I ran into a peculiar issue recently where the ‘dasd’ process had been consuming 100% CPU for several days straight. Since dasd is a system process, my initial assumption was that there must be some important background task that was going on. But, after a few days of no change and dasd constantly hovering between … Read More
A somewhat rare reason that MacOS can feel excessively slow is due to a runaway process in the background, in this particular case; rpcsvchost. You might find this in Activity Monitor or another resource monitor, consuming an unusually large amount of RAM and/or CPU, in which case you’re probably wondering what this process is, and … Read More
If you’re the type of Mac user who likes to keep track of your system performance and system resource usage and management, an intriguing and full-featured app called Mac Performance Monitor might be for you. As you might have guessed from the name, Mac Performance Monitor lets you see a dashboard, history, and breakdown of … Read More
Some Mac users who have recently installed MacOS 27 Golden Gate have noticed an unusually laggy and buggy experience with Mission Control, full screen apps, and Stage Manager. Impacted users complain of a slow lag, delay, or stutter before entering Mission Control and/or Stage Manager, or swiping between spaces or full screen apps, flickering thumbnails, … Read More
If you installed iOS 27 at some point recently, and your iPhone has been running hotter than usual, perhaps even with what perceived degradation in performance, and reduction in battery life, you’re certainly not alone. While this can be a frustrating experience, it’s often associated with installing the update itself, and the good news is … Read More
While MacOS 27 Golden Gate is overall a great system software release, that’s not to say it’s perfect and without user complaints. One issue that is cropping up for some MacOS 27 users, myself included, is poor battery performance. Battery life issues and complaints are fairly common to crop up during the initial release period … Read More
Some Mac users running the MacOS 27 Golden Gate beta have discovered a peculiar bug where they are unable to force quit certain processes or apps, usually if they are errant or unresponsive. I personally have run into this a handful of times with being unable to force quit Safari and Google Chrome, despite the … Read More
Many MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Neo owners have noticed something curious; their MacBook battery stops charging at 80% when plugged in. To add to the confusion, even if they leave their MacBook plugged in overnight, the battery seems to be stuck at 80% and will not charge any further. Because this is not … Read More
Some Mac users may encounter an unusual situation where a “Keyboard Setup Assistant” application opens at random on their Mac, even if they already connected and setup a keyboard to use with their computer. The Keyboard Setup Assistant might pop up completely randomly, when the computer is woken from sleep, when the computer is freshly … Read More
Some Mac Terminal app users may find that their zsh prompt and Mac host name at the command line randomly sets itself to “@unknown”, or some variation of that. Opening the Terminal, you might find your prompt is something like “@unknown92844982″, @unknown184Afb84.home”, @UNKNOWN, or some variation of “@unknown” with a bunch of alphanumeric characters on … Read More
Running MacOS Beta versions within a virtual machine is generally a fantastic way to test out system software without having to fully commit to running the beta as the primary operating system. But sometimes even trying to get the VM setup fails. In this case, trying to install macOS Golden Gate 27 beta in a … Read More
Some Mac users may discover the mds_stores process has run amuck, consuming absurd amounts of CPU and memory when viewed in Activity Monitor. Typically this is accompanied by unusually sluggish system performance on a Mac, which is what inspired the visit into Activity Monitor to begin with, and there you may find that mds_stores is … Read More
A fair number of people who use the ChatGPT app for Mac have recently run into a strange and alarming malware message when attempting to open and use ChatGPT. The error says that “Malware Blocked and Moved to Trash” and informs the user that “ChatGPT.app was not opened because it contains malware. The action did … Read More
Whether you’re preparing to sell, recycle, or repurpose a Mac, or you’re going through old hard drives and storage disks that you wish to clear all data from, securely erasing the drive is an important step. Simply deleting files or formatting a disk isn’t always enough, especially for hard drives and external storage, since data … Read More
Performing a clean install of macOS Tahoe can be a necessary task in some situations, offering a way to start fresh on a Mac. Since a clean install removes everything and reinstalls MacOS from scratch, you are presented with basically a brand new Mac from a software standpoint. Clean installations can be useful for users … Read More
If you have felt your Mac is curiously sluggish, you may have opened Activity Monitor to investigate at some point and noticed a process called “WindowServer” using a large amount of CPU or memory. High CPU usage and memory consumption of WindowServer has been a long reported issue on MacOS with various system software versions, … Read More
If you have ever been on a phone call and tried to adjust the volume on iPhone and found the volume buttons aren’t responding, you’re not alone. This is a frustrating presumed bug that can happen on iPhone, and the volume buttons seem to stop working during phone calls, even though they can sometimes still … Read More
One common complaint of MacOS Tahoe users is that it can be difficult to determine which window is active or in the background. With all of the flatter and low contrast design elements in Tahoe, there is a significant reduction in contrast between background and foreground apps and windows, which can make visual focus less … Read More
