Troubleshooting

It’s not unusual for those of us who are the “family geek” to spend time with less tech savvy people during the holidays, so why not use Thanksgiving as an opportunity to assist or improve the tech lives of loved ones? Express your thankfulness and gratitude with some helpful tech tips!

Some Gmail web client users may occasionally see a red error message at the top of their Gmail inbox that says “Gmail is having authentication problems. Some features may not work. Try logging in to fix the problem.” The error can persist sometimes even on a logged in account, and if you have logged back … Read More

The Disk Utility application on MacOS has a command line counterpart, that allows Mac users to run disk maintenance and disk administration tasks, including verifying and repairing disks. There are obvious advantages and benefits to using the command line for tasks like this, particularly for troubleshooting scenarios, and remote management, but some advanced users may … Read More

If your Mac feels excessively slow at random, or unreasonably slow for seemingly no apparent reason, you may want to check to see if the Messages app is open, as the Messages app for Mac has been known to use heavy amounts of processor and system resources. Next, you can investigate Activity Monitor for CPU … Read More

If you’re trying to use a Mac to update iOS on iPhone or iPadOS on iPad, you may see an error message that says something along the lines of “Updating to iOS 17.1 requires at least 975.2 MB of free space on your iPad. Please change your media sync options to make more storage available.” … Read More

A ton of open source software is available on Github, and many Mac applications are often available to download for free through the Github service as well. And if you read websites like this one and many others in the Apple and tech world, you’ll often find links to neat software projects on Github. One … Read More

We’ve all been there; you’re working away on your iPad with Magic Keyboard, and you knock over a cup of coffee, or a drink gets spilled, and the Magic Keyboard gets splashed or soaked in liquid. Uh oh! Now what? This recently happened to me, and I saved my iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard using … Read More

Forgetting or losing a password is a hassle, but assuming you save your logins and passwords with iCloud Keychain, that happens less and less. But you can still delete a password or login, whether intentionally or accidentally, and then end up needing access to that login information or password later. Fortunately the Mac offers a … Read More

Some Mac users may discover a process called AKAuthorization, AKAuthorizationRemoteView, “AKAuthorizationRemoteViewService”, and/or akd, running on macOS. Sometimes these process may be taking up inordinate amounts of CPU, which can add to the confusion, or concern. And, it’s not unusual for Mac users to find the “AKAuthorization remote view” name to sound a little suspicious, which … Read More

Some iPhone users are experiencing an error message that says “This iPhone is open in another window” when attempting to sync music between their Mac and iPhone. Users may see the error message even when there is no other window open in the Music app on Mac, making this a peculiar error message that doesn’t … Read More

Has your iPhone or iPad been feeling a bit sluggish since updating to iOS 17 or iPadOS 17? You’re not alone, this happens to many users after major system software updates. Normally, updating should make your device faster, but not right away, especially if you have an older device, or you have tons of stuff … Read More

Now that iOS 17 is here, you may have updated your iPhone to iOS 17, but now feel that your battery is draining faster than usual, or that iOS 17 has made your iPhone battery life worse. iOS updates causing battery drain is a familiar story that happens every year when a major new iOS … Read More

Have you ever wondered if your iPhone battery needs to be replaced? Maybe you are experiencing rapid battery drain, or other battery health issues like sluggish performance, random shutdowns, or the dreaded swollen battery issue with your iPhone. Read on and we’ll review five common signs that it’s time to replace the battery on your … Read More

As a Mac user, you’re likely already familiar with how to install macOS system software updates, which tend to be a simple process. But sometimes you get weird errors when loading the Software Update control panel, and those errors can lead to failures when attempting to install or even load available system software updates on … Read More

Some Mac users who also work with Windows, or who have drives, network shares, or other volumes that are from the Windows world, may occasionally come across LNK files with a .lnk file extension. If you’re wondering what these files are and how you can open them on the Mac, you should continue reading so … Read More

An unusual and rare Mac error may come across for some MacOS users when using BBEdit, or perhaps even other apps, that says “The application appears to have been tampered with.” This appears to be some variation of the “app is damaged and can’t be opened” error message that some Mac users may occasionally see. … Read More

Some Mac users have discovered a seemingly random device called “openthread.thread.home.arpa” in the Network section of Finder, which is where you see other available network computers and devices. Curiously, if you click on “openthread.thread.home.arpa” to try and connect to it or interact with it, you will find that generally nothing happens. So, what is openthread.thread.home.arpa … Read More

Some Mac users have discovered an alarming message when using macOS Sonoma that says “Unknown is capturing your screen”, appearing in the users menu bar. The “Unknown is capturing your screen” message is not actionable, and typically it appears for a few seconds and then vanishes, making it more concerning. What’s going on that is … Read More