epicblog » OS X

Parallels 6 Prompts To Be Activated With Every Start

Rick Wargo — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 01:20:26 +0000

UPDATE: It appears Parallels changes the group to accessibility and this procedure does NOT work.

Parallels 6 had been running great for quite a while but at some point, restarting Parallels would prompt me to re-enter the activation key; the key in the dialog was from the previous version. For whatever reason, it would not stick.

I realized today that the group permissions on the preferences files for Parallels was different than the others; the files had a group of “accessibility.” To fix it, I changed the group back to what was on most of the other files; your group name most likely will be different.

$ cd /Users/rick/Library/Preferences $ ls -l com.parallels.* -rw------- 1 rick accessibility 21059 Dec 26 19:59 com.parallels.Parallels Desktop Statistics.plist -rw------- 1 rick accessibility 23972 Dec 26 19:59 com.parallels.Parallels Desktop.plist -rw------- 1 rick accessibility 5430 Dec 26 19:59 com.parallels.Parallels.plist -rw------- 1 rick accessibility 1642 Dec 7 16:36 com.parallels.desktop.console.plist -rw------- 1 rick rick 905 Feb 11 2009 com.parallels.desktop.plist -rw------- 1 rick rick 505 Feb 11 2009 com.parallels.imagetool.plist $ chgrp rick com.parallels.*

Installing MySQL 5.5 on OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and Rails 3

Rick Wargo — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 21:47:05 +0000

I was successfully able to install MySQL 5.5 on OS X 10.6 according to the following steps.

Download MySQL Community Server 5.5.8 for Mac OS X. I chose to download Mac OS X ver. 10.6 (x86, 64-bit), DMG Archive. The DMG archive is nice as it has a startup package that installs a MySQL control panel (although it dosn’t work from the start without tweaking).

Open the DMG archive and execute the mysql-5.5.8-osx10.6-x86_64.pkg. I had no issues with installation although the ReadMe.txt file suggests that problems may occur.

After successful installation, execute the MySQLStartupItem.pkg. This will install the MySQL Startup startup items. This should complete successfully.

Next, install the MySQL preferences pane by double-clicking the MySQL.prefPane item in the mounted drive. This will install the MySQL preferences item, although MySQL cannot yet be started through it. First, the mysql.server file must be edited by hand to specify the location of the base directory.

At a terminal, cd to /usr/local/mysql/support-files and edit mysql.server (with root privileges, using sudo). Around line 46 locate the lines that read:

basedir= datadir=

and change them to read

basedir=/usr/local/mysql datadir=/usr/local/mysql/data

Save the file. MySQL can now be started from the preferences pane. Without it, you will see a message in the Console that reads:

mysql.server: line 256: my_print_defaults: command not found

To enable rails 3 to use mysql, install the mysql2 gem. Next, you’ll need to set the DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH to include the MySQL library directory. To do this, edit your ~/.bash_profile and include the following:

export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/mysql/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH

The rails server will now successfully start. Without the inclusion of the directory in the DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH, a message about not finding the library would appear and the server would abort.

The error message, from the mysql2 gem, states (in part):

Library not loaded: libmysqlclient.16.dylib (LoadError)

Upon reboot, MySQL will fail to start with a dialog stating:

Insecure Startup Item disabled. “/Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM” has not been started because it does not have the proper security settings.

The group permissions need to be changed to wheel on the MySQL directory by executing the following command in the terminal:

sudo chown -R root:wheel /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM

This will prevents the startup error dialog. Finally, ensure the Automatically Start MySQL Server on Startup is checked in the MySQL preferences window.

Good luck!

This copy of iTunes has expired.

Rick Wargo — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 11:21:07 +0000

Without prior indication, when starting iTunes on OSX 10.6 .4 I suddenly received the error dialog stating “This copy of iTunes has expired.” And Software Update states that all of the software is up to date.

The simple resolution is that a beta version of iTunes 9.2 that I installed did expire (so much for reading the fine print) and a re-installation of iTunes is required. iTunes can be downloaded on the apple site as a dmg file. When opened and the volume is mounted, run the iTunes.mpkg installer to restore the computer to a happy equilibrium. Fortunately, the beta version of iTunes does not need to be removed prior to installation.

Adobe Photoshop CS2 Issues After Full Restore to New Disk

Rick Wargo — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 01:30:21 +0000

The disk on my MacBook Pro was going bad – S.M.A.R.T. reported imminent failure. I had Apple swap it out for a new one and I restored the new disk with my backup from Time Machine. Unfortunately, with the archaic way Adobe licenses its products, it was the only software I had purchased that did not work after the restore. After two hours online with Adobe support, I was not able to get much further.

After much trial and error, I determined the only way to get the software activated was to fully remove Photoshop CS2 and reinstall. I followed this technote from Adobe to manually uninstall Photoshop CS2, but it was incomplete. I had to remove a license file and only then could it activate successfully. In addition to the files Adobe asks you to remove, the real magic file that needs removal is /Library/Preferences/Adobe Systems/Product licenses_120/B2B86000.dat. After removing that, along with all the others, I was able to get CS2 installed on my machine and successfully activated.

No Sound when Using Remote Desktop Connection on the Mac and Connected to a Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2 Machine

Rick Wargo — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 15:00:16 +0000

It appears as though the sound is configured correctly on the host machines, but no sound comes from the client when a sound is made. This works when using a Windows Remote Desktop Client but not on the Mac. It turns out that the audio redirection feature of RDC does not work; you will need a hotfix to resolve the issue. After installing the hotfix and rebooting the server computer, sound now plays on the client!

To obtain the hotfix, navigate to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973062 and click on View and request hotfix downloads. Click through the license agreement and select the hotfix that corresponds to your operating system. Fill out your email address and submit. Soon you will receive a zipped install executable that will install the fix for this issue. Upon rebooting and reconnecting to the host machine, you will hear sound!

Problems Due to a new MacBook Pro Logic Board

Rick Wargo — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:12:20 +0000

My computer was failing frequently so I had it serviced through AppleCare (actually the “Depot” for much less than Apple) and they replaced the logic board. Turns out that iTunes authorizations are tied to the logic board. Without the old motherboard, it is impossible to de-authorize the account for the computer and thus an additional device (the computer with the new logic board) must be authorized (of the five allowed). Of course, I already had five devices authorized so I had to de-authorize all and re-authorize my active devices.

Moral of the story is if you send your mac in for a logic board replacement, make sure to de-authorize the computer prior to service; this will allow you to authorize the computer upon receipt and not consume one of the five authorizations for the phantom computer.

Compiling Aperture 3 Plug-Ins

Rick Wargo — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:35:44 +0000

After installing Xcode 3.2.1 and the Aperture 2.1 SDK on Snow Leopard, I was unable to compile a simple (empty) Aperture plug-in due to a missing file, PROAPIAccessing.h. I was finally able to get it to compile by downloading and installing the FxPlug SDK Version 1.2.5 – this includes PROAPIAccessing.h.

Parallels on my MacBook Pro, External Monitors, Coherence and Windows BSOD

Rick Wargo — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 15:21:50 +0000

I love Parallels on my MacBook Pro and Coherence is very cool, albeit a bit quirky. Last night after Windows Update ran I was unable to successfully boot my WinXP image. Turns out a lot of others have had similar problems and an excellent solution can be found on the Parallels Forums. The problem entails from rebooting Parallels Desktop (build 3036 Beta) while in coherence mode with an external monitor connected. Upon reboot, I received the dreaded BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death)
with the error: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA. The solution is to set the screen resolution to what it was prior to the reboot. I was able to do this by:

Boot in safe mode
Uninstall Parallel Tools
Reboot
Change to the correct resolution (for me this was 1920×1200)
Re-install Parallel Tools

Another solution is to change the resolution after booting in VGA mode, although I did not test this; see the Parallels Forum thread for details.

If there is a problem uninstalling Parallel Tools, remove the registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce\ParallelTools (or something similar to ParallelTools) and try again. You can also boot in Last Known Good Configration and uninstall.

Thanks to Mike Mulligan for his solution.

UPDATE: New Beta 3094 now available!

AFP Connection Status and various OS X applications locking up

Rick Wargo — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 02:17:49 +0000

I love my new MacBook Pro, but when I have it detached from my home network I often get application lock ups or long pauses while using it offline. I found a repeatable pattern: when selecting File–>Open from many (most) applications, often for the first time, the MBP would pause and then display a dialog stating AFP Connection Status … Looking up “.” Clicking on the solo “Cancel” button tends to solve the problem, but the delay is hugely annoying.

It turns out the problem is due to an alias from my offline MBP to a folder on one of my networked Macs; specifically, the Pictures folder is aliased to one computer on my network that holds my pictures so I can access them from all machines. As soon as I remove or rename the alias (to something like Pictures2) I no longer receive the AFP Connection Status window. As soon as I rename it back to Pictures, the AFP Connection Status dialog appears.