Sunday, September 19, 2021

Recent Questions - Ask Different

Recent Questions - Ask Different

Recent Questions - Ask Different

Apple Watch stopped Monday update of my move goal

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 09:43 PM PDT

Sometime a few months ago, my Apple Watch stopped offering an updated move goal on Monday mornings. My wife's watch has been in this state for a couple years. Does anybody know how to get it back?

I have a suspicion that it might be related to my experimenting with sleep tracking with the watch since it stopped working about the same time I tried a suggestion from daring fireball that I can no longer find that required doing something with sleep tracking to get a charging notification(?).

SSD APFS Corruption

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 08:04 PM PDT

I'm using a Mac Book Pro mid 2012 running 10.15.7on Samsung EVO 1TB internally. It was not possible to boot the computer last Friday. I tried to boot in recovery mode, the SSD was not identified as a bootable device. I removed the SSD and tried to boot it using a UGreen IDE Docking Station without sucess. Now I have connected the UGreen Docking Station to another Mac computer, fsck_apfs -fy gives the result that there are many invalid checksums, therefore the space manager is invalid, the whole issue is here: fsck_apfs Disk utility gives the same output. I run others tools like Drat/APFS Inspect, the output is the following:

Drat - APFS Inspect

As you can see there are a lot of checksum validation errors. APFS Inspect says an Ephemeral object is malformed. Is there any way to fix this checksum error and get the SSD bootable again? Or is the only possible solution to format the entire SSD and reinstall the operating system? I don't have any idea about the origin of this error and I couldn't find any information about it. It would be nice to receive some help.

macOS .zsh_sessions, .zsh_history, and `setopt APPEND_HISTORY`

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 07:54 PM PDT

On macOS there is a sessions directory that combines commands from multiple zsh sessions into a single history file.

Is it necessary to use zsh options, in .zshrc, to manipulate how zsh handles history in order that commands be appended to .zsh_history, or are these options redundant and ignored?

I see many people recommended when transitioning from bash to zsh to add these options to make history include commands from other sessions and add other functionality (that appears to be built in):

APPEND_HISTORY  HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history  HISTSIZE=100000000  SAVEHIST=100000000  setopt INC_APPEND_HISTORY  ...

It seems those are built in and needn't be specified.

Bonus question: can we list options after setopt instead of having each one on a new line?

Disable automatic desktop/space switching on Big Sur

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 06:55 PM PDT

Is there a way to disable automatic desktop/space switching when clicking application icons in the dock on Big Sur?

Checking/unchecking any of the options in System Preferences > Mission Control doesn't seem to make a difference.

defaults write -g AppleSpacesSwitchOnActivate -bool false doesn't work.

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-auto-swoosh -bool No killall Dock doesn't work.

Is there a way to fix this?

Remote access hijacked MacBook Air M1

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 07:31 PM PDT

I have a very similar situation going on where the root user of my MacBook is somebody remote. I had a MacBook and an iPad stolen in May that were logged into my Apple ID. This root user has all of my iDevices compromised i.e. microphone is open while browsing the Internet as well it appears that a program called loopback audio may be in use.

They have employed screen time to block me out of my email, text, internet. My contact in my phone the last four digits were changed although very similar xxx3 to xxx4 which is an active Apple ID number and they have replied to a text of mine. "Find My" location sharing has been locked onto my girlfriend, when she shares her location it says in the preferences sharing your location from my iPad Pro.

I got a new MacBook and a new iPhone 12 and booted it up the first screen I got said your "screen is being observed" and furthermore being suspicious of my girlfriend that's here nor there looked at her Apple ID on her iPhone and my new MacBook was in her account serial number and all.

This has been the most frustrating, from what I can tell my keychain is open in the background as soon as I close it. All my sharing is turned off although remote desktop file sharing and screen sharing are all a different shade of gray. It appears this root user is named shadow host. This user is on my home screen deleting applications dragging my cursor, etc. I have deleted and rebooted software on my MacBook as well as my iPhone for it to come back as soon as it catches Wi-Fi is what I assume.

Any and all ideas recommendations would be much appreciated, how does the software recognize from my user name being different from my last laptop a network connection from years past? What identifier does the computer use that I could get away from possibly? I have had Apple devices for 17 years going back to the iPhone 4 and I'm pretty savvy with them although when it comes to networking it's above my pay grade!

Sync says iPhone cannot play .m4a

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 05:35 PM PDT

I have about four thousand audio files in Music. They are all either mp3 or .m4a, roughly half of each.

Occasionally, I remove all from the iPhone for two reasons:

  1. I need the space to do an update
  2. If I edit a song, or add artwork, or change the metadata, sync fails to update the phone.

Today, I removed them all, updated to IOS 14.8, and then put the songs back. Finder complained that nine songs were "not copied because the audio format is not supported by the iPhone."

I knew that those songs had played before. I looked at one of them in Finder, and it is .mp3  I then found it on the iPhone, meaning it was copied. And tapped it, and it did play.

What's going on here?

Sketch app input field value not increase/decrease with arrows key

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 03:43 PM PDT

I am running Catalina on my MacBook Pro mid 2014 retina. From few days I am having strange issue with my Sketch app. I can't increase/decrease input values from arrows key. When I select any input field and press arrow up it suppose to be increase the value and on press arrow it suppose to be decrease the value. Even input spinner not working on click. It only works when I type numbers and hit enter.

I checked my other apps Photoshop, Illustrator, Invision Studio all apps are working fine. The issue is only happening with Sketch app. I tried to install fresh copy (updated version). I tried to uninstall Sketch app with app cleaner. I restore defaults keyboard shortcuts. I restore defaults Accessibility settings but no success. For the reference I attached screenshot of app screen. enter image description here

What’s the problem with highlighting the first line of a page in iBooks on iOS?

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 01:50 PM PDT

When I want to highlight the first line of a page in any book in iBooks on iOS. it starts to move the page slightly, and won't show the selection or the highlight.

Googling revealed that this is a "known bug", and people typically go around it by changing the font size or otherwise changing the page layout so that the line they want to highlight is not the first on a page.

Now, okay, sure, the workaround exists. But what is the deal with this in the first place? It's an old issue, and it feels more like a feature I can't figure out. Perhaps the idea is that one could somehow highlight a phrase spanning two pages, and this weird interaction is a beginning of a workflow I can't figure out. Maybe someone could give me a hint about what is going on?

Performance has been decreased significantly after connecting via HDMI (M1)

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 08:14 PM PDT

Currently, I have some sort of performance issue with my MacBook Pro late 2020 (M1, 256, 8). I inserted not the original (very cheap) multiport adapter into the machine and connected it via an HDMI cable to an external monitor. As a result, I was using it for about five minutes and turned it off due to the fact that It was wildly lagging.

From the consequences: the Touchbar fell off partially - it was not possible to configure through the standard procedure in the settings (I fixed it myself through the terminal) + began to work much slower noticeably - visually, the performance dropped much - my 2016 MBP will perform about the same as this from 2020. I tried to make a full reset through the recovery, but it is bricked. Hopefully, I got help from an authorized center of Apple and they changed the system board and the Touch ID. Everything is working now, but it still lags noticeably - at the time of purchase and for the first two weeks, it just flew ... Now even booting before the password takes 19 seconds and then a lot of time after inputting the password. Also, it takes a lot of time to open regular apps like Chrome, Word, PowerPoint - it is not comparable to what how it was before…

Does anyone have ideas what could be the reason for it and possible steps to make it better? I already checked it with some test as Cinebench, DriveDx, GeekBench, and DiskDrill. Not something that indicates the problems.

Would be glad to hear any possible next steps!



How to clear recent closed tabs on an iPhone?

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 03:03 PM PDT

On my iPhone when I press the tabs button, then hold the + button, it shows all closed tabs. For some reason it isn't showing my recent closed tabs but old ones.

How do I clear this closed recent tabs so that new recent closed tabs can start appearing?

How to customize Internet Explorer button on mouse

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 02:35 PM PDT

Recently, I lost my USB plug for my mouse, so I had to use my backup mouse, and it has a button in the middle of it, below the scroll wheel, that has the internet explorer logo on it. Back when I used this mouse on my Windows computer, the button ended up setting itself to typing this whenever it was pushed: "www.bit.ly/upcpromo2018[return]", and now using it on my Mac, it does the same thing. I would like to change that, but I can't figure out how. It's a wireless mouse, it doesn't have any side buttons, on the top it says Universal Orlando Studios Partner Comm (smudge), and on the bottom is a label saying

2.4GHz Wireless Optical Mouse  Model NO.: TUV2406  Rating : 1.5V === 6.8mA  Tested To Comply With FCC Standards  FOR HOME OR OFFICE USE

Here are some pictures:

Top/Side view of mouse

Bottom view of mouse

Permissions on `brew` and `pip3`

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 01:55 PM PDT

Somehow permissions have been altered on brew and/or pip3 and both are getting errors.

brew has a lock file but when I remove it with sudo, brew commands say it iw still there. pip3 worked to install mat, but it told me I should update pip3. However, running the command it said to use gets a permissions error.

I would think that restoring from Time Machine would fix it, but I'm not quite sure what directories to restore. I don't want to 'restore' something else that was legitimately changed.

Update: brew gives a different message after reboot:

WGroleau@MBP ~ % brew update  /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/utils/lock.sh: line 29: /usr/local/var/homebrew/locks/update: Permission denied  Traceback (most recent call last):      2: from -e:1:in `<main>'      1: from -e:1:in `new'  -e:1:in `initialize': Bad file descriptor (Errno::EBADF)  Error: Another active Homebrew update process is already in progress.  Please wait for it to finish or terminate it to continue.

before, it was almost the same, but it also gave the path/name of a lock file, which I deleted, only to find a retry complained about the same file.

I did NOT run another home-brew process in parallel.

I examined the script mentioned above. Line 29 was not helpful, but a different part of the script had an error message about permissions and suggested sudo chown -R \$(whoami):staff /usr/local/var/homebrew which enabled brew to START running and do a lot, but then started complaining "no such file" in the "Cellar" and also mentioning symlinks. So I tried sudo chown -R \$(whoami):staff /usr/local/Cellar /usr/local\Homebrew /usr/local\Frameworks and that allowed brew upgrade to run a lot further. But I still got "Error: Permission denied @ apply2files - /usr/local/share/locale/am/LC_MESSAGES/glib20.mo".

Perhaps brew can only be run by the account that installed it … yes (sigh)

Website showing favicon for old site in Big Sur Safari tab

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 07:45 PM PDT

I migrated a website to a new platform and server. However, the old favicon for the old site still remains. In other browsers (Chrome, Firefox), the new favicon shows up just fine, no problems.

I tried:

  1. Clearing website cache
  2. Following instructions found on web to clear Favicon/Touch Icon folder. I could find no such beast in Big Sur.
  3. Pulling up the website in private browser mode.

I think Apple has to be pulling the favicon from the cloud or something. I see no way to change it.

Does MacOS 11.5.2 log mains failures?

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 05:10 PM PDT

If a MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) has its charger plugged in and the mains power goes off and back on, is that recorded in any log? Maybe something monitoring that USB port? (Nothing in console has "usb" in the title.)

And if so, does it work when the lid is closed (presumably sleeping)?

Calendar events created by Eventbrite disappear after 1 second

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 07:06 PM PDT

The Eventbrite app allows you to "Add to Calendar" on any event. I made sure that it has permissions to access my calendar under privacy settings. However, after adding an event to the calendar, it disappears after 1 second.

I think this may be related to my deleting of the Eventbrite calendar in the past. I was hoping it would try to recreate it, but alas it doesn't. Any suggestion for how to get this feature to work again? I tried searching, but nothing comes up.

Disk is no longer encrypted?

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 06:03 PM PDT

I swap between two external drives for Time Machine backups. I swap every few weeks. I just swapped back to a disk that used to be encrypted but it isn't anymore. The backups are working but I no longer have to enter my password. I just checked now and the other disk is still encrypted. I also checked to see whether I added the password to the keychain and I can't find it.

Here's some information about the two drives. The "Top" volume is not encrypted but the "Bottom" one is. Interestingly, the encrypted drive is a logical volume and the unencrypted drive is a physical volume. I'm not sure it's related to my problem, though.

Disk Info from Disk Utility

I have enabled FileVault on the system drive since I last used this "unencrypted" drive. Could that have caused this? Do I have to reformat and re-encrypt to reenable encryption? Is there any way to encrypt in place like I did with the system drive?

I noticed there are some questions already about similar topics but they seem to be really old. This is for Big Sur.

How do I choose which Subway line maps uses?

Posted: 19 Sep 2021 12:01 AM PDT

If I use Apple Maps for transit directions, oftentimes one of the steps will say something like this:

enter image description here

If you then tap on the row that says to take the A, C or E trains, you'll be taken to a screen like this:

enter image description here

Notice how the previous screen mentioned I could take A, C, or E trains, but this screen only shows me information about a random train it chose, the E train.

How do I change which train it's displaying information for?

For example, I'd like the same level of info about "Upcoming departures" for the A or C trains. However, no matter which element I tap on, or what swipe gestures I try, I can't seem to find a way to get information about one of the other trains.

Is there any way to do this in Apple Maps, or are we stuck with whatever Apple randomly chooses when there are multiple trains that can take you somewhere?

Update: To be clear, my question should not be confused with the initial screen showing you which route to take. I do see an option to choose many different routes:

enter image description here

My question is about once I hit "go" next to the first route in this list, which has options to take 3 different trains, how do I see information about the other 2 trains?

Airpods battery life

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 02:02 PM PDT

I just got my Airpods gen 2 a couple of weeks ago. However the battery life is nowhere near the 24 hours Apple says.

I took notes, and got 9½ hours of listen time, before the Charging Case was empty (5%; no longer charging the Airpods). Once the Case is empty, the Airpods slowly discharge, inside the Case, at around 6% per hour. This appears to be the case for others, but this would mean they would be empty within a day.

I exclusively use them when walking the dog, so 4 times a day, for about 30 minutes. I get only 4 days of use out of them, before I have to recharge them.

My question is; Is it normal to get so few hours out of them, with my usage pattern? Or should I have them checked out, by the store, under warranty? I know the 24 hour they promise is under ideal conditions, but getting around half that seems odd. Other than this, I'm really liking my Airpods.

Some additional info:

  1. My volume is always below 50%
  2. I have them connected to my iPhone 8 (which supports Bluetooth 5 AFIK)
  3. "hey siri" is disabled
  4. I only listen to podcasts (Overcast App)
  5. After walking for half an hour, the Airpods charge is around 90-93%, which is about right (10% of 5 hours = half an hour). When I put them in their case, and wait for them to charge up again, the case looses 6-8%. One would expect this to be only 2-3%.
  6. I measured charging only the case with a generic Charger Doctor, and got 326mAh of current usage (5% -> 100%).
  7. One would expect the case to add 19 hours of usage (i.e. 24h total - 5h for the Airpods themselves). So I get exactly halve.
  8. I tried looking this up, but everyone is only talking about the battery like of the airpods themselves (5h), not the case (or both combined).
  9. (I don't live near a Apple store)

How to view my custom VPN service listed in a terminal in order to export it?

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 05:05 PM PDT

When I execute this command to list my network services:

networksetup -listallnetworkservices

I only get Wifi, why my VPN configuration is not listed here (it's in the Network Preferences list) ? And how can I get it listed in the terminal ?

My goal is to export it via a terminal, edit the configuration manually in a text editor and re-import it.

EDIT

I have set "MyVPN" like below and it's connecting via this Network Configuration window. enter image description here

But when trying to list it or run it with:

networksetup -connectpppoeservice "MyVPN"

Or with:

scutil --nc start "MyVPN"  No service

Then it doesn't work.

How do I change my keyboard type to JIS in terminal?

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 10:10 PM PDT

I have a JIS type keyboard but osx is recognizing it as ANSI

Before you answer There is no "change keyboard type" button in keyboard settings

there is no file named com.apple.keyboardtype.plist

I have tried to manually open the keyboard setup wizard but when I click it nothing happens

How can I force-update HP printer drivers?

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 01:05 PM PDT

After updating to Big Sur, one of my three Mac Minis doen't recognize my HP6980 LAN-printer (neither on WiFi nor ethernet). It thinks it is a PCL-laser printer. Duplex recognized but it only prints black/white (status color cartridges not shown). The other 2 Mac Minis have no issues. How do I try to fix this?

Edit 20 dec 2020: The Mac giving the issue has a driver version 2.3 The Macs without issues have driver version 4.0.5. Even after "forcing" BS to choose the correct deskjet instead of the PCL-laser the wrong driver persists.

Can I disable font antialiasing in Terminal.app on Big Sur?

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 04:01 PM PDT

10pt Monaco looks amazing

I'm slightly addicted to how 10pt Monaco renders with antialiasing turned off in Terminal.app.

On upgrading to Big Sur, that checkbox in Preferences doesn't do anything.

toggleing antialias

Well, it does something, but it doesn't turn off antialiasing. It seems to just make the bold font less bold.

Does anyone know how to get Terminal.app to render without any antialiasing at all?

How to fix Run-time error 53 every time I open a document in Word or a worksheet in Excel on Big Sur?

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 05:41 PM PDT

Since I installed macOS Big Sur, I have run into this problem every time I open a document using Word or a worksheet using Excel or a slide show in PowerPoint:

Run-time error '53':

File not found: Library/Application Support/Adobe/MACPDFM/MacPDFM.framework/Versions/A/MacPDFM

Run-time error 53

This is very annoying, as I have to dismiss this window up to four times in a row every time I open a document on these Microsoft Office applications. I searched everywhere, including the official Microsoft website, macOS tip websites, but the information was incomplete, obsolete and did not offer a practical solution.

Does anyone know how to fix this really annoying problem?

"Wake on LAN" my Mac Mini from my PC?

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 11:03 PM PDT

I would like to be able to use the Wake On LAN feature to wake up my Mac Mini from my Windows PC, and I have tried two different programs (Solar Winds and NirSoft) but it is not working.

  1. I have already enabled "Wake for Network Access" in the settings on my Mac Mini.
  2. I have Mac Mini connected to my (Linksys) router with an Ethernet cable.
  3. I have a Windows 10 PC connected to the same router over WiFi.
  4. I can use VNC to screen share and control my Mac Mini from my PC. This works really well.
  5. I can ping the Mac Mini (when it is on) from my PC and it responds.

Any ideas on how to close the loop on this?

Is this display problem of my MacBook Air a GPU issue?

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 09:07 PM PDT

I have a 2019 MacBook Air and sometimes, this problem happens when I try to open the laptop; it glitches. I think this happens because I restored the Mac and deleted all my old files last week.

But this really only happened a few times in the past week and only happend twice. I don't know if I have to fix it or if it's covered under warranty.

pi

Force keyboard re-identification in Catalina MacOS

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 08:01 PM PDT

I switched from a Logitech keyboard to a Mac external keyboard on my macbook pro with Catalina MacOS. Every time I hit capitol M it types MZ. It could be the case that the keyboard is malfunctioning, but before I replace it I thought of trying to re-identify the keyboard and see if it helps.

MacOS user guide says this:

  1. On your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Keyboard.
  2. Click Change Keyboard Type, then follow the onscreen instructions.

However I could not find Change Keyboard Type in that interface - see screenshot below. I also tried this sudo command but it didn't work.

How I could force a keyboard re-identification?

enter image description here

Does iOS download iOS updates when using a hotspot?

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 06:18 PM PDT

I can see that iTunes and App Store has in Settings to not automatically download updates.

But what about iOS updates themselves? The recent iOS 11.3 update for example, is near 800MB, and when I use my main phone as a hotspot, then will my other iPhone silently download the iOS update?

The issue is important because the 800MB can cost up to US$12 at $15 per GB such as on Verizon, meaning that to download the update from iOS 11.2.6 to 11.3, it can cost me $12, and if 2 secondary phones, that means US$24 for downloading an update I wasn't aware of.

Does restoring from Time Machine revert also the OS?

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 06:40 PM PDT

I want to try updating my MacBook Pro 13" (2013) from Mavericks to Sierra but I am afraid of performance issues. So I would like to be able to downgrade easily if I like.

Does a Time Machine backup allow to do this? I think that if this is the case I would have to restore the backup from the Recovery Mode, right?

Thank you

Prevent Open/Save dialog from solliciting external hard drives

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 03:03 PM PDT

I have several external drives, which I don't use constantly, and so they spin down, and rest.

Unfortunately for me, every time I have the "Open..." or "Save..." dialogs, Mac OS X spins these hard drives back up, even if the currently displayed folder does not belong to those drives, and even though nothing of those drives appears anywhere (no treeview on the side, no folder from those drives in the sidebar). I don't have Spotlight enabled.

Obviously a solution would be to disconnect/reconnect those drives, but that is something I would like to avoid.

Is there a way to tell Mac OS X not to eagerly/preemptively fire up the drives?

How to stop remote connection/intrusion?

Posted: 18 Sep 2021 06:17 PM PDT

A person within my network got access to my MacBook Pro through Wi-fi, and somehow now he can connect remotely. I cannot change the Wi-fi password because we both pay for it. So, my only choice so far is to avoid not to use Wi-Fi at all, until I learn on what to do to remove his fingers of my machine.

I did 3 factory reset, cleaned up all my files but as soon I am within his range he is again messing with my files. I tripled check all my security settings such as firewall, disabled infrared receiver, created a vault, even I now use a firmware password to log into my machine.

How to stop his remote connection?

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