Troubleshooting

Rarely, a Mac may encounter some peculiar issue during system boot that can cause quite a bit of panic, like booting to a completely black screen. It would be easy to interpret that as a potential hardware problem, and in some particularly rare situations that may be the case, but it’s more often a software … Read More

A number of Mac users who were experiencing wi-fi connection difficulties with OS X Yosemite have found the problems continue to persist after updating to OS X 10.10.1. The reasons for this are not entirely clear given that OS X 10.10.1 has aimed specifically at improving wi-fi reliability, but some of the traditional troubleshooting steps … Read More

Some Mac users who updated MacOS have found Mail app to experience errors or problems when trying to send email. Typically this is in the form of an SMTP server connection error, a mailbox that’s seemingly stuck offline, a repeated request for a password from Mail app (a fairly common issue which we’ve fixed before), … Read More

iTunes 12 brought a redesigned user interface, complete with many changes to how things look and where things are located, smaller fonts, and the removal of the popular sidebar. Not all users have received these changes well and some aren’t too thrilled with the differences, and for some users they may wish to downgrade iTunes … Read More

Spotlight gained many new features and improvements with the latest version of iOS, but along with those changes came a curious bug that seems to randomly prevent Spotlight from working at all on an iPhone or iPad with empty search results.

Some Mac users who upgraded to OS X Yosemite have discovered a variety of wireless network connectivity issues, ranging from dropping wi-fi connections, to an inability to connect to the outside world despite being connected to a wifi router, even suddenly and strangely slow internet speeds. These network issues seem to occur most often on … Read More

Though the iOS 8.1 update includes many bug fixes that resolve some of the frustrating annoyances that popped up in earlier versions, a handful of users have experienced something else with iOS 8.1; quickly reducing battery life. No, we’re not talking about shaving a few minutes off how long your iPad or iPhone lasts, we’re … Read More

A notable number of Mac users who have gone to update their machines to OS X Yosemite have discovered something which may seem alarming; the progress bar seems to halt during the installation at just minutes remaining, and in some cases, it can sit unmoving with no apparent progress for well over an hour or … Read More

iMessage delivery and the Message app typically works great, but some users have experienced a few frustrating issues since iOS 8 with either failing deliveries of messages, new messages not appearing in the Messages app despite getting a chime or alert that a new message has arrived, messages not marking as read, multimedia messages not … Read More

Deleting files and folders from the Mac is usually as simple as dragging the item to remove into the Trash can, but on rare occasions things don’t quite go as planned. One of the more peculiar errors when trying to remove a file appears in the form of the following message when attempting to send … Read More

Though iOS 8 has tons of great new features and so many improvements, the release has not been entirely trouble-free for some users, and certain iPhone and iPad devices may feel as if their performance has degraded after the update. The extent of the speed issue seems to vary, ranging from random and generally sluggish … Read More

Though Macs are known for being stable and experiencing considerably fewer crashes and system freezes than some of the competition, the reality is that sometimes stuff still happens. Typically it’s just an app that crashes or freezes up, remedied with a force quit and relaunch, but on rare occasions the Mac will freeze entirely, with … Read More

Some iPhone and iPad users who went to update to the latest version of iOS using iTunes may have discovered an error message saying the following: “The iPhone Software Update Server Could Not Be Contacted. Make sure your network settings are correct and your network connection is active, or try again later.”

The iOS 8.0.1 update is causing a lot of iPhone owners grief, particularly those who have a new iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus, where it has apparently killed the cellular signal of those devices, leading to a persistent “No Service” problem. Additionally, Touch ID has stopped working on those devices. Obviously this is not … Read More

Some users have reported battery draining quicker than usual on their iPhones and iPads that have been updated to iOS 8. While it’s not a universal experience, there are some settings in iOS 8 that may have an impact on how long your battery lasts, thus we’re going to focus on adjusting those settings to … Read More

The iOS 8 update went smoothly for most users, but like every software update there are sometimes bothers, hangups, and difficulties that arise for a subset of users. One frustrating issue that is impacting some iPhone and iPad users are recurrent wireless connection difficulties post iOS 8 installation. Since these devices are so reliant on … Read More

If you’ve recently made a change to your iPhone service or SIM card, you may notice a mysterious red blank dot on the “Phone” app of the iPhone home screen. Typically that little blank red dot means you have voicemail, but the iPhone can’t retrieve it, and it usually occurs in one of the following … Read More

How many iPhone and iPad owners wind up having a frayed USB lightning adapter with wires visible or protruding from the cable? One of my own Lightning cables ended up a frayed disaster after less than a year of being always plugged into a MacBook, and only used on a desk – not exactly demanding … Read More