Tag: bugs

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macOS Finder and USB Flashing Format (UF2)

Sad Mac

Sad Mac

It took me a while to figure this one out. I’m running macOS Sequoia on two different Macs and I would occasionally get Finder lockups. I feel like in with previous versions of macOS I could quit the Finder and restart it in the terminal and things would (mostly) go back to normal. This was not working, and quitting the Finder meant it would never relaunch and I’d be forced to reboot. My Mac Studio at work reboots in under a minute and I can relaunch all my applications fairly easily, but my home (2019) iMac takes a long time to boot back up, so it’s super annoying.

There’s one common thing between these two Macs, and it’s the USB Flashing Format (UF2).

At work I program micro:bit boards. When you plug one into your Mac it shows up in the Finder so you can copy a .UF2 file to it to load new code. At home I program Raspberry Pi Pico boards, which also mount in the Finder on first use, or when holding down the BOOTSEL button when plugging it in.

Matt Godden suggested resetting the Mac’s USB Bus but the solution that seems to be working is to unplug the microcontroller. Yes, unplug it.

It happened again today so I figured I should write this post to remind me, and maybe inform others. Today it happened right as I tried to copy a .UF2 file to a Pico board. I got the “pinwheel of death” so I walked away and when I came back minutes later it was still spinning until I unplugged the board. I am pretty sure I’ve seen it happen with a micro:bit even when I was not trying to copy new code to the board.

So this may happen when copying a file to the board or just even when the board is connected via USB.

So if you are using a Mac to copy a UF2 file to a microcontroller and the Finder locks up try to just unplug the board to see if it fixes is.

Update 2025-05-07

After a few more days of testing I’ve realized that it’s not just an issue with the Finder locking up. There is also an issue with the Finder slowing down. I left a micro:bit plugged in via USB and went about my work and the Finder still worked but suddenly had issues opening folders and displaying files. I took a screenshot and it never showed up on the desktop… until I unplugged the micro:bit! So we’re dealing with an issue that may lock up the Finder but may also slow down the Finder. Sigh…

Update 2025-07-08

To replicate this issue you need to use your Mac. If you just leave a board connected and walk away it seems fine when you return, but the process of actively using your computer, switching applications, creating files, using the Finder, seem to help reveal the slowdown and lockup. I’ll try to get a better sense of things the more it happens.

Update 025-07-30

Still having this issue on macOS 15.4. If I leave a micro:bit connected via USB and try to save files they will not show up in the Finder until the micro:bit is disconnected. This magically fixes things and files suddenly appear. It’s maddening.

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Kill that Screen Sharing Dialog Box

As long as we’re taking about OS X, I have a fix for when you try to screen share another computer on your network and the dialog box hangs… Really, this is super-annoying. You can get rid of it by rebooting, but I hate rebooting. You can’t easily hide it because it floats above other windows, and you can’t force quit it. Well, not easily…

In your favorite terminal program (I personally like iTerm but Terminal.app will do) type the following: 

ps aux | grep NetAuthAgent

And you should see something like this: 

pete  38146  0.4  0.2  2823072 13644 ??  S  8:28AM 0:43.59 /System/Library/CoreServices/NetAuthAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/NetAuthAgent
pete  40131  0.0  0.0  2425700   264 s001 R+ 10:26AM 0:00.00 grep NetAuthAgent

That first line, with the /System/Library/CoreServices/NetAuthAgent.app bit is the one you want. See the first set of numbers in that line? That’s the process id (or PID.) Once you know the PID, you can do the following:

kill 38146

Typing the kill command followed by the process id should get rid of the dialog box.

Alternately, you can type: 

killall NetAuthAgent

killall is a little more risky, as it kills processes based on name, not the PID, so if you have multiple process with the same name, it will kill them all. Hose things up enough and you’ll need to reboot, which is what we wanted to avoid doing in the first place.

Aren’t bugs fun?

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Fixing an iDVD “locked” file

I still use iDVD a lot, because it’s quick and easy to spit out a DVD either with simple menus, or an as auto-play disc with no menus at all… but every now and then, I get this warning about the file being locked.

This specific error came up when I copied the file to another Mac, but I’ve seen similar locking problem even on the same Mac and even with the same user…

Here’s the fix: command-click on the file in the Finder, and select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu. This will open a Finder window showing you the files.

Go into Contents, and then Resources, and look for the project.lock file, and delete it. That should fix it.

Bonus Tip: If you want a fast way of recursively opening all folders in list view, select the main folder, and hit command-option-right arrow. Want to close them all? command-option-left arrow.

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Infinite Campus

Infinite Fail

So far I’m not impressed with Infinite Campus…

I know, the school year hasn’t even started, and there probably isn’t much data in it yet, and the fact that they misplaced my daughter, and had someone completely unrelated to my family associated with my account (somehow living in my house, with my mobile phone number) is all probably the fault of some human rather than the system itself…

I’m interested to know how much Infinite Campus costs. From my preliminary research, it looks to be expensive. Really expensive. REALLY REALLY expensive. Aren’t there open source alternatives to these things? I mean, it’s not like there’s a need for software like this… it’s only the educational market, how big can that be? I probably wouldn’t mind having my tax dollars used for the development of open source software that pretty much every school district could have the option to use to manage things…

Obviously I’ve not seen the back end of this thing… If it makes life easier for the teachers and administration, that’s a good thing… My opinion is only that of a user. A user who has about 15 minutes of using it. So far… I’m not impressed, but I’ll keep an eye on it. It seems to work for other schools. Maybe it’ll just take time. Hopefully I won’t have to fix things myself like I did with WebGrader.

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Here, let me fix that for you…

So my old pal Sam (@svdodge) tweeted about an annoying feature of Twitter…

I would gladly pay somewhere between 10 and 25 cents a month to never see Who to Follow in my twitter sidebar again. #whoiswithme?

Now, Sam’s a smart guy, but I wondered if at what level this “feature” annoyed him… He may have been joking, but he did offer to pay (a small amount) to have this “feature” removed.

When I come across something I don’t like, I want to change it. I want to fix it, I want to make it not annoy me.

Luckily, with the web… this is possible. It’s possible due to the work others have done who felt the same way, who felt that users should be in control of their experience.

So I followed up with the following, suggesting a Greasemonkey or Stylish solution:

@svdodge shall I find you a Greasemonkey or Stylish solution? #annonyances #fixed

But that wasn’t enough for me.. so in the tradition of Let me google that for you I headed over to userscripts.org, found a script, installed it, tested it, and tweeted again:

@svdodge http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/83330 here's one... there are others #control #the #web

I hope it works for you Sam!

Now, as for the reason I did this? It wasn’t just to help a friend, and it wasn’t to show off how damn smart I am (I mean, that’s questionable, right?) The reason I did it was because I believe in keeping the web free and open. I believe in building a better Internet, and helping people take control.

These ideas align with those of Mozilla, btw… and it’s one more reason I’m sticking with Firefox as my browser (and Mozilla) instead of abandoning it for Chrome or Safari, or another browser created by a for-profit company interested in controlling my browsing experience. Mozilla was there for us, they saved us from the big bad IE Monster, and helped keep the web open and free, and they’re still doing that, and I want to help them… If you want to join me, get in touch.