Tag Archives: MacBook Pro

fixed : external display goes black when I close my MacBook

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Question :

Since I need to work form home at this moment, I have connected an external display. It works great and I now have a far better overview than I had on my tiny MacBook Pro screen. Now I have connected a USB-keyboard and a wireless mouse, so I would like to close my MacBook’s lid while I’m working on the external display. But, somehow, every time I close my MacBook’s lid, the connection to the display is lost and the display goes black…

What is going on ?

 

Answer :

To prevent your battery from draining while you are not using your MacBook, all connections are cut off when the lid is closed (since you cannot access the keyboard or the screen when the lid is closed). This also means that the connection to your external display will be cut off whenever you close your MacBook’s lid.

However : since your MacBook’s battery will no drain as long as extra power is provided, this shut down feature will not be activated as long as your MacBook is plugged into the wall charger. So, there’s your answer : just plug your MacBook into external power, and your external display will not go black when you close the MacBook’s lid.

Note : if you already have your MacBook connected to external power and your external display still goes black, see this post.

That’s it !

enjoy πŸ˜‰

fixed : MacBook Pro sighs then hangs during startup without progress bar over and over again

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Question :

I have a Β 2018 MacBook Pro 13″ with TouchBar and 4 Thunderbolt3 ports that seems to hang during startup : the MacBook ‘sighs’ (fan noise) during startup and shows only a black screen with a white Apple-logo, but no progress bar as usual… then it automatically restarts… and the same thing repeats itself…

Is there any way to solve this ?

 

Answer :

This might be caused by a hardware problem, so if it happens frequently, you should take your MacBook Pro to an AppleStore or authorized Apple Repair shop for repair.

But before you do so, try this, as it might fix your problem :

If you do see a progress bar during startup, look at this post :

fixed : MacBook Pro hangs during final stage of macOS startup

If you do not see a progress bar during startup, do this :

  • unplug everything else from the USB-C ports
  • now plug in the USB-C power-adapter
  • then, if you can, plug-in a USB-C-to-Ethernet-adapter and make an ethernet-connection to your network (and the Internet), if not leave it
  • then, press the ON/OFF-fingerscan-button (top-right in the Touch Bar) to restart your Mac
  • then, during restart, immediately press the [CMD]+[ALT]+[R] key-combo on your keyboard
  • keep this key-combo pressed for about 30 seconds, then release
  • now, leave your MacBook connected to power and internet overnight
  • in the morning, your MacBook will have reinstalled the latest version of macOS

…and you will be good to go πŸ˜‰

If the problem persists overnight, you might want to try this also, before you decide to bring in your MacBook Pro for repair :

  • create a macOS installer on a USB-stick (or even a USB-C stick)
    • as your own MacBook Pro is not available for this, you need to do this on another Mac or ask someone to do this for you
    • instructions on doing this can be found here on Apple.com
  • then plug the USB-C stick (or USB-stick with a USB-to-USB-C-adapter) into your MacBook Pro
  • then restart your MacBook Pro, while pressing the [ALT]-key on your keyboard
  • release the [ALT]-key when the Startup Manager window opens
  • then select the USB-stick as your startup disk
  • then follow the onscreen instructions for (re)installing macOS

That’s it !

As mentioned before : if you keep running into this problem frequently, you might have a hardware problem and you should bring your MacBook Pro in for repair.

enjoy πŸ˜‰

fixed : NVIDIA GeForce NOW completely broken in macOS 10.15 Catalina

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Question :

I’ve just upgraded to macOS 10.15 Catalina on my MacBook Pro, but now the NVIDIA GeForce NOW app is broken so I can no longer play Fortnite in a decent way…

The NVIDIA GeForce NOW app seemed to have disappeared completely from my Mac, but I found it is still in the Applications folder, but the icon is now a greyed-out NO ENTRY sign… so nothing happens when I click on it…

What can I do ?

 

Answer :

For some unknown reason, some upgrades to macOS 10.15 Catalina break the NVIDIA GeForce Now app…

Luckily, the solution is simple : download the latest version of NVIDIA GeForce NOWΒ here and install it… choose Replace Old Version during install and then just restart the app…

It’s simple as that…

enjoy πŸ˜‰

fixed : which cable to quickly migrate data to new Mac ?

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Question :

I just got myself a new Mac. Ofcourse, I am using the Migration Assistant to transfer the data from my old Mac to my new Mac, but my new Mac is a MacBook Pro that only has USB-C ports… and my old Mac doesn’t have any USB-C ports…

What is the best way to transfer / migrate my data ? Should I use WiFi or a cable ?

 

Answer :

You could migrate your data over WiFi, but that is less stable than a cable-connection and therefore usually more time-consuming.

The fastest way would be to use a Thunderbolt3-cable that has a USB-C connector on one end and a traditional Thunderbolt connector on the other… but those are extremely expensive and therefore not worth to buy if you’re going to use it for migrating your old data only.

Your best option is to use a far cheaper USB3.1-to-USB-C-cable, like this one :

AmazonBasics USB3.1-to-USB-C-cable (buy from Amazon.com)

AmazonBasics USB3.1-to-USB-C-cable (buy from Amazon.co.uk)

AmazonBasics USB3.1-to-USB-C-cable (buy from Amazon.de)

Note 1 : such a cable is also included with most USB-C enabled external SSDs, so you might already have one lying around – just make sure that the one you use is USB3.1-compatilbe

Note 2 : if you are considering using a regular USB-to-USB-cable together with a USB-to-USB-C-adapter… don’t do so ! That will in most cases mean that you are making a USB2-connection which is far slower than a USB3.1-connection

Note 3 : if you are considering using an Ethernet-cable together with a USB-C-to-Ethernet-adapter… don’t do so ! An Ethernet-cable is not as straight forward to set up, and most likely it will contain a USB2-maxed component, so it will be far slower than a USB3.1-connection and be far more expensive

enjoy !

fixed : Birthdays not showing in macOS Calendar.app

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Question :

I just did a clean install of macOS on my Mac and everything works fine. Except for one thing…

The birthdays of my contacts are not showing up in Calendar.app even though they were properly showing in Calendar.app on my previous version of macOS and they are still showing up properly in Calendar.app on my iPhone.

I’ve already tried unchecking and re-checking the checkmark at “Birthdays” in the list of available calendars (at “Other”),Β login out of iCloud and back in, restarting my Mac, adjusting some birthdays in Contacts.app, etc. Simply put : I’ve tried any solution I could think of…

How can I fix this ?

Answer :

The solution might be simple, but easily overlooked :

in Calendar.app on macOS, go to “View” in the menu-bar and when the pulldown-menu appears, put a checkmark at “Show All-Day Events”, then click “Refresh Calendars”.

Now check if that solves your problem. If it doesn’t, try this :

  • goto Calendar.app
  • select Calendar (in the top menu-bar)
  • select Preferences (from the pull-down menu)
  • select General (the left tab)
  • put a checkmark at β€œShow Birthdays calendar”
  • note : if you already had a checkmark at β€œShow Birthdays calendar”, do this also :
    • remove the checkmark
    • close the Calendar-app
    • restart your Mac
    • open the Calendar-app
    • put the checkmark back at β€œShow Birthdays calendar”

That’s it.

enjoy πŸ˜‰

fixed : MacBook Pro hangs during final stage of macOS startup

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Question :

I have macOS 10.14 Mojave installed on my MacBook Pro ‘Mid 2012’, but every time I try to start up my Mac, it hangs when the progress bar (on the white startup screen with the Apple logo) is at 99%…

On the TechRadar-website I found some startup key-combos to try :Β https://www.techradar.com/how-to/computing/apple/how-to-use-os-x-boot-options-to-troubleshoot-your-mac-1305645

I have tried the following, but it didn’t help :

  • restarting my MacBook
  • zapping the PRAM / NVRAM
  • running Disk First Aid in Recovery Mode
  • running Disk First Aid from another Mac while in Target Mode
  • reinstalling macOS Mojave from Recovery Mode
  • reinstalling macOS Mojave from a USB installer

So far, no problems where found, but the exact same problem keeps occuring :

When I startup my MacBook Pro, the progress bar goes quickly to 50%, then slows down but still keeps progressing up to 99% or even 100% and then hangs…

What can I do to solve this ?

 

Answer :

You have already tried most of the options that usually give success when you encounter these types of problems, so you have little options left to choose from.

——————- U P D A T E ——————-

If you get to see a progress bar while your Mac hangs, do as outlined below, but Β if your Mac hangs before you see a progress bar below the Apple logo, have a look at this post first :

fixed : MacBook Pro sighs then hangs during startup without progress bar over and over again

——————- ORIGINAL POST ——————-

The first thing to try would be ‘Verbose Mode’ so you will be able to figure out what problems are encountered during startup :

  • shut down you Mac using the power button
  • startup your Mac in Verbose Mode by pressing the [CMD]+[V] keycombo on your keyboard during startup
  • now, your Mac starts up without a GUI (Graphic User Interface) but just displays lines of code (like in the Terminal.app and Console.app)
  • note that you might see a screen of code flashing by and than face your regular inlog screen… if so, just login and you will get to the Console-like black screen with white lines of code…
  • wait for the lines of code to halt and see what error messages are displayed in the final lines of code
  • if the error is β€œtoo many corpses being created”, use the solution outlined below (additional error terms are β€œProcess”, β€œcrashed:” and β€œopendirectoryd.”)
  • if you get any different error message : lookup the error message and the solution on the internet

The solution to the β€œtoo many corpses being created” startup-error :

  • shut down your Mac using the power button
  • startup your Mac in Recovery Mode by pressing the [CMD]+[R] key combo on your keyboard during startup
  • if FireVault is on, mount the HardDisk by clicking Disk Utility.app and then typing your password
  • then, go to Utilities in the top menu bar and click Terminal in the pulldown menu
  • in Terminal.app type this line of code (in which β€œMacintosh\ HD” is replaced by the name your have given your HardDisk ; the default name is β€œMacintosh HD”, and note that all spaces in the name of your HardDisk should be replaced by β€œ\ ” (a backslash + a space) when typing these lines of code) :

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/var/db/caches/opendirectory

  • then press the [Enter]-key to run the code
  • when the cursor returns on the very next line you’re good, if you get an extra line in between, you’ve run into an error (e.g. β€œcommand not found” usually means you mistyped something, so you should just try again ; if you forgot to replace the space in your HardDisk’s name by β€œ\ β€œ you’ll also get an error and you should just try again)
  • on the next line, type this :

mv ./mbr_cache ./mbr_cache-old

  • then press the [Enter]-key
  • when the cursor returns on the very next line you’re good
  • again, if you get an extra line in response, you’ve made an error and trying again with greater accuracy will probably solve it…
  • then, exit Terminal.app by pressing the [cmd]+[Q] key-combo
  • then restart your Mac by clicking on the Apple-icon top left in the top menu bar and clicking β€œRestart” from the pull down menu
  • now your Mac should startup without problems
  • note that the first startup will take a little longer, as all system settings need to be rebuilt

That’s it !

enjoy πŸ˜‰