Monday, December 20, 2021

Recent Questions - Ask Different

Recent Questions - Ask Different

How can I open or read /textClipping files from early- or pre-OS X systems

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 08:32 AM PST

I have text clippings (.textClipping) from various previous Mac systems ranging through System 8 and all the various OS X versions.

On BigSur, these appear blank. On previous systems they also appeared blank, but (weirdly) I could still cut'n'paste the text, but not with BigSur.

I've tried:

  1. a heavily-promoted site (loaded with annoying pop-ups) that promised to convert them online, but no result.
  2. using DeRez in devTools (as another answer suggested) to no avail.

I do have older Macs with previous OS X versions, but I really need a way to extract the text from a modern Mac - there must be a load of people with the same issue!

How to Restore MacOs from Time Machine without Library folder?

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 08:28 AM PST

I did a clean install of my Mac and want to restore some files now. With Migration Assistent you can select different types that you want to restore (Apps, Account (like documents e.d.), Other files and folders and

Now I want to restore only my documents, music and images. But if I select these options, Library will also be check automatically and can't be checked off.

Is the only way to restore specific folders after installing MacOs or can I also uncheck the box in Migration Assistent?

Shell script for searching custom search engine no longer works in Catalina (Ruby)

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 08:29 AM PST

I recently upgraded from Mac OS Mojave to Catalina. On Mojave, I used a quick action to perform web searches via Google's encrypted search engine at encrypted.google.com. The quick action script is open "https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=$(ruby -rcgi -e 'print CGI.escape $<.read.chomp')".

This script no longer works in Catalina due to deprecated Ruby support. Does anyone know how I could script the same action in Catalina?

Certificate appears in 'Certificates' instead of 'My Certificates' and is not detected by browser

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 07:45 AM PST

I have a client certificate that I need to access my company's internal systems. I have exported it from Windows as a .pfx file, including the private key, and converted it to a .pem file using openSSL on my Mac. When I try to import the .pem certificate to the macOS keychain, it appears in the Certificates tab without the private key, instead of the My Certificates tab with the private key as expected.

I used the following command to convert the PFX file to PEM format:

openssl pkcs12 -in my_cert.pfx  -out my_cert.pem -nodes

Mac Mini M1 on Monterey (just about) broke home sharing to Apple TV

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 07:39 AM PST

I like to watch my (mp4) video files on my living room tv via an Apple TV (3rd gen).

I just swapped from Mac Mini M1 running Big Sur to a different Mac Mini M1 running Monterey (double the RAM and double the storage) and now using Apple TV to access media files is practically unusable. It often won't see files or is super slow and then runs out of buffer.

Mac Mini is wired to network I see no network issues. I've tried rebooting everything (Mac Mini, Apple TV, router, etc.). I've tried turning off Home Sharing and turning it back on. I still have old Mac Mini and it still works fine.

Any ideas on how to get Home Sharing working on new-to-me Mac Mini M1?

Tried to add a partition to APFS external drive and can no longer access data

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 07:20 AM PST

I am no longer able to access an external Samsung hard drive in APFS format connected to an M1 MacBook Air. I think it may be because I unsuccessfully tried adding an additional partition to the drive a little while ago, but I can't remember exactly what I did now.

I've tried using First Aid on the Disk Utility, and have also tried fsck in the terminal, which gives me this error:

   Checking the checkpoint with transaction ID 13617.  warning: container has been mounted by APFS version 1933.12.1, which is newer than 1677.141.2  warning: disabling overallocation repairs by default; use -o to override  ** Checking the space manager.  ** Checking the space manager free queue trees.  ** Checking the object map.  ** Checking volume.  ** Checking the APFS volume superblock.     The volume 1TB HDD was formatted by newfs_apfs (748.77.12) and last modified by apfs_userfs (1677.82.1).  ** Checking the object map.  error: (oid 0x148d2d) om: bt: invalid o_oid (0x407)  error: (oid 0x148d2d) om: bt: invalid o_xid (0x3532)  error: (oid 0x148d2d) om: bt: invalid o_type (0x3, expected 0x40000002)  error: (oid 0x148d2d) om: bt: invalid o_subtype (0xe, expected 0xb)  error: (oid 0x148d2d) om: bt: invalid o_type (0x3, expected 0x40000002)     Object map is invalid.  ** The volume /dev/disk6s2 could not be verified completely.

I'm hoping it may be possible to repair the issue rather than use recovery software.

Looking at previous similar posts, I think it might be useful if I provide the following additional information:

/dev/disk6 (external, physical):     #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER     0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk6     1:                        EFI ⁨EFI⁩                     209.7 MB   disk6s1     2:                 Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk5⁩         999.3 GB   disk6s2     3:                 Apple_Boot ⁨Recovery HD⁩             650.0 MB   disk6s3    
       start        size  index  contents             0           1         PMBR             1           1         Pri GPT header             2          32         Pri GPT table            34           6                     40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B        409640  1951825472      2  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC    1952235112     1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC    1953504648           7             1953504655          32         Sec GPT table    1953504687           1         Sec GPT header

Thank you in advance. Any help would be appreciated as I have spent all day on this with no luck, sadly.

Big Sur Time Machine only using ~3.5 gb to backup a fresh install

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 07:09 AM PST

I previously had Catalina on my mac and a time machine backup was taking up the same size as the size of the usage on the drive. I updated to a fresh install of Big Sur and now when I try to do a backup on the fresh install it is only taking up 3.5gb out of the total 20gb size of the drive.

Why is this the case? Is time machine creating a full back up of my drive (including system files and everything)? Will I be able to restore to this point whenever and get back to this same initial state of the fresh install?

'/usr/local/bin/curl' and '/usr/local/bin/ssh' commands are killed when executed in macOS Monterey

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 06:56 AM PST

I recently updated my M1 MacBook Air to macOS Monterey (I'm not sure if this is related to the problem though), and now my curl and ssh commands in /usr/local/bin don't function at all.

  • Both commands immediately exit with zsh: killed *cmd*
  • In a bash shell the output is Killed: 9
  • Both of these binaries in /usr/bin work fine. Since /usr/local/bin is before /usr/bin in $PATH, the faulty one is executed first when I type the command by itself.
  • No other commands in /usr/local/bin have this problem.
  • These two commands are two of the three commands in the permission group admin in /usr/local/bin. The other is the code command for Visual Studio Code and it works fine.

From other posts it seems this can happen if a program uses too much memory and the system kills it, but since the command does nothing I don't think that's the case.

I also have Homebrew installed, I'm not sure if it is causing the problem:

HOMEBREW_VERSION: 3.3.8  ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew  HEAD: 3f0b412951996a675b8a48037e9a978f0ccd8363  Last commit: 7 days ago  Core tap ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core  Core tap HEAD: ce6e56a7aea61debc6ccbe4af77dd4e7d634a6dc  Core tap last commit: 20 hours ago  Core tap branch: master  HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /opt/homebrew  HOMEBREW_CASK_OPTS: []  HOMEBREW_CORE_GIT_REMOTE: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core  HOMEBREW_MAKE_JOBS: 8  Homebrew Ruby: 2.6.8 => /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.6/usr/bin/ruby  CPU: octa-core 64-bit arm_firestorm_icestorm  Clang: 13.0.0 build 1300  Git: 2.31.1 => /opt/homebrew/bin/git  Curl: 7.77.0 => /usr/bin/curl  macOS: 12.1-arm64  CLT: 13.2.0.0.1.1638488800  Xcode: 13.2.1  Rosetta 2: false

I have the curl package installed through Homebrew, but it is keg-only so it isn't symlinked and doesn't get used. I don't have the OpenSSH package installed through Homebrew.

I would appreciate any guidance on what the problem is or how to get more information than 'killed'.

How do I disable language switch popup?

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 06:18 AM PST

I'm a new member of apple products community and I'm learning how to setup a process I've got used to. One of inconveniences is language switch. When I'm trying to change language I get a popup with language list (see pic below). The problem is it introduces a small delay before change actually applies (which meh but I can live with it) and the bigger problem that if your mouse is around screen center then mouse pointer overrides language selection and you can stuck with one language unless you move the cursor somewhere

enter image description here

I wonder if there is any way to workaround it with OS X built in tools. I'd really like to not install any 3rd party tools or assigning switch to another key - this one works just fine, the only problem is this pop up.

Seamlessly change all desktop spaces' wallpaper on Mac without killall Dock

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 05:33 AM PST

I would like to change the wallpaper on ALL desktops including spaces on Mac but without needing to call killall Dock each minute. (Dock restarting forces wallpaper refresh).

I have an AppleScript that changes the desktop wallpaper instantly:

tell application "System Events" to tell every desktop to set picture to wallpaperPath

but that only changes the wallpaper on the active space (meaning that if the main desktop is not active, its background will not change).

I found this question https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36185506/how-to-loop-through-all-mac-desktop-spaces which suggests updating wallpaper path values in the SQLite database located at ~/Library/Application Support/Dock/desktoppicture.db. This changes the wallpaper at every space which is great but it requires restart of the dock using killall Dock which is undesirable as it disrupts the workflow.

My question is - is there some way to combine these two approaches? Seamlessly change wallpapers on every desktop space?

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I have no preferred language, it can be in C, Swift, Python, Bash, AppleScript etc.

Audio flow - connections

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 05:25 AM PST

is there a way to connect output sound from an app to input sound to another?

I want to play on sonobus, but I would like to equalize first my instrument, may be through garageband for example.

On Linux exists qjackctl that allows audio connections flows:

enter image description here

I see some third party software like loopback, but I don't know if exists something standard or out of the box.

Please, be nice, my first question here.

How can I change input source in MacOS using Windows-style Shift + Command shortcut?

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 04:52 AM PST

I've been using Windows for most of my life and at this point I've developed a muscle memory to use Shift + Alt when I want to change language. Now besides my Windows PC I'm also using Macbook Air as my personal laptop and I was frustrated to learn that I can't simply go to System preferences and assign Shift + Command to change input source... from what I understood you need a 3rd party tool for that. I've tried Punto Switcher but it crashes from time to time on my M1 Mac and looks like it hasn't been updated in a while. Karabiner is confusing to setup and it caused me a kernel panic once. =(

Is there another small (and preferably free) app that will allow me to do that?

I'm using macOS Big Sur (11.6)

Thanks in advance! =)

Cannot store files on Time Machine backup drive

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 04:20 AM PST

I needed to format an external hard drive from Mac OS Extended (journaled, encrypted), the only available option was APFS.

On this hard drive, I had my time machine backup in Backups.backupdb and several folders with files, for example:

├── Backups.backupdb  ├── Music  └── Pictures

With the new file system, I am not able to use the hard drive for both time machine and files at the same time. When I set it up for time machine backup, the drive is full with snapshots and cannot be modified by me (e.g., store files), for example:

├── Snapshot 1  ├── Snapshot 2  └── Snapshot 3

Has this changed? How can I resolve this issue?

Files created from my M1 Macbook on a Synology NAS get the wrong 'owner'

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 05:43 AM PST

I connect to the NAS via AFP (NFS is not working for me.)

The problem started after the last software upgrade on my M1 Macbook (version 12.0.1.) The files I create get owner 1026 (guest.)

I am user 501.

I can solve it by using chown, but that is obviously not the solution. There seems a change in 'user mapping' from Apple to the synology NAS. I am at a loss to figure this out.

How to make Logic Pro X window vertically shorter than minimum?

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 03:06 AM PST

All I want are temporarily scrubbing, play, pause, in a tiny window. The minimum window size of logic is too large.

Record video with monitor mirrored

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 02:57 AM PST

QuickTime Player > New movie recording shows the video as it will be after recording (not mirrored).

Photo Booth shows a mirrored view but cannot record video.

On macOS, how can I record a video while watching myself in the "mirror"?

How to get file from iCloud to Mac without duplicating it on Mac?

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 04:42 AM PST

  1. I have a big file in iCloud and I need to get it on my Mac.
  2. In Finder, in left side menu "iCloud > iCloud Drive" I have access to iCloud contents. So, I download my big file by clicking a cloud with down arrow icon near the file title. It takes some time to download the file from iCloud to Mac. The big file icon becomes more "materialized" and the cloud with down arrow icon disappears, indicating that now this file is already present on Mac.
  3. Now I need to get this big file on my Desktop folder. But how can I do that?

Of course I can copy/paste this file from "iCloud Drive" folder into "Desktop" folder. But this duplicates my big file (if I am correct) - it appears on my Desktop and still exists in the place where it was downloaded to, so it takes double space after copying/pasting it. But I don't want to duplicate it - I just need to move this downloaded file to my Desktop without duplicating it. Of course I still need this file to stay in iCloud.

So, the question is: how to get my file, downloaded from iCloud, into my Desktop without duplicating it? I would expect that some cache exists somewhere where this file was downloaded, but I have no idea where it is. If I knew where it was downloaded, then I would just move it from cache right into Desktop without duplicating it by copying/pasting.

Mail search and flag not working

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 02:41 AM PST

Mail.app search doesn't work for me.

And I can't open my flagged messages.

Trying either doesn't change the currently-displayed list of emails in the column. Searching will change "4687 messages" to "Found 0 results" or "Found 4687 results", but not actually filter the list of emails.

The same inboxes/accounts on my iPhone support search and I can see the flagged emails too.

How can I get Mail.app to start working correctly again and filter messages? It should be in sync with my iPhone experience.

Separately assign desktop with dual installation of an app on MacOS Monterey

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 02:39 AM PST

I have installed Firefox twice on my system and I have multiple desktops (Spaces) set up. I have then renamed one of the installations to "Firefox - Work" using instructions here: How do I rename an app in MacOS properly?

What I'm trying to do is to get "Firefox" to be assigned to one desktop, and "Firefox - Work" on the other desktop.

Currently, when I assign one of the firefox installations to one desktop, the other one also gets assigned to the same desktop.

How can i control them separately ?

Receiving multiple files, not just one, in a Shortcut on macOS 12 Monterey

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 08:30 AM PST

I'm porting an Automator action to Shortcuts and I'm having a bit of trouble. Here's my Automator action:

oxipng Quick Action in Big Sur's Automator

The snippet of zsh inside is:

for f in "$@"  do      /usr/local/bin/oxipng -pD -o max "$f"  done

This Automator action lets me select a bunch of PNG files in Finder, right-click on them, choose Services → oxipng -pD -o max, and after a while, the files will be smaller thanks to oxipng.

However, when I try to port it to Shortcuts, I'm a bit stuck. Here's what I have so far, in a Shortcut with a less nerdy name, an adjusted path to oxipng, and some debugging printfs:

oxipng with libdeflate Shortcut

As an aside, the Shortcut Input to the Run Shell Script action is Type: File, Get: File Path. By default, names passed in don't have the full file path or file extensions.

When I run the Shortcut with only one image selected, everything runs just as it used to. However, if I select a bunch of files, I'm prompted to choose only one of them. The prompt looks like this:

Shortcut prompting me for paths

How can I get my Shortcut to process all the files that I've passed to it?

How I can I open CSV/Excel files in Finder and have them open in the Google Sheets editor?

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 07:52 AM PST

On my work computer, I'd like to be able to open CSV and Excel files from within Finder and have them load directly into the Google Sheets editor.

Setting Finder to open the files in Google Chrome does load the file in Google Drive, but you still need to go one more step and click "Save as Google Sheets".

enter image description here

Mac Terminal or iTerm: Copy the current command but exclude prompt?

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 06:45 AM PST

I am using Terminal or iTerm (iTerm2). Let's say I've typed in a command but haven't hit enter yet. Or maybe I used the up arrow to navigate through my command history. How do I copy the current command to the MacOS clipboard? But I also don't want it to include the prompt. Is there a keyboard short cut to do this?

For example, let's say the terminal is showing this:

myhostname:Documents kevuser$ mkdir cool_directory_name

What is the keyboard shortcut to copy mkdir cool_directory_name to the Mac OS clipboard? Can I add that functionality somehow? It feels like every time I try to copy the whole line it includes the prompt part of the terminal, myhostname:Documents kevuser$, which I don't want to be copied and pasted.

Disabling "Exchange Password Required" Temporarily

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 03:32 AM PST

I have an Exchange account, that only works behind a corporate VPN on my personal laptop.

As soon as I'm disconnected from the VPN this appears

enter image description here

If I click close, it just keeps on popping up.

I just want it to stop pestering me when I'm not connected to the VPN.

Dynamic XFA PDF forms on a Mac and Safari

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 04:03 AM PST

I am using Mac OS 10.13.6. I have downloaded and installed the latest version of Adobe Reader. I use Safari as my browser.

I am going to a website which has Dynamic XFA PDF forms. Each time I click on the link I get the error message

If this message is not eventually replaced by the proper contents of the document, your PDF viewer may not be able to display this type of document.  You can upgrade to the latest version of Adobe Reader for Windows®, Mac, or Linux® by visiting http://www.adobe.com/go/reader_download.

I searched the web and most solutions (like download the form) didn't work for me.

I don't know what more can I do. This is so infuriating that in 2019 I cannot fill forms on the internet (thanks to curse and cancer of Adobe)

List of all packages installed using Homebrew

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 02:56 AM PST

Is it possible to and how do I get a list of all the packages installed on my Mac using Homebrew? I am not interested in packages installed outside of Homebrew.

iTunes can no longer find music files after changing IP address of NAS

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 05:43 AM PST

I have a problem with finding my music again in iTunes after the IP address was changed of my NAS where all my music resides.

After switching internet providers, I changed the layout of my home network. Formerly my NAS could be reached on IP 192.168.0.12, but the new modem demands another IP range, so my NAS is now at 192.168.1.200.

I connect to my NAS (QNAP TS-410) through NFS to a folder called QMultimedia. I mapped the folder to Finder so I have easy access to it and iTunes uses that folder. Next to NFS, I use the same mapping via a Samba share and an AFP share through Bonjour.

After I changed the network location everything is working fine (XBMC, Finder, Time-Machine), except that iTunes cannot find any of my music anymore. If I open a track in iTunes, it will hang for a while (showing the eternal flame for a minute) and then display a message that is could not find the track because it cannot find the path (192.168.0.12, the old location) and if I want to search for it. I can, but I can only do that for a single track and with a few hundred tracks of music, it is an impossible job to remap my music this way.

Did someone experienced this before and how did you solve it? Is there a way to get it easily working again without reorganizing and relabeling all my music in iTunes again? Any suggestions are welcome!

I am experienced with PCs and networking, but a little new with OSX, the Terminal and Bash. I am running iTunes 10.6.3 on a mid-2010 MBP on Mountain Lion.

MacBook Pro detects external monitor but shows black screen

Posted: 20 Dec 2021 07:07 AM PST

MacBook Pro 8,1 (13", i5 2.3Ghz) - when I connect an external screen through a MiniDP -> DVI adapter the Mac detects it (knows it's a Samsung SyncMaster and lets me change its resolution) but doesn't show anything on screen. Even though the Mac thinks that the screen works properly (I can move the cursor out of the Mac's screen), the external monitor's led blinks as there was no signal at all. Changing screen resolution doesn't help.

I've browsed many similar questions on the internet, unfortunately most of them suggest upgrading the OS. I'm using Mac OSX 10.6.8 Snow Leopard. What should I do?
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