Sunday, August 29, 2021

Recent Questions - Ask Different

Recent Questions - Ask Different

Find serial number of previously connected macbook charger

Posted: 29 Aug 2021 12:16 AM PDT

I lost my (MacBook Pro Thunderbolt-3/USB-C) charger in my school, and I want to believe that someone took it mistakenly, not that someone stole it.

To increase the likelihood of finding the charger, I want to provide the serial number of my charger so that others can check themselves to see if they took away my charger by mistake. However, since I already lost it, I can't find it from System Profiles.

Is this information stored/cached somewhere on the disk? How can I find it? (I have backups of the system before the charger was lost).

Im trying to updtae my Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 it was my grandmothers and its hasnt been checked for updates since late 2019

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 11:35 PM PDT

trying to figure out why i cannot do a software update after 10.7.5 i cant even update my safari without it saying that the server may have been tampered with. im curious on what i should/could do to fix this problem. If you have any suggestions please feel free to help! :)

Why I can't login to my Mac without typing in my password sometimes?

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 11:15 PM PDT

In 99% of the time, I can log in to my sleeping Mac (M1 MacBook Air) using TouchID. But sometimes it shows that 'password is required to log in' screen, and the TouchID seems to be not working.

This is a very minor issue that I don't care about that much, but I wonder why this happens and also want to know if there is any way to prevent it. I haven't 'mistouched' the TouchID button a few times nor has no one except me tried to log in using TouchID.

disable Home/Key trigger browser scrolling top/buttom when typing in input field/textarea MACOS

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 10:34 PM PDT

It's normal to use Home/End key to move cursor to beginning/end of line when typing. But recently this two key on my chrome/safari will trigger browser scrolling top/bottom when typing in input field/textarea. It will scroll first, and if I press Home/End again it will trigger the "move cursor" How to fix this?

A1396 ipad could not be activated because the activation server is temporarily un

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 11:12 PM PDT

A1396 ipad said "could not be activated because the activation server is temporarily unavailable", i was try connect to iTunes to activated, but looks like iTunes cannot read my ipad.

is there anyone can help me to activation my ipad so i can use it again? thank you, appreciate your help

best regards, HM

SIMBL Agent crashing frequently

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 09:52 PM PDT

I just replaced a MacBook Pro running High Sierra with a new MacBook Pro M1 running Big Sur, and migrated my applications and accounts using Migration Assistant.

I noticed this evening that ReportCrash is using quite a bit of CPU, sometimes as much as 25% in both my regular user account and my admin account. I opened Console and saw that there were lots of Crash Reports from SIMBL Agent -- every 20-30 minutes in my user account and even more frequently in the admin account.

I removed the directories ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL and /Library/Application Support/SIMBL (they both just contained SafariSource.bundle), but this didn't solve the problem.

Then I checked system.log, and every few seconds it's logging

Aug 29 00:11:05 Barry-Margolins-MacBook com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (net.culater.SIMBL.Agent[29138]): removing service since it exited with consistent failure - OS_REASON_OBJC | Objective-C garbage collection is no longer supported.  Aug 29 00:11:05 Barry-Margolins-MacBook com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (net.culater.SIMBL.Agent): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.

I tried killing this launchd service with

sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchAgents/net.culater.SIMBL.Agent.plist

and got the error:

/Library/LaunchAgents/net.culater.SIMBL.Agent.plist: Could not find specified service
Unload failed: 113: Could not find specified service

What do I have to do to kill this?

Is it possible to see how fast the iPhone battery is being charged?

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 08:17 PM PDT

For example, I have different chargers, and some cables that are 3 feet vs 10 feet long, or a fairly expensive 10 feet cable. Is it possible to see how fast the iPhone battery is being charged (such as what the mA x V is, essentially, the energy gained per second).

How do I get an SSH server to start before login on Big Sur?

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 08:12 PM PDT

On High Sierra, I used to be able to SSH into my computer before user login, and now it appears that I cannot on Big Sur. Based on the way that the machine boots, it seems like most of the startup process now occurs after a user logs in. Is there a way to access my computer via services like SSH and VNC/Screen Sharing before anyone actually logs into the computer? This is an issue for me since I cannot remotely restart my computer anymore.

iPhone Upgrade Program problem - added a new loan instead of upgrading existing

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 07:49 PM PDT

I had 2 phones on the iPhone Upgrade Program. When I went to upgrade my eligible device through the IUP portal, it goes through the purchase process like always in the past. But now I got the new device and it opened up a 3rd loan without registering it as an upgrade to an existing one.

I talked to Apple and got bounced around to several different people, eventually ended up with CitizensOne, but they couldn't do anything so sent me back to Apple. I heard the only fix was to return the phone and re-attempt the purchase again. I did the EXACT same thing triple-checking that I was going through the IUP webpage upgrading the right device, and now I have a FOURTH loan without closing out the existing one.

What is going on here? There appears to be no resolution I can find, and no way to resolve this...

Does anyone else have this issue?

Alternative to Apple Notes that uses the Notes database?

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 07:42 PM PDT

Is there an alternative app to Notes on Mac that still uses the Notes database? In other words, is there an app that provides a better different front end than Notes but still stores and reads from the Notes database?

FWIW, there are a few Reminders app alternatives that provide a different to do list experience than the stock Reminders app but still store and read the from the same place that the Reminders app does. Handy if you want to bounce between multiple to do apps but keep all your to dos and lists in the same place.

After upgrade to Catalina getting error " gfind: failed to read file names from file system" when running glocate

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 07:33 PM PDT

I have installed GNU findutils via Homebrew and I use glocate to create a locate database.

The following command worked perfectly under macOS High Sierra:

sudo gupdatedb  --localpaths=/ --prunepaths=/Volumes --output=~/locatedb

However after upgrading to Catalina (and upgrading all Homebrew formulas including findutils), I get with the same command the following error:

gfind: failed to read file names from file system at or below '/': No such file or directory

Any idea how to fix this? I suspect it has to do the tighter security under Catalina.

(Also, I have read macos - GNU version of locate - gupdatedb fails with "gfind: failed to read file names from file system" - Ask Different and I am making sure that the gfind command is used not th find command, but I still get the error message.)

Copy a formatted-text sentence, but Paste it with with the coding visible as well? [closed]

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 06:13 PM PDT

Seeking help with an AppleScript intended to convert text in the clipboard. Let's say the following text is copied:

Spengler, Egon. "Spores, molds and fungus." Le journal du fromage bout à bout; Funkytown: 1234.

The goal is to paste this text into to appear like plain text WITH the formatting commands showing. The italicized part would therefore look like <i>Le journal du blablabla</i> instead.

As ridiculous as this sounds, I could then use help doing the exact opposite; a little AppleScript that could copy what appears to be plain text with the formatting commands, and render that text, visually, as formatted text.

Use case: copy/paste a formatted source citation into a custom metadata field in DEVONthink, but later copy the contents of that field and paste into something that can reproduce the original formatting.

In a nutshell: the goal is to go from A to B, then eventually B to C (with formatting showing in C). Thanks in advance for any help/guidance you may have!

FWIW, I do own a copy of Keyboard Maestro--so automating through there is a possibility as well I suppose.

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macbook pro (early 2015) hangs on startup; disk utility finds problems with partition map

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 05:03 PM PDT

As the title says, my MacBook pro (13" retina display, early 2015) suddenly started hanging halfway through startup (apple logo and progress bar), and there seems to be no way to access the data. Here is some info from disk recovery attempts:

  • it will not boot into safe mode.
  • it recognizes that there is a hard drive (start of recovery) but then cannot find it to install a new os.
  • disk repair (in recovery mode) says all is ok except it says "problems were found with the partition map which may prevent booting"
  • MacBook does not show up on another mac in target mode

Before I shell out $3K to recover data, I thought I'd ask if there is anything else that I could try. I've seen similar posts here and here, but I'm not an expert and it seems my situation might be a little different...and I'd like some advice before I start running commands and make it fubar. I've included some info about the system below (sorry they're photos, but it's the only way to get the info off the laptop). Commands run in the pics are:

  1. gpt -r show /dev/disk1
  2. diskutil info /dev/disk1s1
  3. diskutil info /dev/disk0
  4. diskutil list
  5. continuation of #4 and fdisk /dev/disk0
  6. gpt -r show disk0
  7. part of the verbose bootup sequence

I'm hoping that there is some command I can use to create/ID a partition on disk0 to install the OS. Another idea I had was to maybe remove the HD and use an external OWC enclosure to look at it. Any advice you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Jan

image1 image2 image3 image4 image5 image6 image7

MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015) won't reboot while updating OS except if battery is disconnected from logic board

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 04:37 PM PDT

Whenever I run an OS update on my Macbook Air (currently OS version Mojave 10.14.6) it will refuse to reboot during the update. It will make repeated attempts at booting, however, which are audible as a switching sound followed by a brief spin of the fan. Then there's a short silence and the sequence starts again (switching sound, fan sound, silence,...).

These attempts at booting can go for hours and eventually completely drain the battery. The sequence can be interrupted by a SMC reset but the attempts at booting will continue if I press the power button, so a simple SMC reset does not lead to the computer booting properly.

The only way I can get the MacBook to reboot during an update is to either

  1. wait until the battery is completely drained, perform a SMC reset, connect the power cord and press the power button or
  2. open up the computer, disconnect the battery from the logic board, wait a few seconds, reconnect the battery to the logic board and press the power button.

After this the MacBook will boot, finish the update and everything will work fine again until I have to run the next update. Interestingly, there's no problem with booting when I manually shut down or restart the computer, it only concerns rebooting during an OS update. Apple Diagnostics also doesn't report any issues.

Can anyone give me any hints on how I might narrow down the issue further? Thanks in advance!

False insufficient-disk-space alert

Posted: 29 Aug 2021 12:18 AM PDT

I am trying to help a senior about 500 miles away who is having serious problems with his MacBook Pro. He lives hours away from any Apple stores and any convenient sources of computer help.

Here's the situation: He has a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013) Model A1502 running Big Sur 11.2.3.

He has a 500 GB internal SSD that is slightly less than half full.

The problem began when Mail quit with this alert: <Mail cannot save information about your mailboxes because there isn't enough space in your home folder. Quit Mail and delete any files you don't need. Then open Mail again.>

I researched that and found the suggestion to reset the NVRAM and do a Safe Boot. After doing so, Mail was fine for one day and then the situation repeated with the same alert and Mail quits.

While sharing desktops, I noted the red number 4 on the App Store icon in his Dock. We went to the App Store to update four apps and when we tried to do so we got this alert: <Installation failed. Can't install the software because there is not enough space. 4.81 GB is needed but only 407.8 MB is available>. This is of course non-sensical because he has well over 300 GB of free space on his internal HD.

We tried to download the Maintenance.app from Titanium Software and when we did so and dragged the apps icon into the Applications folder, it would not work noting that more space was needed.

And now it gets even more bizarre. I could see that something serious was wrong and wanted to be absolutely sure he had a good backup before proceeding.

I had him attach an empty, 500GB OWC SSD and go to Time Machine preferences, and unlock them, in order to select the attached OWC SSD for use with TM. Even though we could view that OWC SSD icon on his desktop and view it in Disk Utilities, I could not get it to appear in Time Machine preferences so we could initiate a backup.

Using Disk Utility to view that OWC SSD, it listed: External USB 3.0 Media Container disk4 OWC Auro Pro X2 ASRDataVolume2.

I selected each of the above in turn, right clicked on each, ran First Aid, and all passed.

I also looked up Apple Diagnostics Test and told him to restart holding down the D key and note the results, codes, etc. Will post the results here later.

I simply don't know what to do at this point and really need some help and guidance, for which, many thanks.

Your iPad could not be activated

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 11:28 PM PDT

I have my iPad Air 1st generation, and today I decided (because of some reasons) to make a factory reset, in order to do it I followed the next steps:

  1. disable find my ipad
  2. disconnected from the iCloud
  3. factory reset

After this I got the very first iOS screen with the Hello word, then I chose the WiFi network and clicked Next then I got an error

Your iPad could not be activated because the activation server is temporarily unavailable. Try connecting your iPad to iTunes to activated it or try again in a couple of minutes. If this problem persists, contact Apple support at apple.com/support.

In order to solve it, I tried a few different ways such as connect to another wifi network, put a sim card inside, connect to iTunes, but nothing helps.

Also, I found a tutorial where describes how to activate the iPad with external tools where I need to connect my device then click and hold the Home and Power button,

BUT the main problem is that my Home button doesn't work and I don't found a way to enable the accessibility button on the first Hello screen.

So, the problem is that I have my iPad that I know exactly that completely worked, but after the factory reset I am not able to activate the iPad and external tools also doesn't help as Home button doesn't work

Are there any other ways to tackle the problem?

Can a Mac app run AppleScript on button click?

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 04:45 PM PDT

For example, you are working in the app, you click a button which kicks off an Applescript.

Is that possible?

I read this article, which made is seem very difficult if not impossible in Mojave.

https://www.jessesquires.com/blog/2018/11/17/executing-applescript-in-mac-app-on-macos-mojave/

Why did this dd copy of an encrypted Time Machine drive to another drive seem to have no effect?

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 09:52 PM PDT

On macOS in past years I have been able to use dd to copy an entire hard drive to another hard drive of the same size. When I did this, everything was copied: the partition map, the volumes, everything. The copied-to drive was an exact copy of the original in all details.

Yesterday I tried the same thing in macOS Big Sur. The drive I copied from is encrypted and contains only one volume, which contains Time Machine backups.

Disk Utility says this about the drive I copied from:

  • Drive model: "Seagate Desktop Media"
  • Drive subtitle: "USB External Physical Disk – GUID Partition Map"
  • Drive size: 8 TB
  • Volume: "mybackup", formatted as "CoreStorage Logical Volume" Disk Utility lets me decrypt-then-mount the "mybackup" volume.

The shell command I used to do the copy:

time caffeinate sudo gdd if=/dev/rdisk2 of=/dev/rdisk3 bs=1024M status=progress conv=noerror,sync

That ran for 28 hours. I assume that if there were errors, gdd would have said something. It did not.

Result: Disk Utility says this about the drive I copied to:

  • Drive model: "Seagate Backup+ Hub BK Media"
  • Drive subtitle: "USB External Physical Disk – GUID Partition Map"
  • Drive size: 8 TB
  • (no volumes)

Why no volume? Is there some metadata that needs to be copied but isn't accessible in the raw disk contents?

There is no other disk that could have been /dev/rdisk3 and the copy did not go to a plain file.

UPDATE

Later, after reinstalling the OS on an erased disk, I tried to mount the copy again, and it worked.

Why did my magic mouse stop working all of a sudden?

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 04:09 PM PDT

My magic mouse stopped working. It randomly disconnected and now bluetooth doesn't find it at all, I tried restarting my computer, bluetooth, mouse, etc, and still nothing, the mouse is definitely charged.

Any ideas? How can I fix this? It's the magic mouse 2 gen.

El Capitan sidebar preferences not sticking

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 07:06 PM PDT

I had a hard drive failure and am temporarily using a machine which can only be brought up to El Capitan.

I have a sidebar problem that is driving me crazy. The configuration of the sidebar favorites is "stuck". If I make a change (such as reordering the list or deleting a folder), after a logout, the sidebar configuration reverts to one I made a long time ago.

I have tried trashing the Finder and Sidebar preferences, quitting the Finder, logging out and restarting with no joy.

I looked in com.apple.sidebar.plist and compared it to the file I have on my Yosemite machine and it is quite limited. Specifically, it is missing an entry called "favoriteItems" which has a child "CustomListItems" that seems to hold the info needed to make the sidebar look the way I want.

I have actually been having a lot of strange "things not sticking" issues on this machine - most seem to be solved, but this one isn't. I checked the permissions on my ~/library and ~/library/preferences files and I do have rw privileges

Is the sidebar favorites configuration stored differently on El Capitan vs. Yosemite?

preferences comparison

Is there an easy way to look through a directory, preview file by file, and choose to keep or delete it?

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 10:04 PM PDT

I'm mostly looking to do an initial pass of a folder of 10k images and I want to go through one by one and mark each for deletion or for keeping. Any easy way to do that on a mac or is there a photo organization program that will do this?

Airdrop seems to be missing on my Macbook Pro

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 04:04 PM PDT

System: MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017) macOS 10.13.6 (17G14033)

Issue: I cannot send files to my MacBook Pro from my iPhones using Airdrop. When I try to share a file from a iPhone to the Mac using AirDrop, the Mac just doesn't show up among the available users. I looked for AirDrop among the Finder Favorites, and it's not there:

enter image description here

Following the instructions on this website, I navigated to the Go menu in Finder, selected Go to Folder and pasted in this path:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Applications

This is what I see:

enter image description here

However, if I click on the AirDrop icon, I get this error message:

enter image description here

What is happening? Can you help me get AirDrop to work on my Mac?

EDIT: there's no AirDrop item in the Finder → Go menu

enter image description here

the Shift+⌘+R shortcut doesn't seem to do anything at all, and finally both WiFi and BlueTooth are turned on:

enter image description here

External usb webcam flickering (ripple effect) on MacBook Pro

Posted: 29 Aug 2021 12:03 AM PDT

I'm new to Mac. I've bought an external usb HD webcam and I would like to use it with Mac.

Connectivity-wise, Mac recognizes the camera, I can use it from any application - so far so good.

The issue is - I'm experiencing a strong ripple effect due to ambient led lightning (50hz). In windows, I could easily change the setting of video capture frequency to 50hz for any camera using windows settings (including the one in question) and this would resolve the ripple effect.

In Mac I just can't find the setting to do that.

After a short research - I saw a few suggestions to use an app like "Webcam settings". I can't use it as a resolution in my case (for certain reasons).

Any ideas? Is there some config value that I can change manually?

Q: Am I positive it's the ambient lights? A: Yes it is the lights.

Q: Am I positive webcam/usb/other hw is OK? A: Yes it is OK.

Q: Does the vendor provide resolution? A: No, the vendor (Amcrest) did not provide a resolution yet.

Import Albums "From my Mac" to my iPhone albums and keep them synced

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 05:01 PM PDT

I don't use iCloud Photos. I wanted to import my iPhone photo albums to my Mac but it seems that without iCloud Photos it is not possible without any third party software according to my searches.

But I've found that I can create albums on Photos on my Mac and then sync with my iPhone. So I took time to recreate albums on my Mac. I factory reset my iPhone and then sync with my Mac. All the photos are back, even the albums, great.

BUT, the albums on my iPhone are "hidden" in the "From my Mac" section. Not in "My Albums". And I can't add photos to these albums on my iPhone. I could select all the photos and add them on a newly created album on my iPhone with the same name but.. I guess it will be out of sync.

Is it possible to keep the albums between my Mac and iPhone synced AND have the possibility to add photos to these albums on my iPhone ? Without iCloud Photos.

I've searched for a solution for the past two days and I don't know what to do anymore. It is supposed to be simple.. isn't it ? :(

Thanks

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

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 11:04 PM PDT

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

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

(OS/X Catalina 10.15.3, current.)

Is there a way to see current CPU frequency in macOS from terminal (not Intel power gadget)

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 05:08 PM PDT

I am aware of these answers:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9948987/detect-current-cpu-clock-speed-programmatically-on-os-x

View the current clock Speed of a CPU in OS X?

Which refer to Intel Power Gadget as a way to obtain current CPU frequency, is there a program/method to obtain this information from the terminal?

sysctl hw.cpufrequency only shows the nominal frequency of the CPU, i.e. what the manufacturer has stated. It does not consider Turbo Boost or lower frequencies when CPU is idle. (For example if CPU is i5, 1.4GHz, it will always state 1.4GHz)

The C solution given it SO using sysctl.h has the same effect.

What does photolibraryd do whenever I log in to my Mac?

Posted: 28 Aug 2021 07:11 PM PDT

Whenever I log into my MacBook Pro the CPU cranks up to 100%+ for a few seconds, my board gets hot, and the fans start going. I open up Activity Monitor to find that the culprit is 'photolibraryd'. What's going on? What's it doing that uses so much CPU?
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