Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Recent Questions - Ask Different

Recent Questions - Ask Different

Can I safely delete files from /Library/Keychains

Posted: 22 Feb 2022 01:08 AM PST

I'm having serious problems with disk space, after some investigation I discovered that ~400GB (not a mistake!) of my 1TB HDD is filled with files in /Library/Keychains.

It's about 30k files of approx. size +100mb each with name pattern System.keychain.sb-* -i.e. System.keychain.sb-2531a98b-XTNIjR.

As in the title my question is if I can remove them, and how to do it in most safely way? Should I delete them from the Keychain app (these are probably Private keys) or just delete files from folder directly?

Additional subquestion is what caused that big amount of these, and how can I prevent from it in the future?

OS: Catalina 10.15.7
iMac 27 late 2012

Tab Group Confusion – How do I leave Tabs like I found them?

Posted: 22 Feb 2022 01:02 AM PST

I'm confused about Tab Groups, the new feature of Monterey. When I go to a tab group, I'm generally going to open up the home page of a website (which is what I desire & how I set it up).

But if I go to a different web page on a particular tab, or add another tab, then when I leave the group, the tab group is changed to show the last state of the tabs I was using, and any other tabs I'd added which don't necessarily reflect the tab group!

The next time I go to the group, I won't be going to the home page (which would be my preference). How to I open up a tab group and work with the tabs without changing how the tab group opens the next time??

Graphics output fuzzy on secondary external monitor

Posted: 22 Feb 2022 12:43 AM PST

I have a 2019 Macbook Pro with a 5300M GPU. I've had two external displays connected to it with everything looking crisp and neat.

  • 24" 1080p
  • 27" 4k

Now I have exchanged the smaller one with another 28" 4k screen resulting in the following setup:

enter image description here

No idea why the screens show up as 5k, both support 4k@60Hz.

I want both 4k screens to display a crisp 1440p resolution, which works fine for the LG. The Acer one shows a fuzzy / blurry image at any resolution but the native one. I have tried betterdummy, SwitchResX and RDM, but whatever seems to solve the issue for other people fails to do so for me - the resolutions can be set, but the remain fuzzy.

Any ideas what I can try?

Phone Locked to Owner [closed]

Posted: 22 Feb 2022 12:05 AM PST

I'm so disappointed in this recovery process. It states that I will receive notifications of codes, but I have no access since phone I'd in "Locked to owner". I set it up to go to my email. It did, but never unlocked. I answered & verified questions asked. Even provided my card number, all that and it said u didn't have enough information. I provided everything but my blood type. I used a family member iphone as suggested. No luck still. So last result, I gave my home phone number so I can be reached with the instructions to unlock phone. It's been over 5 days, still no call nor wait time. No email with information sent. When I go to apple recovery site as promted to check wait time status, it just generates another code to my phone, THAT IS LOCKED COMPLETELY. So that's use less. Apple Support nor Apple store can't help with this process,I need contact information for the Recovery department to straighten this out. I need my phone for my work daily. All this phone drama....calling support from home phone, being put on hold for an 1hr, using laptop to fill info as directed, and using my son's iphone just to repeat everything all over....its given me headaches & frustration. Of course I'm still reliable for my bill with my carrier though, but can't use the phone.

macOs don't wake up on bluetooth, build in keyboard

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 11:49 PM PST

I have a really annoying problem with macOs Monterey and my MacBook Pro. It's mostly connected to an external monitor and wireless keyboard and mouse from Logitech.

Lately it won't wake up from sleep when pressing the keyboard. And even if I open the lid and press a key on the built in keyboard it wakes up. I need to press the power button for it to wake up.

Any ideas how to solve this?

FileVault and erasing SSD: disk utility didn’t ask for any code or password to erase despite Firevault being on

Posted: 22 Feb 2022 12:29 AM PST

I am trying to sell my MacBook Pro 2011 and want to erase the SSD for good. It's running High Sierra. Despite what Apple says, I read it's better to have FileVault turned on and then erase the machine.

Unfortunately before I realised I should have done this, I had already erased the machine without FileVault on at all. After reading these articles I then turned on FileVault, (effectively had a blank MacOSX without any files) which generated a key, then I erased it again. However when I went to erase it the second time via Internet Recovery Mode (I don't want to re add my iCloud password to reinstall MacOS), it certainly said the drive was AFPS (encrypted) where the word encryption was new to me, however it didn't ask me to "unlock" the SSD at all. I was just able to click erase and it just said something like "are you sure you want to do this?" And as per usual I formatted it back into the usual AFPS format. The now new MacOSX has FileVault turned off again.

Now I'm concerned that the FileVault didn't even work given I was able to erase and format the SSD without a passcode or key despite FileVault being on. Shouldn't it stop me from doing these sorts of things by asking for a key? Note I never used FileVault before this and erased it once without having FileVault, so did I stuff up the process?

Thanks.

Sort 80,412 files into folders based on name begins with

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 11:24 PM PST

Situation:

  • a folder with 80,412 files
  • all files named with CamelCase, some have a dash (-) separating the first word
  • files can be grouped by beginning with the same word or letters(i.e. "ClientslistRebecca..." and "Clientslist-Adam...")
  • no file name begins with a number
  • very few files begin with a unique word

I need to take the first word, find all files that begin with that word, and create a folder named with that word. Repeat for all files.

The main complication is that sometimes a name begins with multiple capitals, followed by a word that also begins with a capital (i.e. "AWDRebecca..."). Not sure how to resolve that, but I'm fine with doing some manual cleanup afterwards if I get folders with "AWDRebecca", "AWDReports", "AWDNovember", but having a folder "A" will make it harder.

macOS Messages app not displaying images

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 11:21 PM PST

On a MacBook Air running macOS 11.6 (Big Sur) the Messages app has stopped displaying images sent with incoming messages. Images can be sent out.

I found this question, Why aren't pictures in imessages showing up on my macbook messages?. One of the answers reports that the solution to the problem for them was a file (rather than a folder) at ~/Library/Messages/Attachments. So I went checking.

There as a folder at that path, and I can browse it with Finder. But... I wanted to use the shell find command and after launching Terminal discovered that I was unable to read the contents of the Attachments directory.

% ls -l  ls: .: operation not permitted  % ls -le@d .  drwx------ 15 steeleh staff 480 Feb 21 21:48

That seem like it might be relevant, but it also makes no sense to me. id shows that I'm steeleh (e.g., I own the directory) and I'm permitted to read its contents and traverse it - and there don't appear to be any ACL entries or extended attributes. So, what's the operation that's not permitted?

On another Mac (also running Big Sur, but 11.6.4) attached to the same Messages account the images show up. The Attachments directory on this machine is also unreadable by the shell -- thought Finder can browse it. So maybe the problem is not permissions...

One difference that I notice between the machines is that on the working machine, the groups list includes 701 and 702 (com.apple.sharepoint.group.1 and .3) -- could that be the difference? According to What is the purpose of these Unix groups?, I don't think so.

M1 Mac Mini Fails to Shutdown with APC UPS Options (Monterey 12.2.1)

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 11:02 PM PST

I have an M1 Mac Mini that needs to auto-shutdown after 60 seconds on the UPS. We are using an APC Back-Ups 850VA model connected via USB.

Also, this M1 mac mini has had its data migrated from a Time Machine backup of an Intel Mac Mini running OS X El Capitan 10.11.6.

The mac properly recognizes the UPS and lists the UPS options in the Energy Saver preferences, however no matter what I set within the UPS settings, the UPS does not shutdown the machine.

The only thing that does work is a warning when the Mac Mini is drawing from the UPS.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Nothing in the previous threads have worked.

Here are the relevant settings:

pmset -g

System-wide power settings:  Currently in use:   disksleep            10   powernap             1   womp                 1   networkoversleep     0   sleep                0 (sleep prevented by coreaudiod, bluetoothd, powerd)   Sleep On Power Button 1   ttyskeepawake        1   tcpkeepalive         1   autorestart          1   standby              0

pmset -g ups

UPS settings:    haltlevel on  100    haltafter on  1    haltremain    on  15

When UPS plugged in:

Now drawing from 'AC Power'   -Back-UPS ES 850G2 FW:931.a10.D USB FW:a10 (id=25296896)   74%; charging present: true

When ups unplugged:

Now drawing from 'UPS Power'   -Back-UPS ES 850G2 FW:931.a10.D USB FW:a10 (id=25296896)   74%; discharging; 4:14 remaining present: true

Why does my iPhone create so many 1**APPLE folders to store .JPG and .MOV?

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 11:30 PM PST

I plugged in my iPhone into my Windows laptop, with a USB cable. Please see below. 1. Why does my iPhone create so many new separate folders?

  1. Why do these folders contain merely .JPG and .MOV?

Doubtless I did not create them! I prefer just one folder to store .JPG and .MOV! Clicking on each of these 85 folders wastes time!

enter image description here

Why is my Catalina installation throwing up errors about SecurityAgent / login keychain overnight, and showing a grey lock screen?

Posted: 22 Feb 2022 01:15 AM PST

This is a slightly difficult issue to describe precisely but I'll do my best. About six weeks ago, my installation of Catalina (10.15.7, MacBook Pro 13" 2020 / MacBookPro16,2) started to exhibit some strange behaviour when left running overnight (or possibly: when left running unattended for several hours).

Sometimes, but by no means every day, I'll return to the machine in the morning and wake the screen to see a grey lock screen (no background image) and a prompt that will often only accept my password (i.e. not Touch ID). Upon unlocking the machine I'll see a series of errors and password prompts, which seem to be stuck in a loop (or maybe there are just enough of them queued up that it seems like a loop). These messages include:

Unapproved caller. SecurityAgent may only be invoked by Apple software  ---  Unrecoverable error. SecurityAgent was unable to create requested mechanism builtin:unlock-keychain.  ---  accountsd wants to use the "login" keychain. Please enter the keychain password.  ---  callservicesd wants to use the "login" keychain. Please enter the keychain password.  ---  identityservicesd wants to use the "login" keychain. Please enter the keychain password.  ---  CallHistorySyncHelper wants to use the "login" keychain. Please enter the keychain password.  ---  assistantd wants to use the "login" keychain. Please enter the keychain password.  ---  CommCenter wants to use the "login" keychain. Please enter the keychain password.

The system will give the appearance of being usable but isn't really. Symptoms include:

  • Finder and Dock repeatedly restarting
  • Generally unable to interact with menubar, e.g. to shut down
  • Inconsistent ability to tab between apps and interact with or quit them
  • Unable to start new apps from Dock or menubar shortcuts (icons just bounce for a while)

So far I have never been able to cleanly shut down the machine in this state and have had to power it off using the Touch ID / power button.

When booting back up, everything seems fine except sometimes Touch ID preferences have been reset (i.e. I have to enrol my finger again) and on one occasion my saved Bluetooth devices, except for mouse and keyboard, were deleted. For what it's worth, it does seem that if I "catch" the problem quickly enough, e.g. returning to the machine late at night, the damage is more limited and Touch ID is not always reset, however the other issues remain. I have also tried putting the machine into standby overnight by closing the lid, rather than leaving it running, but at least once the issue has still occurred (presumably the machine is waking up at some point overnight to do something).

I'm a bit stumped as to how to diagnose this. My hunch is that it's something to do with the system somehow losing access to Keychain – based on mentions in the error messages above. I did have iCloud Keychain enabled previously, but disabled it a couple of weeks ago, and the issue has happened at least once since then.

An answer to another question mentions Keychain permissions – these are mine, in case they're relevant:

# /Library/Keychains:  0 drwxr-xr-x   9 root  wheel             288B  9 Feb 08:07 Keychains    # /Library/Keychains/System.keychain  248 -rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   120K  7 Jan 13:16 /Library/Keychains/System.keychain    # ~/Library/Keychains/ [with redactions]  total 928    0 drwx--x--x   7 james  staff   224B 14 Feb 10:07 .    0 drwx------@ 85 james  staff   2.7K 10 Feb 12:22 ..    0 -r--r--r--   1 james  staff     0B  7 Dec  2020 .XXXXXXXXXX    0 -r--------   1 james  staff     0B  7 Dec  2020 .XXXXXXXXXX    0 drwx------  11 james  staff   352B 14 Feb 09:06 XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX  880 -rw-r--r--@  1 james  staff   439K 14 Feb 10:07 login.keychain-db   48 -rw-------   1 james  staff    23K 14 Feb 09:41 metadata.keychain-db

Any light that anyone might be able to shed on this would be much appreciated! I have a TODO list item to upgrade to Big Sur, at which stage this might become moot, but until then I would really like to understand it better and avoid having to do these forced-shutdowns every now and then.

Thanks for reading and if I can provide any more info or data please ask.

Can we get a stronger GUI indication of a change in Input Source?

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 07:44 PM PST

I often switch input sources to type in different languages' alphabets.

Because the same key is used to switch to each new input source, it is hard to remember the state of the system. Of course I can look at the toolbar, but that is just a small indicator.

Can we get a stronger indication, like a change in the color of the toolbar and dock, as input sources change?

Open the most recently closed Finder location (tab or window) with a keyboard shortcut

Posted: 22 Feb 2022 01:11 AM PST

In Finder, I can reopen a tab or window I just accidentally closed by going into the Go > Recent Folders menu and pick one of the recent folders from the list.

I'd like to open it with shortcut ⌘ ⇧ T instead, but I'm not sure how to approach this.

  • Can I bind a key combo to a menu item with a variable name? If yes, how does that work?
  • If not, are there any options to do this in a shell command or with AppleScript?

Thanks!

EDIT: I've found that BetterTouchTool allows adressing menu items with variable names/labels, but now I need to predict the position of the last closed tab in the A-Z sorted list of recent locations.

Enter the path to the menubar item you want to click, separated by >semicolons. For example: "File;New:Window" (without the quotes!) will trigger the menubar item named "Window"

You can also trigger a menu-item by it's position (e.g. if the title >varies). For example: "File; (2)" will trigger the second item in the >File menu. "(2);(2)" will trigger the second item in the File menu. >Just always put the position in parentheses.

If an item can have multiple names based on it's state (e.g. hide >and show) you can use || to toggle one of them. For example >Edit;Start Dictation|l Cancel Dictation will either start or cancel >dictation :-)

Additionally you can use a wildcard if a menu-item has variable parts

The Go > Recent Folders menu: no way to tell the position of the last closed folder due to this list being sorted by name:

macos recent folders in Finder

Monterey VM reboot loop and kernel panic in VirtualBox 6.1.32 (on Apple host hardware)

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 08:29 PM PST

Environment

  • Apple MBA 2020 MacBook Air9,1 / Intel / x86_64 machine
  • Host OS: macOS Big Sur 11.6.2
  • Host OS Build: 20G314
  • SW: VirtualBox 6.1.32 r149290 (also tried on VirtualBox 6.1.30 r148432)
  • Guest OS: macOS Monterey 12.1 (21C52)

Purpose

  • Upgrade VM from Big Sur 11.6.2 (fully functional with VB 6.1.32) to Monterey 12.1.
    OR
  • Installation from scratch a Monterey VM. Both have same final result: instability.

After the first boot with Monterey, the VM suddenly HANGS AND REBOOTED BY ITSELF, reporting "This system was automatically rebooted after panic". It seems it enters in a "reboot loop" because after some time, even doing nothing, a reboot still happen again and again, like in an infinite loop.

How to reproduce

  1. Open VB 6.1.32

2a. Start a VM upgraded to Monterey
OR
2b. Start a VM installed from scratch with Monterey
OR
2.c Start a VM with "Install macOS Monterey ISO" as only Storage added to VM (NO other Hardisk present)

  1. Just wait some time...

==> You'll see in 0-15 min Guest OS HANGS AND SUDDENLY REBOOTS by itself.
==> Then the console message is: "This system was automatically rebooted after panic"

Logs and info

I unfortunately continue to note the instability of Monterey as Guest with VB 6.1.32, even on Apple Hardware!

All config data, and a video are at disposal to have an idea, as well as VB Logs (see attachments).

Questions

I asked to VirtualBox forum here topic 104998 with hope of receiving helpful feedback, which has not been the case as yet.

I'm primarily interested in sharing to the community and finding other user experiences.

Does the same or similar behaviour happens to someone else?
Has anyone perhaps applied a workaround or found a fix?
Has anyone ever gotten a really stable and usable Monterey guest installation (on Mac HW) with VirtualBox?

Added later...


I just came back a few days later, just for a minor update on this topic.

I was wandering if something changed with Monterey (Host), perhaps hardware resources are managed differently in Monterey, or that more generally something has changed.

So I just repeated the tasks with the same VM, so VirtualBox 6.1.32 with Monterey (Guest) on Monterey (Host on Apple hardware)

Environment (revised)

  • Apple MBA 2020 MakBookAir9,1 / Intel / x86_64 machine
  • Host OS: macOS Monterey 12.1
  • Host OS Build: 21C52
  • SW: VirtualBox 6.1.32 r149290
  • Guest OS: macOS Monterey 12.1 (21C52)

I unfortunately note that the result is still the same: VM do a reboot loop and kernel panic.

On Monterey, where are the downloaded wallpapers saved?

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 09:17 PM PST

I am on the new Monterey macOS, and it appears in System Preferences that you have to download some wallpapers, such as the wallpaper for Big Sur, Catalina, etc. When I download it, where exactly is it stored?

QEMU Clipboard Sharing on MacOS Host and Linux Guest

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 10:06 PM PST

I have QEMU running successfully on macOS Monterey 12.0.1
I'm running a ParrotOS VM, and everything is working except that the clipboard is not shared between the host and guest.

I have installed spice-vdagent in the guest OS but that has not helped.

Here is the QEMU command I'm using to start the guest OS:

qemu-system-x86_64 \      -m 8G \      -vga virtio \      -display default,show-cursor=on \      -usb \      -device usb-tablet \      -machine type=q35,accel=hvf \      -drive file=parrot-2021.11.qcow2,if=virtio

Blocking/Remove Boot Camp ablities

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 06:01 PM PST

I'm looking for a way to prevent Boot Camp from being used on a mac. IDEALLY while keeping the user as an admin (or close to it). The issue I see is that basic user access is too restrictive and admin is too liberal. Users should be trusted to install their own apps yet I don't want them booting from a different partition.

I've tried to delete Boot Camp Assistant but that is restricted, even when using csrutil. I can't even set the permissions on it.

Any ideas on how to disable or remove it while allowing users to install other apps?

I saw How to disable Boot Camp and prevent any other OS installations? but it doesn't have an accepted answer (because it doesn't answer the question)

Kaspersky Anti Virus software

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 08:04 PM PST

I'm trying to install Micro Trend Anti Virus; however, I at one time had Kaspersky Anti Virus software. I can't download Micro Trend because it says Kaspersky needs to be removed. However, I cannot find Kaspersky anywhere on my MAC in order to remove/uninstall. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to remove this?

Desktop icon for mounted NAS volume changes location and it annoys me

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 11:06 PM PST

Question relates to the desktop icon for a mounted networked drive.

MacOS 10.14.6 - Seagate NAS SMB - Computer stays on and is set to never sleep. Airport Extreme.

I mount the drive/volume and I get an icon. I put the icon in a specific location and then at some point it moves to first available location on desktop. How can I make it stay where I put it? It's not a huge thing but it is annoying.

Every other icon on my desktop stays where I put it (Time Capsule drives, Time Machine USB drive, internal drive, files, folders, etc.)

My hunch is that the connection to the drive times out and then automatically reconnects, during this process the icon goes away (connection to drive ends) and then comes back and goes to first open location (connection to drive is re-established).

Any ideas on how to keep my NAS drive/volume icon where I put it?

bash does not honor ~/.inputrc

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 06:19 PM PST

under the latest macos

$ sw_vers  ProductName:    Mac OS X  ProductVersion: 10.15.6  BuildVersion:   19G73

i am using the latest bash (installed via brew)

$ $SHELL --version  GNU bash, version 5.0.18(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin19.5.0)  Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>    This is free software; you are free to change and redistribute it.  There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

and bash is defined as the default shell (chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash + reboot)

$ which $SHELL  /usr/local/bin/bash    $ cat /etc/shells | tail -n 1  /usr/local/bin/bash

to customize bash, i have ~/.inputrc

$ ls -l ~/.inputrc  -rw------- 1 foo staff 1432 Jan 21  2020 /Users/foo/.inputrc

that holds the following

set completion-ignore-case on  "\e[B": history-search-forward  "\e[A": history-search-backward

i used to be able to reverse-search using case-insensitive, but now it stopped working.

even tried to run set completion-ignore-case on and bind 'set completion-ignore-case on' directly in the terminal but it did not solve my issue.

  1. is there a bug in the bash version that i am using?
  2. how can i tell whether bash honors ~/.inputrc?
  3. how do you recommend to debug the issue?

How do I permanently keep a network share in my Finder favorites?

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 06:52 PM PST

I added one of my network shares to my favorites. Whenever I lose connection to that share it gets removed from my favorites. How do I prevent this from happening?

How can I reset Safari when Safari is broken?

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 07:33 PM PST

I started up Safari and let it import history from Firefox, but now Safari is behaving very strangely. For example, many of the menu options are greyed out.

I want to reset Safari to a blank slate, but the Clear History... option isn't available.

enter image description here

I tried deleting ~/Library/Safari/ and ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari but it didn't seem to have any effect; Safari is still broken. How can I more thoroughly reset Safari when the app itself seems broken?

This is using an Administrator account. Running macOS Mojave 10.14.5 (18F203) and Safari 12.1.1 (14607.2.6.1.1).

If I copy an application already listed under Purchased to the Applications folder, will it be able to update through the App Store?

Posted: 22 Feb 2022 01:05 AM PST

If I copy an application already have in my Apple ID (Edit: for example, Xcode) from another computer to the Applications folder, will the Mac App Store be able to update it?

Or will I have to do something manually in order to enable updates from that app?

How to reset safari 9.0.3

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 07:29 PM PST

In older versions there was an option to reset safari

But in 9.0.3 I am not seeing this option

What are the alternatives? How can I reset safari 9.0.3?

How to save contacts on iPhone with broken screen?

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 10:06 PM PST

I dropped my iPhone and broke the screen (is just black). So I bought a new iPhone but I want to sync all my contacts and of course the screen is locked and moved to the side. It looks something like the image below.

enter image description here

On the lock screen I can only see numbers given below.

12  45  78  0

Now I can't unlock my phone to sync to iCloud. How can I save my contacts ?

How to write out a NORMAL tilde sign (~) in Mac?

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 08:36 PM PST

I switched to Mac recently. The only thing that's disturbing me until now is the missing of the tilde sign (~). The closest thing I achieved to this sign is the accent tilde (˜). My passwords are not satisfied with that second little tilde sign.

I'm using a U.S International PC keyboard layout.

How do I make the tilde sign work on my Mac?

Where are Microsoft Office for Mac My Templates stored?

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 08:38 PM PST

Where do Word for Mac and Powerpoint for Mac store user templates?

What software is available (preferably free) to edit PDF files on Mac OS X?

Posted: 21 Feb 2022 11:55 PM PST

What free software/app is there to edit pdf files on Mac OS X?

Specifically I am looking to edit an existing PDF file and re-save it in PDF format.
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