Saturday, July 10, 2021

Recent Questions - Ask Different

Recent Questions - Ask Different

How to make Automator open only one instance of the Terminal Application?

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 11:40 PM PDT

I have created an Automator App which would open a Terminal window and connect to a server.

tell application "Terminal"      do script "ssh_connect"      activate  end tell

Note: the ssh_connect is a shortcut created by me.

However, every time I clicked on the App icon, it creates a new Terminal window and what I want is just to bring the existed window back to front if already created.

What should I do to make this happen?

Finder Search Criteria not applied to "This Mac"

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 11:10 PM PDT

When applying search criteria to "This Mac" the results do not seem to match the parameters. But when I click on "Recent" then it does. I am running Catalina with the latest update. I've also reset the spotlight index though I dont think this has anything to do with it. Any ideas?

Here is an example of a search on "This Mac",

Searching "This Mac"

and the same search under "Recent"

Searching "Recent"

sync iPad home screens between 2 iPads

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 09:56 PM PDT

Is there a way to sync (even one time or better yet keep in sync) the home screen and applications between 2 separate ipads (11" and 13" pro latest gen) so that they will have the same applications and home screen configurations (app placement and widgets)?

current i have to manually manage the two which is quite tiresome :)

Back up iPad to Mac automatically

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 08:27 PM PDT

I stopped using iCloud backup on my iPad because of excessive data usage*. I now back my iPad up to my Mac instead. However, as far as I can see, this has to be done manually - I have to remember to navigate to the iPad in Finder and click "back up now", otherwise it doesn't happen.

So my question is, is there a way to schedule backups of my iPad to my Mac, so that they happen automatically? Ideally I'd like to have it back up every day, and keep at least the last few days of backups, so that I can restore to an earlier time if I need to.

*this is because an app I use, Blankbook, stores all its data in a single file, which is hundreds of Mb in size and updates every day. This file is the main thing I want to keep backed up.

BASHOPTS not populated

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 07:53 PM PDT

I'm using the bash shell on MacOS. It appears that BASHOPTS isn't populated; echo $BASHOPTS outputs nothing. Is this expected?

This isn't the behavior on Linux instances I've tried.

'Photos' app showing my pictures but not my Albums after rebuilding library

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 06:37 PM PDT

  • MacOS 10.13.6 (high sierra)
  • Photos 3.0 (3291.13.230)

I have performed a 'rebuild' of the System Library of my 'Photos' app. By that, I mean that I performed the following steps :

  • Closed Photos
  • Deleted the 'Photos Library' file from my hard drive (on my localized system this file is named 'Bilder-bibliotek')
  • Restarted Photos.
  • The app detects that the Library file is missing and makes me create a new one
  • Then I went to the preferences and did two things : 1) Set this new library as what Photos calls the 'system library', 2) Enabled iCloud on it (with setting 'Optimize Mac Storage' and 'Copy items to the photo library')

Now this new Library file is supposed to be very much alike the one I deleted; and indeed it is : the app has started re-downloading most pictures locally and I can see them in the app, I can even scroll downwards to go backwards in time. I see that the pictures are the same as the ones I have in iCloud.com

But there's one problem : The albums are missing. In iCloud.com I have a bunch of albums under "My Albums". But in the app there's no album listed under "My albums".

What could cause this? I have several hypothesis : - Hypothesis #1 : I'm using a localized version of Photos and the app failed to see that the albums under 'My albums' should be the same as the albums under 'Mina album' ? - Hypothesis #2 : I have too little hard drive space. But since the app does not give any visual feedback on what it's doing (downloading, or not finished downloading) I'm supposed to guess that "the albums would appear if the app had enough disk space to finish the download"

What do you think?

Mac Mini 6,1 Stuck with windows bootcamp

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 05:14 PM PDT

I have a mac mini from 2011/2012, model is 6,1. I have not used it in a while and I wanted to wipe it and install linux on it. The problem is that it only boots into windows now and the OSX partition seems to be corrupted. I have tried to boot into the disk partition or recovery mode via internet but they both just leave me at a blank screen. I tried the following things on boot to try and boot into some form of BIOS or recovery mode.

  1. Hold Option Key
  2. Hold Down Power Button
  3. Commad + R
  4. Option + R

I am not sure what else to try other than pulling out the disk and formatting it externally but even then how would I do it so I can only have Ubuntu or some flavor of Linux on there?

Please let me know if anyone had this issue or is able to figure it out.

Thanks

Is there any way to create a disk image where its Finder window will not display the status bar or tab bar?

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 11:04 AM PDT

I'm trying to create a disk image for distributing an application, where it automatically opens a Finder window in icon view with a custom background. (The sort we see used for many applications.)

However, while it is possible to specify that its Finder window should be in icon view, not show the preview pane, and various other view related properties like that, so far I haven't found a way to specify that the tab bar and status bar should be hidden as well. It seems like those settings don't apply on a folder-by-folder basis, but rather Finder will open new Finder windows using whichever state was chosen last, regardless of the Finder window it applied to. If this is the case, then there would be no way to do what I want.

Am I correct? Or is there something I've missed?

ln symbolic link command error - iphone bu symbolic link troubleshoot

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 12:32 PM PDT

Having problem changing iphone backup location (following this tutorial https://www.iclarified.com/72786/how-to-change-your-iphone-backup-location-mac)

cannot interpret the error - any help appreciated !

sudo ln -s/Volumes/bbyfrn/Backup ~/Library/Application\   Support/MobileSync/Backup  ln: illegal option -- /  usage: ln [-Ffhinsv] source_file [link_name]         ln [-Ffhinsv] source_file ... linkname_dir         link source_file link_name

How come Automator can't find images on sites like this:?

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 02:35 PM PDT

I want all of these brains in a folder because I'd like to see them in a 3d stack.

I've been following steps outlined as the top answer of this thread:

How to download a webpage's all images at once?

And indeed this simple three step action works as it should for most other sites I've tried it on.

So what's going on here? I assume it has something to do with the fact that they're thumbnails contained in some sort of mysterious grid. (I am a novice if my terminology hadn't tipped you off already).

I'd be fine downloading the thumbnails. I'd actually prefer small images as I intend to stack these all into a 3d volume. My computer would not appreciate the full size versions in this application.

Any workarounds, clues, hints are greatly appreciated. Maybe a good fundamental thing to learn would be what the "impervious mystery image grid" is really called.

Limit entire system's CPU usage

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 04:19 PM PDT

I want to limit the entire macOS system's CPU usage. I don't mind if it slows down, but I just want to compromise some speed for temperature.

I searched for any programs that does this. The one that seems closest for my needs is AppPolice, but I think it can only do one at a time being a GUI app and cputhrottle doesn't work with SIP enabled.

So, is there a way or a program to do this systematically without disabling SIP ideally?

Cannot find files for `calcurse` calendar application installed with homebrew : not where documentation says they are

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 03:17 PM PDT

I just installed calcurse, an calendar open source solution (which looks great!). I installed version calcurse version 4.7.1 via homebrew (brew install calcurse)

I cannot find where the todo and apts files are located, despite to what is written in the documentation which says that they are there:

$HOME/.calcurse/            |___apts            |___conf            |___hooks/            |___keys            |___notes/            |___todo

On my machine, however they are no such structure. Similar files have been installed there:

$HOME/.config/calcurse/                  ├── conf                  ├── hooks/                  └── keys

There are 2 main differences with respect to the documentation:

  • There is no $HOME/.calcurse/$ directory
  • In $HOME/.config/calcurse/: the files conf and keys are present but todo and apts are absent (at least not there)

The other location where brew installed things is in /usr/local/Cellar/calcurse/4.7.1. But there I could not find the files neither

Those files probably exist somewhere because, I imported several time appointments from a .ics file and I have (several) duplicates of those appointments. I searched for similar problems but didn't find any

How can I locate those files (todo and apts)?

Many thanks in advance!

Trying to Run Windows 10 on Flashed Mac Pro 4, 1 now 5, 1 Bootable USB Storage Error Bootcamp

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 05:41 PM PDT

I want to run Windows 10 on my flashed 2009 Mac Pro 5, 1 with Bootcamp.

Currently OS X 10.11.6 and the Nvidia GT 120 are present.

I am able to start the process to create the bootable USB drive but every time the progress bar stops midway and says that there is not enough space on my USB drive. The USB is 123GB and completely cleared. The Windows 10 ISO is around 6GB. I have also tried reformatting it to FAT32 and exFAT, with no luck. I have also disabled Time Machine and automatic backups.

Does anyone know a fix to this or should I just install Windows 10 via DVD?

My MacBook Pro keeps crashing while trying to reinstall; how can I figure out what's wrong?

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 03:52 PM PDT

My MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports) has been crashing during startup for the last four days. It was running macOS Big Sur. My MacBook froze while I was using it, then suddenly shut down. After re-starting, it froze again shortly and hasn't been able to fully start ever since: it would freeze again during login or right after while re-opening the applications that I had open.

I have tried a few things without success, and I'm not completely sure what to try next.

  • I have run the Apple Diagnostics by holding d while my MacBook starts up, but it found no problem with my system.
  • I have reset the PRAM by holding option + command + P + R while starting my MacBook and waited to hear the boot chime twice, but that didn't fix the problem.
  • I have reset the SMC by holding shift + control + option and the power button, but that didn't fix the problem.
  • I have tried using "safe boot" by holding shift and starting my MacBook. It was showing a red "safe boot" in the upper right corner of the screen, but crashed again during login.
  • I have tried the Internet Recovery by holding command + R while my MacBook starts up, but after downloading the image, my MacBook freezes and shows an Apple logo. The EFI log ends with 
    #[SSR|>] Attempting to mount 482075478 bytes as ramdisk  Booting Recovery OS.
  • I have tried re-installing MacOS by creating a bootable installer for macOS, following Apple's instructions, but it crashes after #[EB|LOG:EXITBS:START]: Crash

Finally, my system has proven to be stable when started on a minimal Gentoo Linux distribution. I used it to look at the EFI logs without any issue.

What else can I try to figure out what's wrong with my MacBook? Should I try to completely wipe the internal SSD?

If I remove the EFI partition from the SSD, will I be able to re-install everything? Will I be able to do this using my bootable installer? By putting this Mac in target disk mode and running the installer on another MacBook? Is there any chance that completely wiping the EFI will be of any help?

Alter ulimit for Terminal without changing kernel parameters

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 03:08 PM PDT

Note: I am looking for an answer for Catalina and for Big Sur. The commands below were run on Catalina. Most related questions and answers are for older versions of macOS which work a bit differently, but even then I have not found an exact answer to my question.

As I explained here, I want to increase the ulimit -n (max open files) for the Terminal program when launched from the Finder or when automatically started when logging in as part of restoring open windows. Even though I have performance mode turned on, the default ulimit -n is only 256, and most Terminal windows take up 2 file slots: 1 for the shell and one for the "Saved Application State" file, limiting me to around 128 windows, which sometimes is not enough.

The only way I have found to change the ulimit for the Terminal is via

sudo launchctl limit maxfiles <soft-limit> <hard-limit>

I would like to set the soft limit to something bigger than 256 but still reasonably small, like 512 or 1000. I would like to leave the hard limit unlimited. Unfortunately, I found out that you cannot set the hard limit to "unlimited", but that is OK, I can set it to an appropriately high number. I checked the kernel limits (remember, I have performance mode enabled):

$ sysctl kern.maxfilesperproc kern.maxfiles  kern.maxfilesperproc: 600000  kern.maxfiles: 1200000

It seemed reasonable to me to set the hard limit to kern.maxfilesperproc, so I ran

sudo launchctl limit maxfiles 999 600000

at which point several programs immediately crashed. I found that this did not just set the ulimit, it also set the kernel parameters, and not the way I expected:

$ sysctl kern.maxfilesperproc kern.maxfiles  kern.maxfilesperproc: 999  kern.maxfiles: 600000

So programs with more than 1000 files open crashed. Obviously, those programs knew they were going to need to have a lot of files open and adjusted their resource limits appropriately, which is fine, and I need to keep that. On the other hand, programs like Terminal can get into loops that consume resources until they run out, so I want to keep soft limits for those programs low.

I tried setting ulimit in /etc/bashrc and /etc/zshrc but those only affect their respective shells, not commands like Terminal that are launched by the Finder/launchd.

Is there some way I can adjust the default soft limit for number of open files (ulimit -Sn, setrlimit()) for Terminal (or system-wide) without also changing the kernel parameter kern.maxfilesperproc (sysctl)?

Upgrading early 2015 Macbook pro from Mojave to Catalina/Big Sur?

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 11:06 AM PDT

I have an early 2015 Macbook pro with 8GB RAM and i7 dual core processor. It runs Mojave smoothly, and I haven't upgraded to Catalina nor Big Sur. I read that Catalina won't slow things down compared to Catalina, but what about Big Sur?

iPhone - error copying file or folder - lightning USB-C cable to Windows 10 PC

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 07:09 PM PDT

When I try copying a file from the phone to a computer I get an error "Error Copying File or Folder" - "A device attached to the system is not functioning"

This is running iOS 14.4.2 and the PC is Windows 10. I've tried two genuine Apple cables - a USB-C to lightning one and a USB-A to lightning and get the same result.

Rebooting the phone fixes this and I can copy one video and then I start getting the error again.

I'm thankful I at least have a workaround with rebooting, but any thoughts on how to solve so it can work as expected.

Here's a screenshot of the error:

enter image description here

If I try again after getting this error I get one saying "The device is unreachable" - see screenshot below:

enter image description here

Create an El Capitan rescue USB using a Modern M1 Mac [duplicate]

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 10:47 AM PDT

I am trying to rescue my dad's 2008 iMac. It is running Snow Leopard but the most recent OS it supports is El Capitan. It won't boot past a spinning progress bar on a grey screen, and will not boot into Recovery Mode or Safe Mode.

It seems to me next step is to try a bootable USB stick. I am running into walls trying to make the stick from my own computer, which is an M1 MacBook Air running Big Sur.

An El Capitan .DMG is downloadable directly from the Apple Support page, which provides instructions on how to make a bootable volume, with a major caveat On a Mac that is compatible with El Capitan, open the disk image and run the installer within, named InstallMacOSX.pkg

I used a utility to extract the Install OS X El Capitan.app file from the .dmg and then ran the terminal command from that support page:

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyUSBVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app

But this yields /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app does not appear to be a valid OS installer application. When I google this error some results indicate it is due to an expired file, but changing my system date to 2016 does not fix it. I assume the real problem is a system incompatibility.

Surely there is just an ISO I can get and write without all these hoops?s

AppleScript to Rename File Names

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 06:00 PM PDT

Can anybody help me with the following issue. I'd like an AppleScript that will rename files like these by removing the leading numbers and underscore.

So file names like these:

  5111632_The Secret_ Dare to Dream.mp4  5099299_Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1.mp4  5099287_Basic Instinct.mp4  5099283_Before I Go to Sleep.mp4

would turn into:

  The Secret_ Dare to Dream.mp4  Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1.mp4  Basic Instinct.mp4  Before I Go to Sleep.mp4

I'm going to run it in one folder using Hazel.

Best way to switch magic keyboard and trackpad between work/personal Macs?

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 04:07 PM PDT

I just got a new work laptop. I would like to seamlessly switch my bluetooth devices (headphones, magic keyboard, touchpad) between work / personal Macs without complex repairing.

Has anyone solved this problem?

Ideally, I would love it if my bluetooth devices just paired with the computer docked into my dongle that connects to my monitor / power. Like if there was some kind of USB bluetooth controller that exposed my bluetooth devices as USB devices to whatever was connected to it, that would be awesome. But I haven't found anything like that. I'm curious if people have different solutions?

It would also be ideal if this could be used for other bluetooth devices, ie seamlessly switch headphones...

Add search criteria in the Finder in Catalina

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 10:26 PM PDT

I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15 inches, mid-2015) with a 2.8 GHz Intel quad core i7 processor, now running macOS Catalina 10.15.3.

Before the upgrade, I could do a search as follows. Press ⌘ + F to open a Finder window; select what I want to search (this Mac, recent files, etc); press the Plus Sign to add criteria (such as extension, title, type of file, etc). After the upgrade, there is no Plus Sign. All I can do is search all occurrences of whatever I type.

How do I add search criteria like I did before?

How do I create El Capitan installer on a Catalina (or post-El Capitan) installed Mac for use on USB boot installer

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 10:32 AM PDT

I have downloaded the El Capitan dmg file (InstallMacOSX.dmg) provided by Apple. The expanded dmg image contains the package "InstallMacOSX.pkg" which should be run to create the El Capitan installer but fails with the following message "This version of OS X 10.11 cannot be installed on this computer." presumably because quite reasonably it would not make sense to install on top of a later version of the OS. However in this case I want to create a boot USB drive for an installation on another Mac.

I am stuck in a chicken and egg situation where I need another machine running El Capitan or earlier to create and El Capitan boot installer.

My iMac keeps crashing

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 01:03 PM PDT

I have a 27" Late 2013 iMac with 8GB RAM and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M (2GB) GPU.

Last year my iMac started crashing now and then. Not only that, when it's in sleep mode it just falls out. I have to pull the wire out and in again and then it works again. Very annoying.

I brought it back to the store and they did a hardware check, nothing was wrong apparently.

They looked into the logs and saw that before my iMac crashed the 'Steam -app' was mentioned. So they suggested that I have to reinstall the iMac. Weird I know. So I asked a friend to do that for me since I'm too afraid to make a mistake.

So the iMac was clean and yet again after a few hours it crashed. I downloaded software to see if the fans were working right or the temperature was too high. Again no problems. I used the console to get the CPU to work 100% to see if it would crash. Nope.

So I thought maybe it was the power supply and I tried a different cable. Nope

I looked into the log again and now I see that the last crash was because of com.apple.dictionaryServiceHelper??

I uploaded a screenshot of this: (log+About This Mac)

I'm no iMac expert at all so I just don't know what to do anymore.

How can I continue troubleshooting this?

Notes data from external drive

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 11:38 PM PDT

I recently replaced the HDD in my mid-2012 MacBook Pro with an SSD. After doing a clean install of OS X Sierra, I wanted to get my old notes from the backup copy of my old HDD. After some research I found that the data is stored in "/Library/Containers/com.apple.notes....". I've tried to copy this data to my current ssd, but notes doesn't recognise this data when I open the application.

I just want to access the text in the notes and transfer it. I'm not fussed about preserving the original structure of the notes.

Please someone help me! those notes are really important to me!

How to automatically paste today's date with keyboard shortcut?

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 10:41 PM PDT

I am on El Capitan OS X.

I want to be able to hit some keyboard shortcut and then have today's date be automatically outputted.

Example:

When I press Option + D, "2016_06_13" is pasted into the text field.

The date would be automatically calculated based on my time zone.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to do this universally. So in Finder, Safari, TextEdit, etc. — not just exclusive to one program.

Having this shortcut would streamline my workflow.

Is this possible?

What is a quick way to duplicate a tab in Safari?

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 12:18 PM PDT

Is there a quick way or shortcut to duplicate a tab in Safari?

Turn off MacBook Pro's display while connected to external monitor on Yosemite

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 03:46 PM PDT

How do you turn off the MacBook Pro's display with the lid open while using an external monitor on Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite?

All the previous methods—such as the one's listed here—that have worked on Mavericks no longer work on Yosemite.

Does anyone know the way to do this on Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite? Turning down the brightness is not the same as turning off the display as the GPU still sends a signal to the internal display and the external monitor.

These were the terminal commands to achieve this on Mavericks:

Enable

sudo nvram boot-args="iog=0x0"

Disable

sudo nvram -d boot-args

Anyone know how to achieve this on Yosemite?

guest access to samba shares on 10.8

Posted: 10 Jul 2021 02:07 PM PDT

Is there any way to allow public (ie no user/password prompt) access to samba shares using the mountain lion built in server?

Even with Everyone set to read/write in System Preferences and the guest account enabled for sharing a password is always required when trying to connect from a windows computer (I've tried both 7 and xp).
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