Troubleshooting

Need to restore a Mac from a Time Machine backup? This article will show you how to do that. While Macs have a great reputation for being stable and rarely experiencing major issues, the reality is that sometimes things can go wrong. Typically this happens when either a hard drive fails or a Mac OS … Read More

Apple has launched a replacement program for malfunctioning rear cameras on some iPhone 6 Plus models. The affected iPhone 6 Plus devices have a camera component failure which causes photos and video taken with the devices rear camera to appear blurry rather than focused (note Apple calls the rear camera on iPhones the iSight camera, … Read More

While Macs usually work flawlessly, sometimes peculiar issues pop up. One such unusual case is when the USB ports on a Mac suddenly stop working, seemingly out of the blue. While there may be several reasons (or no reason) for USB ports ceasing to function with no cause, the good news is that it’s typically … Read More

OS X El Capitan (10.11) is part of an open Public Beta, which means that any user can opt-in to install and run the beta version of the future OS X system software on their Mac. This is a chance for Mac users to help shape the future of OS X, and a great way … Read More

Some Mac Mail users have discovered that Mail app misbehaves after updating to OS X 10.10.4 (and some with OS X 10.11 El Capitan) particularly with Exchange and Gmail accounts, but it can happen with other email provider services as well. Typically the problem manifests in one of a few ways; eMail logins suddenly stall … Read More

Some users who are trying to install OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 or iTunes 12.2 have discovered the Mac App Store will freeze, with an endless spinning wait cursor and the updates never showing up. Investigating further reveals that a process called ‘softwareupdated’ simultaneously goes haywire and consumes 99% CPU for an indeterminate amount of time … Read More

Steam offers many great games for Mac users to enjoy, but if you’re a casual gamer you may not be too excited about having the Steam client open itself automatically when logging in or starting up Mac OS X. Fortunately, if Steam opening itself bothers you, it’s very easy to stop this behavior and only … Read More

A bug with text rendering in iOS allows a specifically arranged text message to crash the Messages app on iPhone and iPad and then reboot the device. When the device has booted back again, the Messages app becomes unavailable as it crashes immediately upon launch, which has caused some users to think the problem is … Read More

A somewhat strange error message can occur at random on iOS, typically for iPhone users, that states “Unable to Download Item. Please try again later” with a “Done” and “Retry” button options. The thing that makes this error message strange is that it appears at random and not after the user has attempted to download … Read More

Rarely, Mac users may encounter a random error message which appears somewhat disconcerting, with an OS X pop-up message saying “Unapproved caller. SecurityAgent may only be invoked by Apple software.” This message can appear at random when using certain apps, or after logging in or a reboot, and is sometimes followed by crashing and other … Read More

Some Mac users have experienced a variety of performance issues with OS X El Capitan and Yosemite, ranging from a sluggish and problematic Finder, to WindowServer going crazy pegging the processor, to assorted wi-fi difficulties. While OS X 10.10.3 has helped address some of the trouble, another issue appears to have popped up for a … Read More

Some Mac users may occasionally run into issues with Finder, discovering that Finder will misbehave wildly, sometimes becoming very slow and unresponsive, crashing, or using inordinately high CPU. Given that Finder is a critical component of the Mac and nearly all Mac OS users rely on it for file system navigation, Finder trouble can be … Read More

The Mac received a great many changes with OS X Yosemite along with a notable visual redesign, but some of those changes and various transparent effects may be taking a toll on some users Mac performance with errant WindowServer behavior. This is typically demonstrated with the WindowServer process spiking into heavy CPU use for seemingly … Read More

Now that the Mac windows green maximize button defaults to sending apps and windows into Full Screen Mode, a notably sized cohort of MacOS and Mac OS X users who perhaps didn’t know this behavior changed until accidentally finding out, are left confused with the following question; “how do I get out of full screen … Read More

Many users have a love or hate relationship with iTunes, which is required to sync an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to a Mac or PC (presumably an Apple Watch too). When iTunes syncing works as intended, that’s fantastic, but sometimes things don’t work out that way. iTunes 12 in particular appears to have some … Read More

Some users who have updated to iOS 8.2 have discovered the Safari web browser no longer works as it should on their iPhone or iPad. There seems to be a few variations of Safari issues with iOS 8.2, but typically the problems manifest as an inability for Safari to launch or stay open, Safari becoming … Read More

A notable amount of Mac users have discovered that a random Mac OS X password popup window can appear from iCloud, FaceTime, or Messages, any of each asking for the respective iCloud password. The random password request is very non-specific and just has the logo, “iCloud Password – Please enter your password for email@address” with … Read More

Rarely, an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch will become completely unresponsive and errant, leading to what amounts to a frozen device that just won’t do anything. The most obvious indicator of this is when something on screen just cease up completely and the touch screen becomes unresponsive to all input, and clicking on any of … Read More