Troubleshooting

Tip: Use OS X services to reveal or open file paths

Apple's Spotlight offers a quick way to find user files and resources like applications or system preferences. However, it does not locate items in the system folder or in hidden folders, though at times you might need to access them. This limitation may be especially cumbersome to deal with if you are troubleshooting a problem in OS X or helping someone do so, meaning you may need to ask them to locate a specific hidden file and remove it or modify its contents.

For some system resources you can simply navigate through the Finder; however, in its default view … Read more

Help! My program is truncating my numbers!

If you use popular computational programs such as spreadsheet workhorses Microsoft Excel and Apple Numbers, you might run into an issue in which, when using large number values, the system will appear to truncate the values of numbers entered.

For instance, if you open Excel and enter the value "12345678901234567890" into a cell, the program will change this to "12345678901234500000," where every value past the 15th character is set to zero. This happens in Apple's Numbers spreadsheet and other programs as well.

While the significance of the last numbers is perhaps questionable, it does limit … Read more

IPv6 tunneling broken with latest AirPort updates

9to5Mac is reporting an issue involving Apple's AirPort utility and Time Capsule updates released last week. A number of Mac users who use IPv6-based tunneling to connect to their devices have found they can no longer do so after installing the latest firmware and updates to their AirPort and Time Capsule devices.

This problem mirrors similar past issues with firmware updates on Apple's router devices, and is likely from a small configuration bug in the firmware. Unfortunately the issue likely can only be fixed with a supplemental update. In the meantime, if you use IPv6 tunneling and are … Read more

Q&A: MacFixIt Answers

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week, readers wrote in with questions about a system not loading past the gray Apple screen, an external DVD player not working, how to switch to internal speakers with headphones attached, and trouble enabling X-Ray folder view in the Finder. I welcome views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: System not loading past the gray Apple screen MacFixIt reader Greg asks:

I can start my system, and hear … Read more

Flash update fixes active exploits for both OS X and Windows

Java is not the only runtime that malware developers use to target victims of their attacks, and yesterday Adobe released an update to Flash that fixes two zero-day exploits in its popular Web plug-in software.

The two vulnerabilities in question affect both OS X and Windows systems, and allow malicious Flash content on Web sites to deliver malware to Macintosh systems via Firefox and Safari. The second vulnerability targets Windows users by tricking them into opening an e-mail attachment that contains the Flash-based exploit.

These problems are considered critical, so if you have Flash enabled on your system (which most … Read more

Manage collapsed window errors in Lion or Mountain Lion

Apple's autosave and resume features in OS X offer a great way to preserve your workflow if a program crashes or you simply need to quit it. However, these features do somewhat depend on the system's display output being constant, and may have some problems if you regularly change the system's display format.

If you use a MacBook system and plug in external monitors or if you regularly change display resolutions, then you might find certain programs (particularly Apple's TextEdit) will sometimes gather all windows into a collapsed group at some location on your display. This … Read more

Reverting file URL bug mishaps in Mountain Lion

Before it was revealed, the file URL error in OS X was a fairly obscure and benign bug, and perhaps still is for the most part; however, since learning about it, a number of people have tried it out on their systems to have some fun, only to find that in some instances the bug may stick and perpetually crash a particular program.

While it is known that the offending string that triggers the bug will be saved in crash logs, which in turn can crash the Crash Reporter and Console applications, it may also be saved in a program'… Read more

Assertion bug will crash apps in Mountain Lion if triggered

The Next Web has uncovered a bug in OS X that will crash the current application almost every time if invoked. Reportedly, in applications that support text entry fields, if you type the text "File:" followed by three forward slashes in the field to indicate a file address, then the program being used will freeze and then quit.

The bug is a problem in a core system service called Data Detectors that is responsible for handling dates and locations, part of which is a checking routine for an entered URL address. When you type information into programs that … Read more

Q&A: MacFixIt Answers

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week, readers wrote in with questions about cleaning up a Mac to keep it optimized, external drive permission errors, increasing the number of recent documents stored in the system, and options for triple-booting OS X with Linux and other operating systems. I welcome views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: How to clean up a Mac to keep it optimized MacFixIt reader Angel asks:

How can I get … Read more