Troubleshooting

Having a problem with an Apple device, Mac system software, or iOS? Maybe your Mac is behaving weird, or your iPhone isn’t charging properly, or an iPad app is crashing, or something is just not working as expected? Browse through and search our troubleshooting articles and you might be able to resolve the problem!

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Fix Archive Utility When It Stops Working, Crashes, or Freezes in Mac OS X

Feb 6, 2013 - 21 Comments
fix for when Archive Utility is not working

Archive Utility is the little system app that launches anytime an archive needs to be dealt with by OS X, usually it launches itself, extracts a zip, sit, tar, gz, or whatever other archive file, then quits on it’s own. Lately there’s been widespread reports of weird problems with Archive Utility though, where a zip … Read More

Remove Duplicates from the “Open With” Right-Click Menu in Mac OS X

Jan 22, 2013 - 32 Comments
Fix the Open WIth menu and remove duplicate app entries

The “Open With” menu appears when any file in the Mac Finder is right-clicked (or control-clicked), and it is intended to provide a list of alternate apps that selected file can be opened with other than what is currently set as the default application. This Open With is great, but sometimes it can become freakishly … Read More

Is Your Mac Slow to Wake from Sleep? Try this pmset Workaround

Jan 21, 2013 - 12 Comments
Fixing Slow Wake on a Mac

If your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air feels slow to wake from sleep after it’s been sleeping for a while, there may be a fairly simple cause: standby mode. Standby mode allows a Mac to potentially have up to 30 days of ‘standby’ time, meaning it can sit in a prolonged sleep state for that … Read More

Fixing Grey Songs & Unplayable Albums in Music App on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Jan 7, 2013 - 3 Comments
Fixing gray songs in iOS Music app

Have you ever gotten a new album or podcast, synced it over to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, then when you went to play the songs you discovered they were grayed out in the Music app? The album is there, the song title is there, but because the song is grey you can tap … Read More

Fix the iMessage “Waiting for Activation” Error on iPhone, iPad

Dec 20, 2012 - 19 Comments
iMessage waiting for activation

Are you seeing a “Waiting for activation” error when trying to use iMessage on iPhone or iPad? Despite setting up iMessage properly, some users occasionally encounter a “Waiting for Activation” error with iMessage, usually either upon updating to a new version of iOS or getting a new device and configuring iMessage for the first time. … Read More

Save Pictures from Facebook to iPhone & iPad the Easy Way

Dec 18, 2012 - 14 Comments
Save Image from Facebook to iPhone

Want to save a picture from Facebook to your iPhone? No problem, you can do this easily from the Facebook app to an iPhone or iPad, and we’ll show you how to download a picture from Facebook into iOS so that it appears in the Photos album on your device.

Resolving Stubborn Wi-Fi Connection Problems in Mac OS X

Nov 30, 2012 - 117 Comments
Turn Wi-F off in OS X

A fair amount of Mac users have encountered long lasting Wi-Fi connection issues, whether it’s a dropping connection, a refusal to reconnect after waking from sleep, or any other number of oddities pertaining to wireless networking. Often these connection problems can be resolved with renewing a DHCP lease and changing the MTU size, but sometimes … Read More

What to do When iTunes Won’t Detect an iPhone, iPad, or iPod

Nov 20, 2012 - 164 Comments
Tips for when iTunes won't detect an iPhone

You’ve plugged an iPhone into a computer, and nothing happens. You look in iTunes, and the iPhone, iPod, or iPad isn’t there. Great, now what? What in the heck is going on? Don’t worry, there are usually a few simple solutions that will resolve the problem and et your computer to detect the iPhone or … Read More

Stop Software Update from Bugging You in Mac OS X

Nov 15, 2012 - 35 Comments
Swipe to Ignore a Software Update Notification

Keeping software up to date is one of the top maintenance tips for Macs, but sometimes those Software Update notifications can be just plain annoying. Whether you’re just trying to focus on work, or the update that’s bugging you is irrelevant to your needs, here is every possible way you can stop software updating from … Read More

How to Determine if iPhone is GSM or CDMA

Nov 15, 2012 - 39 Comments
Determine if iPhone is GSM or CDMA

Most of us geekier folks instantly know if our iPhones are CDMA or GSM models, but not everyone pays as much attention to the largely insignificant technical details of their phones. Not to worry, it’s extremely easy to find out if an iPhone is GSM or CDMA, all you need to do is look at … Read More

Track Down an Apps Preference File Easily By Watching Modifications

Nov 14, 2012 - 10 Comments
Track down plist files of apps easily

If you’ve ever had to track down a particular plist file for an app you know how frustrating the process can be. Though preference files are usually named in a logical manner, that’s not always the case, and regardless the prefix of com.(developer).(application) is not always the easiest to navigate through. One method is to … Read More

Free Up Disk Space in Mac OS X with 5 Quick Tips

Nov 11, 2012 - 20 Comments
Huge swap and sleep image files in Mac OS X

Mac running out of disk space? Maybe you don’t have room for installing a new app, backing up a device, copying some files, or much of anything? If you’re running low on disk space or have ever received that dreaded “disk full” message when using a Mac, you know it can be pretty frustrating to … Read More

Use the Help Menu as a Menu Item Action Launcher for Apps in Mac OS X

Oct 29, 2012 - 1 Comment
Help menu search and highlight

The Help menu that’s always visible in Mac OS X and within Mac apps is far more powerful than just serving as a knowledge base for questions about the app in use; it can also function as a full-fledged action launcher for any menu items. This is useful for when you’re either still learning keyboard … Read More

9 Reasons Why a Mac is Running Slow and What to Do About It

Oct 11, 2012 - 69 Comments
Spotlight is running

It’s a fact of modern life: Macs can run slowly for seemingly no reason, but chances are there is a reason the Mac is running so poorly and we’ll cover the most common reasons, how to know if each reason is causing the slow down, and most importantly, how to fix it. If your Mac … Read More

Fix for iPhone 5 Signal Loss When Stuck On “No Service”

Oct 10, 2012 - 105 Comments
No Service after iPhone signal loss

A peculiar bug that’s impacting some iPhone 5 users leaves the iPhone unable to find a signal and rejoin a 3G/4G network after leaving an area with EDGE or no service. Despite being in a location with adequate cell coverage, the iPhone will just report “No Service”. This is most likely a software issue with … Read More

Stress Test a Mac by Maxing Out CPU

Oct 2, 2012 - 25 Comments
Stress test a Mac by maxing out CPU

If you want to completely peg CPU to stress test a Mac, turn no further than the Terminal. Using the command line you can easily max out all CPU cores and induce huge load on a Mac, making it easy to determine things like what temperature the processor reaches under heavy load, if fans are … Read More

App Store Slow in iOS 6? Here’s How to Fix the Sluggishness

Sep 28, 2012 - 32 Comments
Fix the Slow App Store in iOS 6

Other than the Maps issues, the App Store in iOS 6 is probably the next most talked about change of the latest iOS system software. Though it’s undoubtedly a better user experience in a lot of ways, one area that really suffers is speed, and a lot of users are experiencing very sluggish behavior in … Read More

iPhone 5 Wi-Fi Problems Fixed By Manual DNS Settings

Sep 27, 2012 - 33 Comments
iPhone 5 Wi-Fi Problems Fixed

Some iPhone 5 users are experiencing a variety of issues with wifi on the device, almost always revolving around inconsistently slow wireless connections. If you’re having this problem, you’re not alone, and the good news is you can almost certainly get an immediate improvement by setting manual DNS on the device. Fixing Slow iPhone 5 … Read More

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