, details are not clear).

I've been trying solutions from different posts, with no luck, so I'd like to share the results:

  • Info:
Volume type : Physical Device  BSD device node : disk2  Connection : USB  Device tree path : IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/XHC1@14  Writable : No  Is case-sensitive : No  Volume capacity : 31 104 958 464  Available space (Purgeable + Free) : 0  Purgeable space : 0  Free space : 0  Used space : 31 104 958 464  Owners enabled : No  Is encrypted : No  Can be verified : No  Can be repaired : No  Bootable : No  Journaled : No  Disk number : 2  Media name : SanDisk Ultra Fit Media  Media type : Generic  Ejectable : Yes  Solid state : No  S.M.A.R.T. status : Not Supported

  • Disk Utility recognizes the disk. Though it's not mountable. The disk you attached was not readable by this computer.

  • Showing all devices and formatting the disk has it mount/unmount a couple of times and the process ultimately fails. Sometimes it keeps connecting & disconnecting; prompting the aforementioned error, repeatedly.

  • First Aid doesn't help.

Volume is already unmounted.  Performing fsck_exfat -y -x /dev/rdisk2s1  Checking volume.  Checking main boot region.  Main boot region is invalid. Trying alternate boot region.  Checking alternate boot region.  Alternate boot region is invalid.  The volume  could not be verified completely.  File system check exit code is 1.  Restoring the original state found as unmounted.  File system verify or repair failed. : (-69845)
  • Here's the output of diskutil
diskutil list  /dev/disk2 (external, physical):     #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER     0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *31.1 GB    disk2     1:               Windows_NTFS ⁨⁩                        31.1 GB    disk2s1
  • Trying to format it as exfat
Unmounting disk  Erasing  Unable to write to the last block of the device. : (-69760)
  • Trying to format it as FAT
Unmounting disk  Couldn't modify partition map. : (-69874)
  • Output of fdisk:
.sudo fdisk /dev/disk2  Disk: /dev/disk2    geometry: 3781/255/63 [60751872 sectors]  Signature: 0xAA55           Starting       Ending   #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]  ------------------------------------------------------------------------  *1: 07    0   0   3 - 1023 254  63 [         2 -   60751870] HPFS/QNX/AUX   2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused         3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused         4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused    .sudo gpt recover /dev/disk2  gpt recover: /dev/disk2: error: device contains a MBR      .sudo gpt -r -vv show /dev/disk2  gpt show: /dev/disk2: mediasize=31104958464; sectorsize=512; blocks=60751872  gpt show: /dev/disk2: MBR at sector 0       start      size  index  contents           0         1         MBR           1         1                    2  60751870      1  MBR part 7      .sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk2 count=40  dd: /dev/disk2: Device not configured  9+0 records in  8+0 records out  4096 bytes transferred in 0.146817 secs (27899 bytes/sec)  mutlu@Mutlus-MacBook-Pro ~ %       .sudo gpt create /dev/disk2  gpt create: /dev/disk2: error: no room for the PMBR      .sudo gpt add -b 40 -i 1 -s 614400 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B /dev/disk2  gpt add: /dev/disk2: error: no primary GPT header; run create or recover      .sudo gpt create /dev/disk2  gpt create: /dev/disk2: error: no room for the PMBR

I'm quite inexperienced wiht the command line so I am at lost. I have a sense that I could nuke the partition table, and rebuild it somehow, but not sure how to get there. Perhaps it's broken, who knows... Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

macOS restores deleted files

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 02:14 PM PDT

I'm using the last version of macOS (11.2.3) and today messed up with a problem. For about 20 minutes ago I deleted some useless files (screenshots, old videos etc.). But now, those files are back.

I was using the normal method of deleting files (putting them in trash, and then emptying it) and also macOS Terminal command (rm -rf).

Can somebody explain me, what's happening, and how can I fix this? Thanks.

Youtube-dl and ffmpeg - error (Javascript / shell script)

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 12:51 PM PDT

I'm using an automation platform called Soundflow, which uses custom javascript code to control various things with shortcut triggers - it's highly recommended!

I have one script that makes use of youtube-dl as well as ffmpeg. (it downloads a youtube video, and then extracts the audio and converts it to wav).

When I run youtube-dl in Terminal, it runs fine, no problems. Same with ffmpeg, I have installed it correctly and I'm able to use it in terminal.

However when I try to run a shell script from Soundflow, it is running the youtube-dl section initially, but then it gets stuck on the bit where it uses ffmpeg to do the video conversion (in this case it's extracting the audio from a youtube video). I doubt it's a Soundflow issue as I run other similar shell scripts fine (for example ffmpeg conversions).

I have installed both ffmpeg and youtube-dl via homebrew.

I'm wondering if the problem has something to do with my install location for either ffmpeg or youtube-dl; I don't know how to edit this or change it, but I think the script may be missing where it expects ffmpeg to be.

Do you have any tips where it's getting stuck?

This is the error I get in the log: ffprobe/avprobe and ffmpeg/avconv not found

  const youtubeDL = '/opt/homebrew/bin/youtube-dl';  var url = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ';    log(`Download started`);    var execResult = sf.system.exec({          commandLine: `"${youtubeDL}" "${url}" --extract-audio --audio-format wav`      });    log (execResult)    if (execResult.exitCode !== 0) {      throw `MP4 download failed with exit code: ${execResult.exitCode}`;  }

Screenshot Dimension

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 02:19 PM PDT

When I go to About This Mac --> Displays, it shows I have a Built-in Retina Display with 2560 × 1600 display. However, when I try to take a screenshot with command + shift + 3, the dimensions for that picture turns into 2880 × 1800. However, if I use command + shift+ 4 and drag the mouse all the way to the bottom right, the dimensions show 1440 × 900, but it turns into 2880 × 1800 if I save it. Which one is the actual size of my screen/screenshot?

Replacement for Audioxplorer

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 12:11 PM PDT

This question has the good recommendation of Audioxplorer for real-time spectrum analysis that doesn't require you to have a mic in or anything else - it just analyzes whatever sound comes in your standard mic. Unfortunately, this is not only no longer developed, it doesn't work on my new Big Sur/M1 chip.

Any recommendations for free oscilloscope/spectrum analyzers with anything like the capabilities of Audioxplorer? I assume the previous question is old enough now that a new question is probably warranted. (Something that involves slightly more setup, but not too much, is also acceptable; but AX was so great - just open it and you show your students what the waves actually "look" like!)

Unable to drag or add contacts to a group created in iCloud

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 01:41 PM PDT

Followed directions to add a group on iCloud. Selected all contacts but I am unable to drag any names to this group. Plus icon asks for a new contact, not an existing one that I wish to move to the group.

What is this extra partition that has appeared suddenly in macOS and how to delete it?

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 12:16 PM PDT

macOS BigSur 11.2.3 (20D91) / MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018) has suddenly generated a new 22GB partition. I noticed this yesterday when 22GB suddenly disappeared and I started to receive low disk space warnings. It seems to me this partition is for some update that possibly has gone wrong?

I have upgraded Big Sur as soon as it was available so that is some time ago. This partition is more recent. A week ago I partiotioned some USB drives and this partition did not show up back then. Also I did reinstall XCode recently but it worked fine.

I cant remove it from he minus sign. Should I boot from network and delete this or will deleting it create problems? Is there a "correct way" to fix this?

Screenshot from disctool

Looking to take a fixed screenshot at intervals while changing the page in safari for a book

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 05:18 PM PDT

I am trying to screenshot all the pages of a textbook i have online. I am opening the book in safari, all i want is to automate in some way the ability to take a fixed location screenshot at intervals save it to downloads or desktop(wherever) and then have a my cursor click the next page button and retake a screenshot a multitude of times would this be possible in anyway?

Can I use iPhone mic with AirPods as headphones while on a call?

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 03:18 PM PDT

Lately when I use my AirPods while on a phone call, people are telling me it sounds really muffled. I have no problem using my wired headphones or no headphones at all. Is it possible to tell my iPhone to just use the AirPods for audio output, but use my phone as the speaker?

Alternatively, if someone has any idea how to fix the muffled sound, that would be great. I don't know when it started happening since I can't how I sound on calls, but I don't think it was always like that.

How do I turn flash "on" instead of "auto" on iPhone camera in iOS14?

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 10:03 PM PDT

Before iOS14, one could keep flash on permanently by clicking on the flash icon in the upper left of the screen and setting flash to "on". Now, clicking on the flash icon only gives the options of "auto" or "off".

How do I set flash to "on" when taking a photo or video?

I can't find LINE IN - Audio Input Problem with a Mac Book pro early 2015

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 04:06 PM PDT

I'm trying to record on my Mac book pro early 2015, but the Line-In port does not appear. I only have the "built in Mic" option. I have plugged different kinds of mini jack in the only in/out port, with the device already turned on...and NADA.

How to enable indexing for this internal HDD?

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 12:02 PM PDT

I have a Mac running Mojave (10.14.6) with a new 2TB internal HDD with an APFS volume (called "Tár"). No matter what I try, I get "Indexing disabled" whenever I try running sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/Tár/. All other volumes are indexing fine and the volume itself is working properly.

If I look at the Console after running the mdutil command, I see the following in the output:

mds nosymlink_mkdir() unable to realpath or parent paths do not match p:/Volumes/Tár/.Spotlight-V100: r:/Volumes/Tár:  mds Unable to create/find index location <private> 0
  • There's no .metadata_never_index file anywhere.
  • Trying to add the volume to the privacy excluded folders in Spotlight settings and then removing it doesn't help either.

What's wrong with this? How can I get this volume indexed?

edit: diskutil list output:

$ diskutil list  /dev/disk0 (internal, physical):     #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER     0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *960.2 GB   disk0     1:                        EFI NO NAME                 104.9 MB   disk0s1     2:         Microsoft Reserved                         16.8 MB    disk0s2     3:       Microsoft Basic Data Windows rendszer        314.6 GB   disk0s3     4:       Microsoft Basic Data Közös                   645.0 GB   disk0s4     5:           Windows Recovery                         530.6 MB   disk0s5    /dev/disk1 (internal, physical):     #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER     0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk1     1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1     2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk3         499.9 GB   disk1s2    /dev/disk2 (internal, physical):     #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER     0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *2.0 TB     disk2     1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1     2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk4         2.0 TB     disk2s2    /dev/disk3 (synthesized):     #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER     0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +499.9 GB   disk3                                   Physical Store disk1s2     1:                APFS Volume macOS                   403.4 GB   disk3s1     2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 45.3 MB    disk3s2     3:                APFS Volume Recovery                510.4 MB   disk3s3     4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk3s4    /dev/disk4 (synthesized):     #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER     0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +2.0 TB     disk4                                   Physical Store disk2s2     1:                APFS Volume Tár                     179.2 GB   disk4s1

mount:

$ mount  /dev/disk3s1 on / (apfs, local, journaled)  devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)  /dev/disk3s4 on /private/var/vm (apfs, local, noexec, journaled, noatime, nobrowse)  /dev/disk4s1 on /Volumes/Tár (apfs, local, journaled)  map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)  map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)  /dev/disk0s3 on /Volumes/Windows rendszer (ntfs, local, read-only, noowners)  /dev/disk0s4 on /Volumes/Közös (exfat, asynchronous, local, noowners)

Photo app is unable to handle a photo and shows '1 item' in a summary. How to identify and remove it?

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 05:31 PM PDT

In the iCloude Manage storage dialog, I can see

enter image description here

However in the photo app, it shows enter image description here

Obviously a photo is misclassified as an item. Maybe it is corrupted.

How can I identify this 'Item'?

External monitor not working when in closed clamshell mode

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 04:34 PM PDT

I have a mid-2015, 15 inch MacBook Pro, connected to a Dell P2715Q with a Display Port to mini-DP cable. With the lid open, I get both displays working.

I used to be able to close the lid and it would switch to just using the external monitor, but I have changed something in the settings so that when it is closed, the display is black.

I am using SwitchResX, to change the resolution, and I think I changed the colour from Millions to Billions, which broke it. I now can't change it back as it is only broken when the lid is closed. I want to have just the single monitor. How can I change the settings back to normal so that it works properly?

The MacBook Pro is plugged in to mains power, and is connected a USB Keyboard and Bluetooth Mouse.

I use the exact same setup at work, with identical Keyboard and Mouse, but a different monitor, and that works fine. It appears that the configuration for the monitor in open clamshell mode is different to that in closed clamshell mode, and I'm trying to find out how to re-configure the closed clamshell mode when it does not display anything with it closed.

Is git pre-installed on macOS Sierra?

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 11:56 PM PDT

I am very new to macOS, knowing Ubuntu a little bit, and am wondering whether git is pre-installed on macOS or not. Typing

which -a git

results in 

git is /usr/bin/git

But when I init a test-repo and checkout a myBranch, the command 

git branch

results in a empty line. So is there anything I do forget? I installed Homebrew before checking for git, so maybe this causes some interdependencies?

How to make MacPorts reinstall requested ports from a different boot drive?

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 11:58 AM PDT

I recently changed workstations and went from OSx 10.7.5 to OSX 10.11! Yay!

I have a lot of installation to do. Nuts.... (But worth it!)

I have temporarily mounted my old workstation's hard drive to copy over important files. Since I have a different OS, a different version of XCode (and command line tools), and a different version of MacPorts, I'd rather do a fresh install of all my requested ports rather than semi-blindly copy stuff over from the old drive.

MacPorts has a great Migration guide (link) that shows how to create a list of all installed ports, then reinstall them once software has been upgraded — but that's for upgrading on the same boot drive. My new drive has no installed ports because I just installed MacPorts.

Is there a way to list requested ports on the old hard drive in order to upgrade them on my new drive?

This content can't be played on this Apple TV

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 12:55 PM PDT

Just watched Suits - S6; E13. I bought the season pass a while ago. Went to watch the next episode - S6; E14, but got the following error:

This content can't be played on this Apple TV.

This content can't be played on this Apple TV.

Why / why not?

Skipped ahead to the episode after that one - S6; E15, which is working fine.

What's going on?

How can I run a shell script that prompts for user input from within Applescript

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 12:45 PM PDT

I have two pieces of code. One is Applescript and the other a Bash shell script. The shell script needs to run concurrently with the applescript, return some values and then exit. The problem is the shell script's read -p prompt does not pause for user input when called from within applescript using do shell script "/path/to/script.sh".

I thought maybe 

display dialog "Query?" default answer ""  set T to text returned of result

could replace the read -p prompt but I can't figure out how to make either way work. How cam use either of these methods to properly ask and wait for user entry?

I realize I could cut the applescript in two sections placing one at the beginning of the shell script and one after the last shell command. 

#!/bin/bash    osascript ~/Start_Script.scpt    echo 'enter some Text'  read -p "" T    ## for things in stuff do more   ## stuff while doing other things  ## done     osascript ~/End_Script.scpt

This is what I've been doing and it does work. But it requires using the terminal which is fine for me. But if I wanted to show someone like my Mom.. well she's just not going to open the Terminal app. So it would be nice to find a way to emulate the read -p command within Applescript itself and be able to pass a variable along to the embedded shell script.

How do I tell if a device is doing USB 3.0 and not downgraded to USB 2.0 for some reason?

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 11:29 PM PDT

For example, if I plug a USB 3.0 device and find that the I/O performance is rather slow, how do I check whether it's because the device is actually doing USB 2.0 (even though I'm using a USB 3.0 cable, connected to a USB 3.0 port on my MacBook Pro).

How to remove Preview.app on-screen navigation toolbar?

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 08:44 PM PDT

When I open a picture in fullscreen, it has an overlay like this: screenshot

Is there a way to permanently disable it?

A modern and faster alternative to Disk Inventory X

Posted: 07 Apr 2021 02:18 PM PDT

Disk Inventory X was kind of nice, but it is painfully slow.

Are there any modern and faster alternatives?

I only care about the disk space, and not about the file type stats and about the graph which Disk Inventory X displays.
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