Troubleshooting

NextDoor is a popular neighborhood ‘hyperlocal social network’ app that is mostly gossip, rants, and occasional local news, that is well known for sending a constant barrage of emails and email post updates to any users who signed up for the app at some point in history. If you’re like many NextDoor users, you have … Read More

Some Mac command line users working with nodejs and npm may see an error message and command failure along the lines of “xcode-select: error: tool ‘xcodebuild’ requires Xcode, but active developer directory ‘/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools’ is a command line tools instance”. This error message sometimes appears after updating MacOS, migrating Macs, or If you experience this error … Read More

The Spotify app for Mac defaults to opening itself automatically every time the Mac restarts, boots, or a user logs in to the Mac. If you do not want Spotify to open automatically on the Mac, and you’re running MacOS Ventura or newer, read along to prevent this behavior and stop Spotify from opening itself.

If you’re a Homebrew user who is now experiencing a “zsh: command not found: brew” error message in zsh shell, you’re probably perplexed as to why the brew command line line tool is no longer working. The reason you may be experiencing the command not found error for brew is because the zsh shell is … Read More

Occasionally, when browsing the web you may see a website fail to load or interrupt with an error message that says “Application error: a client-side exception has occurred (see the browser console for more information).” Let’s dive into what this error message means, and how to fix it in Safari, whether you’re on a Mac, … Read More

If you’ve had enough of Nextdoor, the local social network neighborhood app that has a heavy focus on localized gossip, rumors, busybodies, nosy parkers, nonsense, and endless emails, you may be interested in deleting your Nextdoor account, or at least deactivating your Nextdoor account. Either method will disable your account, and also offers an alternative … Read More

Sometimes when adding an event to Calendar on iPhone or iPad, you may unintentionally add the event to the calendar on your local device, rather than to iCloud. This is often why a calendar event appears to not sync with other Apple devices, because if the event is stored in a calendar set to “On … Read More

Rarely, while using ChatGPT you may encounter a “network error”. If ChatGPT reports that it has experienced a network error, you will be unable to use ChatGPT until that network error has been resolved.

Sidecar, the feature that allows you to use your iPad as a secondary display for a Mac, is a really great feature for MacOS. But if you have updated to MacOS Sonoma, Ventura, or newer you may find Sidecar is either not working, or what you used to do to enable, access, and use Sidecar … Read More

An Apple ID is used as a gateway to every Apple service and many features on the Mac (and other Apple devices), ranging from iCloud, iCloud Photos, iCloud Drive, Find My, iCloud Documents and Data, backups, Contacts, Messages, Notes, Mail, and so much more. While basically every Mac should stay logged into an Apple ID … Read More

All iPhone and iPad users should be aware that installing the iOS 16.4 update for iPhone or iPadOS 16.4 update for iPad will enable the system settings for automatically installing and downloading future iOS/iPadOS software updates to that device. A splash screen noting this change appears right after the update has installed on a device … Read More

If you have a HomePod or HomePod Mini and you attempt to connect audio streams to it through AirPlay, you’ve undoubtedly ran into the error message “AirPlay – Unable to connect to (HomePod)” with an OK button. This is a very frustrating error message that makes the HomePod Mini and HomePod not particularly useful or … Read More

Whether for troubleshooting or other purposes, you may arrive at a situation where you must reinstall MacOS Monterey onto a Mac that is presently running MacOS Monterey. The most convenient way to reinstall macOS is to simply reinstall the macOS system software, without erasing other data on the Mac, and that is the method we … Read More

If you have used the “Export Unmodified Original” option in the Photos app on Mac to export images or videos from the Photos app or iCloud Photos, you likely have noticed an optional toggle to enable that says “Export IPTC as XMP”. And if you’re like many Mac users, you are likely wondering what the … Read More

Network Locations are a prominent feature in MacOS since the very beginning of Mac OS X, allowing users to have different network settings profiles that can be used for different locations and networks. For example, a network location for home, and a network location for work. But with MacOS Ventura, Network Locations have either been … Read More

Rarely, you may discover the Thunderbolt / USB-C ports are suddenly not working on your MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, or Mac Mini. Maybe you went to charge the Mac and it was not responsive, or maybe you plugged in a peripheral or external display and it is not working as expected. If you have … Read More

Keeping system software up to date is an important part of computer maintenance, and any Mac running MacOS Sonoma & Ventura is no exception. If you’re new to macOS Ventura 13 and later, you may be wondering where the Software Update preference panel went to, and how to update MacOS system software in general, since … Read More

Do you have a Mac running an earlier version of MacOS that you’d like to upgrade to a newer version, but you don’t want to run MacOS Ventura? For example, let’s say you’re running MacOS Catalina, Mojave, or Big Sur on a Mac, and you want to upgrade that Mac to MacOS Monterey 12 specifically, … Read More