Monday, May 24, 2021

Recent Questions - Ask Different

Recent Questions - Ask Different

How to combine two windows as one in Terminal?

Posted: 23 May 2021 09:48 PM PDT

In Terminal I can use Command + T to create Tabs in one Window, check below:

enter image description here

but now, I opened two windows like this, how to merge them as one liker upper:

enter image description here

I have tried drag one into another, but not work.

my macos Version is: Catalina 10.15.7 (19H524)

Mac stuck at boot after installing Big Sur 11.3

Posted: 23 May 2021 07:44 PM PDT

I just tried installing Big Sur 11.3 from Catalina, on a 2020 Macbook Pro.

Here's what I tried so far:

  • Installed Big Sur via Software Update, everything went like normal until progress bar reached 90%
  • After 4 hrs, progress bar still stuck at 90% with black screen and Apple logo
  • Force shutdown then turn on again
  • Login screen showed up in a Big Sur UI
  • Entered password, proceeds to the same black screen and still stuck at 90% progress bar
  • Waited for an hour, so I forced restart again
  • Booted to recovery mode (cmd+R) and ran First Aid on all volumes, then containers, then disk (as per Apple support page)
  • Restarted, still stuck at 90% progress bar
  • Booted to recovery mode again and reinstalled Big Sur
  • Left it to install overnight, again still stuck at 90%
  • Repeated all steps above (normal restart, restart to recovery + first aid) but same thing
  • Reset NVRAM
  • Booted to Safe mode

On safe mode, after logging in with my user password, it asked me to create a new macOS user (along with the language, terms, apple ID etc like when setting up a brand new Mac).

I went ahead and setup a new user, safe mode booted successfully with a working Big Sur macOS. My old files were still intact when I checked the original user's directory using the terminal (since currently in safe mode all folders are empty since it's a new user.)

So in summary:

  • Big Sur upgrade (from Catalina) didn't complete properly
  • I am able to safe boot to Big Sur but only with a newly created user
  • It might be a startup issue on my original user

Any suggestions on what I should do next? My last resort would be to backup my files on an external HD using the safe boot, then do a fresh install, wiping my disk.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

EDIT: Currently trying out internet recovery mode to downgrade and reinstall Catalina.

EDIT 2: When trying to reinstall Catalina, there are no available disks to choose from when it asks me where to install macOS.

Set file created/modified timestamp to the earlier of the 2 for a ton of files?

Posted: 23 May 2021 07:36 PM PDT

I searched for an answer to this for a while, but couldn't find one. I have a lot of wav files (thousands of them) in a sound library that somehow got either the modification or creation date updated very recently, even though I haven't touched them in any way for years.

Is there some way I could use Automator to make an application that I could drag & drop these files to (or a text file containing all of their paths & filenames) that would do the following?:

  • Check the timestamp data associated with the file (date/time: modified, and created)
  • Check to see which timestamp is the earlier of the two
  • If the created timestamp is earlier than the modified one, change the modified timestamp to the created, or vice versa.

I know how to get the date modified or created in terminal, and how to loop through the files received as input. But I'm not sure how to compare the timestamps in a script to determine which is earlier, or how specifically to format the script/app that would do this automatically for each file.

I got the following script from another thread. But this will just set the date modified to the date created without checking to see which one is earlier.

for f in *.wav; do     olddate=$(stat -f %SB -t %Y%m%d%H%M "$f")     touch -m -t $olddate "$f"      done

And in case it makes a difference, I'm on a MacBook Pro running macOS Sierra 10.12.6.

Lastly, if this would be more appropriate for a different network (stackoverflow or superuser maybe), please LMK and I'll ask there instead.

Thank you in advance for the help!

Need help configuring specs for new Mac and my software needs [closed]

Posted: 23 May 2021 08:39 PM PDT

I have to buy a new Mac and I have two programs I'm hoping to optimize with the new set up. I know I can ask them in the Apple store but I know there's a lot of smart peeps on here so would love any feedback and advice. The two programs I will be using are:

Main Program:

ArchiCAD v. 23 and 24

Hardware for Archicad 23 Recommended hardware Processor: 64-bit processor with four or more cores RAM: 16 GB or more is recommended; for complex, detailed models 32 GB or more may be required Hard disk: installing Archicad on a SSD drive is recommended; 5 GB free disk space is required for the installation, 10 GB or more is required per active project Display: A resolution of 1920 x 1080 or higher is recommended Graphics card: Dedicated OpenGL 4.0 compatible graphics card is recommended to fully exploit hardware acceleration capabilities. 2 GB+ VRAM is recommended, opt for 4 GB+ with 4K displays. You can find a list of recommended graphics cards at: https://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/knowledgebase/87338/

Optional Secondary Program is and Add-On to ArchiCAD (would like to use this if it doesn't make the new purchase super expensive):

Twinmotion

Twinmotion System Requirements for Mac Os

Minimum Recommended requirements Use case: Small to average project, ( <1GB geometry data ), Suitable for real time 3D presentation, video generation in HD mode, all images formats up to 4K Not suitable for for VR / 4K video rendering / 360 panoramic video Operating System: Mac OS X 10.14.6 or later Graphic Card: 6 GB dedicated memory or card with benchmark score over 10 000 here Graphic card memory: 6 GB CPU (processor): CPU with benchmark score of 2000 higher here System Memory (RAM): 32 GB or more Hard Drive space: 30 GB of free disk space

How to lock the zoom level in any pdf reader on iOS?

Posted: 23 May 2021 04:27 PM PDT

I have tried several pdf readers on an iPad. I maximize the width so there's hardly any marginsby pinching out and release. The width is locked if I swipe accidently left or right. However if I touch the screen and move left or right, the pdf moves along. This behavior happens in all the readers I tried. How do lock the pdf so it doesn't move sideways? I prefer an option to lock and unlock from a menu.

How to focus parent terminal tab of script?

Posted: 23 May 2021 04:26 PM PDT

I have a zsh script where I prompt for user input every 15 minutes. How can I make the tab of Terminal that the script is running in open up / focus? open -a Terminal just opens the whole window.

I'm aware of this trick to get current application and re-open it, is there a way to extend it to tabs/sessions?

term=$(/usr/bin/osascript -e "copy path to frontmost application as text to stdout")  /usr/bin/osascript -e 'tell application $term to activate'

Also aware of this trick to go back to an old tab, although (1) I couldn't get it to work and (2) I need the data in stdout.

osascript \      -e 'tell application "Terminal" to set oldTab to the selected tab of the front window' \      -e 'tell application "System Events" to tell process "Terminal" to keystroke "t" using command down' \      -e 'delay 1' \      -e 'tell application "Terminal" to set selected of oldTab to true'

How to fix permissions when username changed and admin status given to new account?

Posted: 23 May 2021 03:38 PM PDT

I turned off SIP to try and fix a problem (for while I was moving files between accounts).

I had already created a new account, johndoe, and renamed the old account johndoe-1 (johndoe-old) which shows up looking like this: permissions

(details anonymized).

This is on Big Sur on a 2020 MacBook Pro, and I can't seem to fix permissions having moved files across from the old account which is causing problems; I can't edit some of them, but can open them with no problem, although I can't set default open with applications - some are .html files.

What's the best way to fix permissions for folders and files when moving them between accounts - especially on Big Sur, the latest version?

Edit: I tried chown -R and set my new username to fix permissions.

Is it possible to have my two AppleIDs tied to different services?

Posted: 23 May 2021 04:22 PM PDT

I have two AppleIDs, for path dependent reasons. (I used a non-email one that got converted to a gmail address for iTunes purchases back in the nether times, and I have a me.com one from when mobileMe existed.)

  • The one that was just a user name and now a gmail email address is linked to:
    • iTunes Store purchases
    • iOS app purchases
  • The one on me.com is linked to:
    • MacOS (OS X ) app store
    • AppleTV and AppleTV+ (because I recently bought both a new phone and A-TV, so they gave me a free year; this does mean I have two one-year offers)
    • Apple Arcade (same; both new phone and A-TV)
    • iCloud, and thus my iPhone syncing, cloud backup, iMessage, etc.

For a long time, I have had my iPhone, while "controlled" by the me.com AppleID, do its purchases via the gmail-based AppleID.

I get that this is a mess, but I'd like to bring some order, if possible, because on both my computer and phone, I have to sign-out on one account and sign back in on the other, in order to shift between use/purchase on Apple TV and, say, the App Store. That is, if I'm signed in to the Me.com ID to watch TV+ on the computer/phone, and I then want to go buy an app or a music track, I have to switch to the gmail ID. This is a point of friction that I'd like to eliminate or lessen, but I'm not sure it is possible.

(I had been hoping to get two years of free TV+ out of my recent upgrade purchases by stacking the offers [is that possible?]. Would be willing to consider "burning" one of them if it's possible to consolidate all to one media purchasing ID.)

I have added both IDs to Family Sharing (where the me.com ID is the organizer), but when signed into iTunes under the me.com ID, the computer/phone does not "see" the purchases associated with the gmail ID.

What methods, if any, exist to allow me to continue with the scheme above (two IDs, linked to different services) while eliminating the friction having to sign in and out to use the services? If that is not possible, what do people suggest would be the "simplest" way to make this all easier?

In GatsbyJS, when passing props to a linked page, how do I set a defaultProp? [migrated]

Posted: 23 May 2021 02:16 PM PDT

I'm experiencing a TypeError: Cannot read property 'serviceCategory' of null issue when the "linked page" refreshes (f5) or when the page is visited as direct traffic.

I've tried setting defaultProps, but it's not triggering.

Here is my current setup:

<Link    to="/locations"    state={{      serviceCategory: "FILTER",    }}  >

linked page

const Locations = ({ location }) => {      const { state = {} } = location    const { serviceCategory } = state      const [category, setCategory] = useState(() => {      return location.state === null ? "ALL" : serviceCategory    })  }    ...    Locations.defaultProps = {    location: {      state: {        serviceCategory: "ALL",      },    },  }    export default Locations

defaultProps is no where to be found in Gatsby's documentation, so i'm thinking of a different solution.

Trouble recovering a mailbox with Time Machine

Posted: 23 May 2021 01:14 PM PDT

I'm having trouble restoring a mailbox folder from Time Machine.

First, the simple way of doing this (Open Mail.app > Enter Time Machine) seems to be bugged for me, as all the views are frozen and I can't see or restore any of my mail at all. (I have lots of backups and can restore data from other apps and Finder just fine.)

Instead, I decided to follow these instructions to use Time Machine and Finder to recover the mailbox from Library and import it back into Mail.app. This has worked, but I now have an 'Import' folder with a large hierarchy of other folders with random text in them, and my mail is spread throughout them.

All the messages are here, and I can use the second-from-top-level folder to view all the messages in Mail in one view. But I want to copy my messages to another, single folder to archive and import into other apps. Whenever I try and copy any mail from the recovered folder to a new one in Mail, any messages with attachments appear blank in the new folder, and the attachments are missing after the copy. All other mail copies over fine though.

Can anyone help me copy all of my recovered mail, attachments and all, to the new folder? I'd be really appreciative – thank you!

For reference, these are the instructions I followed (it's step 16 that doesn't work for my messages with attachments):

  1. In the Finder, choose Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine system menu item.

  2. Go to your Home directory, then open the Library folder, then the Mail folder inside that.

  3. You may see multiple folders at the next level. Look for the one starting with V that has the most recent modification date and open it.

  4. You'll see several folder with long hexadecimal (base 16) names. One of these is the folder that corresponds to the mail account that has the mailbox you need in it. Open each in turn until you find the right one.

  5. Restore the file with the name of the missing mailbox, like Small House Design.mbox to the Desktop or somewhere, not to the original location.

  6. Exit Time Machine.

  7. Switch to Mail, and then choose File > Import Mailboxes.

  8. Choose Apple Mail, and click Continue. (Even though the folders end with mbox, they're not using the standard Unix mbox format, which can be used to import mail folders from other platforms.)

  9. Select the mbox file in at this stage and click Choose.

  10. All the messages under Items To Import will be selected by default, and that's likely what you want to keep in place.

  11. Click Continue.

  12. You'll see a dialog that the messages are in a folder and it tells you the name, which is typical "Import" unless that folder already exists.

  13. Look in the Mailboxes view at left under On My Mac, and the Import folder should be at the bottom. Select it.

  14. All your messages will appear in the summary column if imported correctly. (If you click open the folders under the mailbox name, you'll see a whole hierarchy you can ignore.)

  15. Re-create the mailbox that was deleted.

  16. From the Import mailbox, select all the messages and drag them into the mailbox you want them back in. If that mailbox is hosted on an IMAP server, Mail will upload them there.

Hiding Apple ID from Whatsapp

Posted: 23 May 2021 02:49 PM PDT

For privacy purposes I use different email accounts for different tiers of services and correspondence, including social media. My Apple ID address is NEVER used or given out and I use alias'es for my iCloud email correspondence.

I know that Facebook links profiles among their different services, in many cases through the phone number, so they basically know that it is the same person in Facebook/Instagram than the one on Whatsapp.

My question is:

Does Whatsapp have access to my Apple ID address? Or is the address not shared on iOS, although Whatsapp may use the account to do the iCloud Backups? I'm askimg because by no means I want to be a linkage between my social media email accounts (or any other address) to my Apple ID address.

Also, when an app tries to use Apple ID to create an account on iOS, you always have the option to "Hide email address" from the app. Hopefully thats the case for Whatsapp (but what about the iCloud backups?)

Thank you

How can I repair my DNS so that it doesn't require a VPN or proxy to use the internet? (Anomalous problem)

Posted: 23 May 2021 12:29 PM PDT

Operating on a VPN or proxy is fine when I'm browsing and surfing, but certain sites will change the content based on the geographic location associated with the IP address of the VPN/Proxy Server, and several accounts will refuse to log in without multiple tedious verification measures. Something I did must have led to this initially, but I don't know what. What matters is this:

• Using my home Wi-Fi, not a workplace network.

• No problem connecting from any device. Lately, however…

• Previous MacBook Pro would connect successfully, and would show that there was full signal, but…

• Many webpages cannot load unless I activate my browser's Proxy IP or my computer's VPN, and…

• Even email, the App Store, and various internet-connection-reliant applications and services would fail to connect. Being unable to connect to iCloud was probably the most frustrating.

• Despite having migrated to a new MacBook Pro, the error transferred itself along with almost everything else– but the new computer's internet operation worked just fine before any data migration!

I don't experience this with any other device in the house. This is a software-related issue, since it occurs on different hardware running a cloned system.

What locations (within the system, utilities, libraries, etc.) might inspect to identify what exactly is causing this problem? What are some tools that can help diagnose this?

Chrome Shortcut windows not reporting url and title on Mac after upgrade to Catalina

Posted: 23 May 2021 11:17 AM PDT

Google Chrome lets you create "shortcuts" to open webpages as if they were native apps.

These worked just like Chrome with apps like Timing.app and Timemater which track what you have open. I used this e.g. to track how long I was spending on emails in Gmail for different orgs (keeping Gmail as a "shortcut window" so it looked like a native app).

However, after upgrading to Catalina, these app no longer seem to provide window title and URL information to the time tracking apps. Is there a way to fix this?

Big Sur update causes beachball icon frequently and Finder to be unresponsive

Posted: 23 May 2021 08:51 AM PDT

I'm on a MacBook Pro , bought June 2020.

I updated to Big Sur from Catalina 10.15.7 this morning, and the upgrade went OK.

However, since then, it's become slow and unresponsive, beachballing a lot, Finder had problems launching and constantly Application Not Responding.

Finder won't launch very often, if at all.

It's the latest version of Big Sur, 11.3.1, which I've got.

Other problems are that I cannot click on the black Apple Icon to shutdown or restart (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't), and apps crash a lot - BBEdit, occasionally Firefox etc. have Application Not Responding.

I tried creating a second user account with admin privileges, same issue there; repaired user permissions for my main admin account.

I did an EtreCheck and had to remove remnants of DiskDrill which I'd tried when I had Catalina.

What solutions would you recommend, I've tried Google-ing but aren't sure what would fix this?

Will Homebrew installations, root password, hidden users, etc. carry over with Migration Assistant? or with a Time Machine backup? or something else?

Posted: 23 May 2021 01:03 PM PDT

Here's a similar question: Migrating to new iMac, what does Migration Assistant actually migrate?

The reason I'm asking again now is because this question was asked TEN YEARS AND FIVE MONTHS ago, which was before back when Mac OS X 10.7 Lion was released! Since then, there have been 10 updates to macOS, so I'm pretty sure the information is quite outdated.

I'm using macOS Mojave 10.14.6, and I've made several changes to the operating system such as setting a Root User passcode, creating a hidden super-user account, overriding Gatekeeper to allow installation of all apps, executing countless commands in Terminal, manually deep-cleaning all traces of a bugged antivirus that would never fully uninstall, installing a boatload of Homebrew, and even keeping all remnants of the fabled Macromedia Flash Player. My Early-2015 Macbook Pro 13" with Retina display runs surprisingly fast, but it was a base model with weak hardware. I recently got myself a Mid-2019 Macbook Pro 15" with Touchbar and the best hardware (except the hard drive is 1TB instead of 4TB, but that's way better than the 256GB I've struggled with for the past 6 years– but it runs Mojave, so I'm happy keeping my 32-bit apps that are not longer supported).

I need to migrate everything, but I don't have time to be picky. Would Migration Assistant do everything I need? Should I install from a Time Machine backup? or is there another way that's not tedious but will be effective and not compromise the newer Macbook's performance?

The volume is the wrong format for a backup. Why?

Posted: 23 May 2021 11:50 PM PDT

macOS Mojave, Mac Pro 5,1
Boot drive APFS [SSD], Time Machine drive HFS+ [HD]. All drives internal.
I haven't actually 'lost' this data, I copied it to another drive then trashed the originals a couple of weeks ago - so data is safe & I can experiment with this a bit.

I've long struggled with Time Machine & its foibles, but this one has been nagging me for a while.

At the moment I have a Time Machine drive ostensibly going back to June 2020(when I last tried to cure this issue & ended up starting over), but in actual fact I cannot recover any file from it at all.
Disk Utility says it's fine, DiskWarrior gives it a clean bill of health too, with only a couple of incorrect icon bits set. I replaced the directory structure, but have tested before & after doing this, same results.

Clarification after comments: All initial tests are done using the 'standard' methods of restoring a file from Time machine, only delving deeper after that fails. The Time Machine itself is entirely generated by 'standard' methods too. It's not a copy or a clone.

Any time I try to recover anything at all from Time Machine, I get the error "The volume is the wrong format for a backup." The folder I was trying to restore also visually changes in Finder, from the actual folder I'm trying to restore to, to the backup folder deep inside Time Machine instead. The folder is empty.

enter image description here

This folder is from 6 May, the date the missing files were originally saved. Manually drilling down inside nearby dates shows they are in the backup for 7 May, not in 6th or 8th, although Time Machine thinks they're there. Attempting to restore from any of these three dates produces the same result.
Manually attempting to copy a file back by drag & drop produces the same error.

Permissions on the folder hierarchy show I have read & write, staff & everyone read only; which as far as I'm aware is correct.
I've thinned local snapshots, even though I didn't think it was truly relevant. No change.

So, right now I have a Time Machine that is basically useless, unless I want to start manhandling permissions, which I don't if I don't have to.

I had the vague idea that my PCI-mounted SSD might be somehow responsible for this fail [the OS always considers this to be an External Disk, even though it's inside the Mac], so I cloned my boot drive to a truly internal SSD.
Same result. Still fails.

Further test - complete new Time Machine back up to fresh drive.
Same result. Still fails.

Any suggestions, next steps, tests to perform?

4K 60hz works on iPad Pro, not on MacBook Pro

Posted: 23 May 2021 08:47 PM PDT

TL;DR > I can't get 4K@60hz working on a MacBook Pro, while I can using an iPad Pro and same set up. How can I get 4K@60hz with the MacBook Pro?

Long version

I've a 12'9 inch iPad Pro (2020) and a 13 inch MacBook Pro (mid-2017, non Touch Bar, two ports on the left side only). Additionally, I've a Hub (VAVA UC-020) which supports 4K@60hz, connected to an LG 32UK550 using HDMI.

There is an information panel on the monitor menu which shows resolution and Hz. When I connect it to my iPad Pro, the resolution is 4K@60hz with even HDR working. Using the same hub, cable and port; connected to my MacBook Pro shows 4K@30hz with no option of HDR.

If I go to display settings and show all the resolutions using the option key, I can see all the low resolutions modes. Only switching to 2K low-res I can get 60hz and even HDR (but I don't care about it tbh)

I've tried all the HDMI ports, both ports on the MacBook, connecting the external power supply to to the Hub and without... and nothing worked.

Does someone have an idea of what's going on?

How do you put a variable in the middle of a pathway? (AppleScript)

Posted: 23 May 2021 02:50 PM PDT

I am trying to write code that deletes files from a specified location and empties into the trash. If I use the direct string it works but when I try to add a variable it does not. Could someone help show me what I'm doing wrong?

When I tried to look up the error code number at the bottom, it didn't give me much insight.

Valid

tell application "Finder"          delete (every item of folder "Macintosh HD:Users:sme0219:Pictures:Camera" whose name contains ".png")  end tell

Invalid

tell application "System Events"      set userName to name of current user      set compName to name of startup disk  end tell    tell application "Finder"      delete (every item of folder compName & ":Users:" & userName & ":Pictures:Camera" whose name contains ".png")  end tell

Error Report

error "Can't get {folder "Applications" of startup disk of application "Finder", folder "Library" of startup disk of application "Finder", folder "System" of startup disk of application "Finder", folder "Users" of startup disk of application "Finder", ":Users:", "sme0219", ":Pictures:Camera"} whose name contains ".png"." number -1728

Plain text agenda formatting recognition by Siri

Posted: 23 May 2021 09:49 AM PDT

I will be hosting a small conference and want to send an email to participants containing a full agenda as plain text or in form of a short pdf as an attachment. I wanted to format it that way that Siri would recognize every individual event on the list and suggest adding it to the calendar. Unfortunately, I cannot find any description for formatting. Usually, I do it in that way:

Start date/time - End date/time | Event 1 Title | Event 1 Speaker | Event 1 Location | Event 1 Description
Start date/time - End date/time | Event 2 Title | Event 2 Speaker | Event 2 Location | Event 2 Description

but in that case, Siri is only recognizing starting date and leaves the rest empty (same case for pdf).

Does anybody know where can I find text formatting schemas for Siri to fully recognize events and allow adding them to the calendar?

Time Machine stopped recognising backups on the NAS storage and does not make new backups anymore

Posted: 23 May 2021 12:40 PM PDT

I have a disk that is attached as a NAS storage to Time Machine. It's just a hard drive connected to my router.

I started doing Time Machine backups to this disk rather recently and until several days ago backups were done without any problems. But now Time Machine complains about incorrect credentials (based on what it tells me) and for some reason no backups are found on this disk anymore.

I tried to add and remove the storage many times and run a few commands with tmutil but without a deep understanding how it works it's hard to fix anything or even find out the cause of the problem...

This is what it looks like:

  1. I start with a pristine and uninitialized Time Machine screen and there I select the NAS storage.

  2. It asks me to provide credentials for the NAS storage.

  3. After entering the correct credentials it says that there is an existing encrypted backup already and asks me if I want to use it or start over: Would you like to continue using the existing encrypted backup, erase the existing backup and start a new encrypted backup...

  4. After I click on Use Existing Backup button it asks me to provide a password for my existing backup, and that's where things become interesting... I know the correct password but whatever I enter the result is the same.

  5. At first it shows that there are no backups on the disk: enter image description here

  6. Then it starts looking for the backup disk: enter image description here

  7. And then a popup shows up saying that "The network backup disk could not be accessed because there was a problem with the username or password": The network backup disk could not be accessed because there was a problem with the username or password

But the credentials are ok. Whenever I try to open the .sparsebundle file on that disk (even when it is connected directly to my MacBook) it is mounted successfully and I can browse all snapshots without even typing the encryption password (which I find particularly weird because KeyChain on my MacBook does not contain any keys which are related to the backups - I removed everything intentionally to check if that will work).

And this is what happens when I try to run most of the commands with tmutil:

 ~ % tmutil machinedirectory   No machine directory found for host.     ~ % tmutil latestbackup   Unable to locate machine directory for host.

Any suggestions?

UPD: I figured out why my Time Machine sparsebundle didn't require password. It was saved in KeyChain but under some strange GUID with the suffix/extension ".sparsebundle". I found it by searching "disk". And then after I removed these items completely I need to enter the password every time I access the sparsebundle image.

And... After playing around with tmutil associatedisk I managed to change the behavior of Time Machine. Now, instead of accepting any password and then displaying that there are no backups found, it rejects any password and says that "Password is invalid" although the password is obviously correct assuming that I can access the sparsebundle contents directly through Finder.

Does Apple Mail prevent duplicates from being created in the same folder when copying/moving messages and how?

Posted: 23 May 2021 06:37 PM PDT

I am migrating email from one email provider to another using Apple Mail. I want to make sure that I do not accidentally create duplicates as some emails are duplicated in various sources.

If I try to copy the same email from two different sources into the same folder, does Apple Mail prevent the duplicate from being stored?

If so, does anyone know how Apple Mail determines if the email message is a duplicate (same body, subject, from, to, etc)?

RAID drive over-full, bringing laptop to a crawl & crashing it, need to triage and delete files

Posted: 23 May 2021 08:04 PM PDT

I'm helping a friend try to restore functionality to his MacBook and LaCie 5big Thunderbolt 2 RAID array. He's been editing a film and over time the RAID device has filled completely up. I'm not sure exactly how much total storage it offers, but it's around 10TB and there is only about 280GB of free space left. That's about 97-98% full. I remember from college that having a spinning disk too full is BAD for performance but this is ridiculous. His MacBook seems fine until you plug in the RAID, at which point the entire OS crawls to a halt. The Lacie shows up for perhaps a moment in the finder (and Disk Utility) but then the entire thing grinds to a halt. His MacBook crashes constantly. I think we need to free up some space on that drive or he stands to lose a lot of work and possibly some footage as well. If we can just get access to the drive and stop all the unnecessary disk traffic to it, we might have a chance.

It seems clear that the GUI elements (About this Mac, Disk Utility, Finder) really bog things down. My guess is that these make numerous informational and file listing requests on a polling basis as soon as you open the window, which causes the already-distressed drive even more stress. I suspect (but this is just speculation) that there might be some kind of routine defragmenting going on or something.

I was imagining that using Terminal commands to inspect the drive's information and contents might help stop a lot of the disk traffic. I was considering starting the machine in single user mode or something.

Can anyone suggest a course of action where I can connect to the drive via terminal and NO OTHER PROCESSES interact with the drive? Can we stop all indexing on this drive or any byte shuffling that might be doing defragmenting and that sort of thing?

EDIT: it seems clear that we need to stop Spotlight from indexing this RAID array. Unfortunately, we've tried opening the System Preferences->Spotlight->Privacy and then clicking '+' and dragging the drive into the privacy list, but the system is so busy that it refuses to make the change. We need to be able to prevent indexing of the drive before it gets plugged in somehow.

EDIT 2: per jksoegaard's suggestion, here is the dmesg output. It was tricky to obtain this information -- the machine is quite unstable from the moment you plug the drive in. This was the dmesg output just after the Storage icon disappeared from the finder and just before the machine crashed.

EDIT 3: Also per jksoegaard's suggestion, we have booted the machine in recovery mode with the drive connected.

The drive is much better behaved in recovery mode than it is when the Mac is booted normally. It is noteworthy that all of the drives appear in the disk utility and each has S.M.A.R.T.=verified and each drive appears to be in good health. We can also use the terminal to list the drive's contents and even remove files.

It does look like some piece of software must be slamming this drive when the mac boots normally. Any hints on how to identify this process would be much appreciated.

Also, I'm not at all certain, but it looks like whoever set it up didn't follow the Lacie installation instructions, instead choosing to set it up as Apple Raid? I don't know this for certain, but expect it might be disastrous to install the Lacie drivers & software if they were not used originally. Plz see attached images:

Looks like apple raid! enter image description here

Each drive is listed individually. enter image description here

EDIT 4: We have been trying to work with the drive attached to the mac booted in recovery mode, and the drive is still being SUPER flaky, but you can actually work with it a bit. For example, we were able to copy a folder to another USB drive reasonably well. We then tried to delete that folder on the RAID drive using rm -r /Volumes/Storage/music/dir then we got some weird prompts like

rm /Volumes/Storage/music/dir/file.mp4a: No such file or directory  override rw-r--r-- _unknown/_unknown for /Volumes/Storage/music/dir/file.mp4a?

Answering yes to all those seems to satisfy the drive, but then when the rm completes, the flakiness comes raging back and when we try to ls -l /Volumes/Storage we get:

ls: /Volumes/Storage: No such file or directory

Continued attempts to copy or delete files from the drive eventually crash the laptop, even though its' running in recovery mode.

External iSight camera with M1 Mac?

Posted: 23 May 2021 09:57 AM PDT

I'm attempting to use a 2003-era external Apple iSight Camera with an M1 Mac mini via adapters:

iSight > FireWire 400 > FireWire 800 > Thunderbolt 2 > Thunderbolt 3

This same adapter chain works for video on a 2019 Intel MacBook Pro running macOS 10.15.6 Catalina. Audio required an additional fix, but is now also working on Intel.

On a new Apple Silicon M1 Mac mini, the video webcam does not seem to work. When first plugged in, it makes an autofocus sound and the green light turns on briefly.

Photo Booth is black and says:

There is no connected camera.

The FireWire Bus device is recognized by the M1 Mac's System Information:

System Information

Are there known FireWire support issues for either M1 Macs or macOS 11 Big Sur?

How can I use this iSight video webcam with my M1 Mac?

Links:

Apple Bug Report:

External iSight FireWire Camera does not work on Apple Silicon
FB9029863

Why is Options button for Photos app missing in iCloud settings?

Posted: 23 May 2021 10:41 AM PDT

I've turned on family sharing and want to share photos. There should be a shared album in Photos called "Family" but it's not there. I've found instructions that say I have to use the Options button in the iCloud settings for Photos, but that button doesn't show up for me. screenshot of icloud apps settings

How can I get that Options button to show up?

internet sharing (mojave) AND two-way connection

Posted: 23 May 2021 01:08 PM PDT

I apologize for any confusion bc of the subject line. Explanation:

I am sharing a wireless connection on a Mojave MBP 2012 (ethernet/thunderbolt/USB) with a PC running Win10. The PC is able to surf, so internet sharing is nominally working. Is there a way to also go in reverse? What I mean is, I want to use the same network to connect from the MBP to the PC, for example using Remote Desktop.

My hardware is configured as follows:

wireless router <---> MBP <---> eth <--->|        |<---> eth <---> PC                                           8-port hub

For separate reasons, I'm not using the default internet sharing settings:

icu-mojave:~ $ ifconfig bridge100  bridge100: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500      options=3<RXCSUM,TXCSUM>      ether aa:20:66:b1:68:64       inet 192.168.22.10 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.22.255      inet6 fe80::a820:66ff:feb1:6864%bridge100 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xe       Configuration:          id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 hellotime 0 fwddelay 0          maxage 0 holdcnt 0 proto stp maxaddr 100 timeout 1200          root id 0:0:0:0:0:0 priority 0 ifcost 0 port 0          ipfilter disabled flags 0x2      member: en0 flags=3<LEARNING,DISCOVER>              ifmaxaddr 0 port 7 priority 0 path cost 0      Address cache:          84:2b:2b:a5:11:63 Vlan1 en0 1199 flags=0<>          dc:a6:32:96:3f:b8 Vlan1 en0 1192 flags=0<>          84:2b:2b:a5:11:10 Vlan1 en0 1187 flags=0<>      nd6 options=201<PERFORMNUD,DAD>      media: autoselect      status: active

My ethernet interface looks like this:

screen shot of sharing settings

As I mentioned, this "works." The PC is surfing the internet etc - it is set up to get an address conventionally (DHCP) and has the IP 192.168.22.11.

Problem: from the MBP, I can't ping 192.168.22.11. I get a request timeout (as opposed to host down for example). I figure if I can't ping it, I can't do anything else either. For starters, I'd like to connect to the PC using Remote Desktop from the MBP so I can get rid of the extra monitor and keyboard.

OK that's it – is this quest even possible perhaps with a change to bootp settings, or do I need to replace the hub with a router and create a 2nd downstream network? I've read that Apple's NAT doesn't do "true bridging," but I can't evaluate that comment or whether that's the issue even.

Control AppleTV 4K volume on monitor with speakers

Posted: 23 May 2021 12:18 PM PDT

Equipment:

Connection:

  • HDMI, from Apple TV to monitor

I am temporaily using my Apple TV 4K with a computer monitor, instead of a conventional TV - connected via HDMI.

It's working great, except that the only way I've found to control the volume of the built-in speakers is via the very fiddly on-screen menu.

Is there an easy way via the Apple TV to control the sound volume on a computer monitor with built-in monitors, without using the monitor's on-screen menu?

Things I've tried:

  • Using the volume control on the Apple Tv's remote - it tells me to use the remove control for my TV, which doesn't exist
  • Use AirPlay or Screen Mirroring on iPhone and iPad to send to AppleTV - the iOS devices then don't allow the volume to be changed
  • Search online for inline HDMI devices to control volume - I didn't find anything

Some keys not working on Musical Typing?

Posted: 23 May 2021 05:04 PM PDT

I can't play some keys, such as H when on Octave C1, H and D when on Octave C2 or J and K on Octave C3. When I press them, I get no sound. If I manually place the notes out and then listen to it with Musical Typing open, it visually plays them.

Anyone know how to fix this?

Type Lambda λ on a Mac?

Posted: 23 May 2021 10:16 AM PDT

Is there a way to type lambda λ on a mac without switching the entire keyboard binding to Greek, as described here: How do you type Theta on a Mac?

.mov file in external HD, greyed out and won't open: "this item is used by Mac OS X"

Posted: 23 May 2021 12:00 PM PDT

The file won't open, with QuickTime, with the following error message:

Item "file.mov" is used by Mac OS X and cannot be opened.

Tried selecting repair disk on disk utility, didn't work.

I'm under OS X 10.7.5.

How to switch Preview's full screen default setting from "two-pages" to "continuous scroll"?

Posted: 24 May 2021 12:24 AM PDT

Whenever I open a pdf, Preview.app opens it in "continuous scroll" mode. However, when going into fullscreen mode, it switches to "two-pages" when, really, I want it to use whatever view mode I had it, in this case: "continuous scroll".

Anyone know how to remedy this? Or perhaps suggest an alternative to Preview.app?

I'm on Mavericks OSX 10.9.2.
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