Adobe Acrobat OS X Active Directory Crash

So after fixing Adobe Acrobat admin password problem acrobat 8 loads up, but crashes after 20 seconds. I remember fixing this exact problem with Marketings' computer, Louise Webster I think.

Doh! I didn't write the solution in the blog!!! Lesson learned over and over again. So here's the brief explination I told Paul Jenkins by email:

Hi Paul,

I went over at 12 today to have a look. It appears to have problems on any active directory accounts which aren’t administrators. Its a permissions issue because acrobat (and lots of other programs) write temp files to the users home drive with the wrong permissions. The NHR program was installed but only redirects caches and fonts folders to the local drive, but still didn’t fix the acrobat problems. I found another folder which needed re-directing - “~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat/”

I made a folder in “/Users/Shared/Websterl/” and created an alias in her “/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat/” so it gets re-directed to the local drive. It only works on this machine for only her at the moment. If any more people have the same problem it would be worth adding an entry in the NHR program for acrobat.

I also noticed the programs and operating system weren’t up-to-date. I’ve set it updating adobe products. Louise said she’d get back in contact if she had any more problems. I didn’t get around to updating the operating system though.

Cheers

Stephen

I had a look at this folder and came up straight away with error! I remember not it was a folder within this folder:  /Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Acrobat/9.0_x86. So after redirecting this one it works. So to fix this problem for everyone, NHR program will need to do this as well! I'll find out how to do that tomorrow!

Unfortunately, NHR the full program redirects too many folders, i.e. Microsoft User Data, so I'll have to adapt the loginhook, logouthook, clean script files etc. But then I can copy them to all machines and it should be fine.

Adobe Acrobat administrator passwords on OS X

I've been having this problem for a very long time. I install adobe Acrobat professional 8 on the master image and it asks for the admin password the first time it is run by anybody! This is OK if you know the admin password but of course students don't. So, here's the main part of my investigations and one solution (there are more).


I found a few forums discussing the same issues and it apparently occurs on version 8 on OS X. It looks like the application needs to run a fixing program if it can't see a few files where it expects them, and this fixing program requires admin password. Forum here.


The forum gets a little confusing and I really don't want to read it again, a lot of crossed wires and such. So, the files involved is: ~user/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.acrobat.80.sh.plist

So I logged in as an admin user, ran Acrobat, put in password and if fixed itself (for that user). Then I copied this file and put it in an active directory users library and loaded up Acrobat. It worked! So, the easiest way to stop it is to make sure users have this file.

My plan is to put it in Workgroup Managers > Managed Preferences. Then it should work for all users.

... the next day ...
Yay, I tried it with the managed preferences and it worked. Looks like there is another file for the newer version: ~user/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.acrobat.90.sh.plist

OS X Bootpicker randomly not working

I have a computer suite with Dual Boot apple macs, when you switch them on they boot into OS X and give you the BootPicker menu. Rather annoyingly, only in this room, after rebooting bootpicker doesn't load on some, and after another reboot bootpicker works on these and fails on others. It's been happening for years and caused a lot of annoyance (only with me though). I must admit I do hate random problems.


So I thought I'd take the time to properly look into this problem. I noticed that bootpicker needs the "BSD e.g. Name:disk0s2" of the Windows partition to work. Now on these Apple Macs (Mac Pro's) there are two hard drives, one scratch disk and one operating systems disk (partitioned into two). Now for the Mac Pro's or OS X, it just randomly orders the disks, probably classed on how fast they respond on bootup, to either "disk1" or "disk0"! And so bootpicker fails. The command I found which lists the windows partition disk is:

diskutil list | grep 'Microsoft'

So, solutions! Well, there are two apparent solutions. Either get bootpicker to work not from bsd names but something unchanging like mount points (which are always the same) or UUID's, or get OS X not to randomly name the disks.

To get OS X or mac to keep disk names the same is to do with the /etc/FStab file. Now in OS X it doesn't need this file but if you make one it'll use it (I don't like it though). So using this file you can tell OS X which disk with particular UUID should be mounted where. Here are some posts I've found about it:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2278714/look-up-a-volume-by-uuid
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5820852&tstart=0

To get the UUID you just type in terminal:

diskutil info /Volumes/Untitled

Untitled is the mount point for the windows partition .

To get bootpicker to use something which doesn't change you've got the choice between the mountpoint and the UUID. At the end of the day, the way bootpicker works is when you click on "Windows" it runs the command:

/usr/sbin/bless --device /dev/ --setBoot --legacy --nextonly

You'd need to edit the /Library/Preferences/bootpicker.plist file. There is a "windowspartition" section where it normally says "/dev/disk0s3". I'd like to change this to the UUID or mountpoint. I'm not sure if the mountpoint is relevant at bootup, I think that's more of a OS X thing, so the UUID might be more relevant.

OS X Active Directory login issues - delete parallels

I keep coming across Apple Macs which have been working in Active Directory and yet not letting users log in (or even use kerberos in Firefox). The general symptoms are:

• "Some network accounts available" at login screen (i.e. active directory not working, open directory working)
• not letting active directory users log in
• showing active directory working in "Directory Utility"
• letting you re-bind to active directory with no problems
• trying to use firefox with kerberos authentication comes up with "unable to ......." (can't remember the exact error)

I tried the simple fixes such as reset the PR Ram and fsck -yf. I was going to do a disk permissions fix but thought it'd take too long. I looked in the console and found a few kerberos errors.

I found that there were a few errors with the network settings. I found that because the image was taken from a computer with Airport, it hadn't updated this and thought the ethernet connection was in fact an airport connection. I deleted the "Chesterfield College" location and made it "automatic" but deleted the airport which fixed that. I also noticed two Parallels shared connection network interfaces, which were set up when I was trialing Parallels. On deleting these and logging out, active directory accounts worked. But on reboot the devices were remade. So there was some files somewhere which remade the connections. I thought it be quicker looking for help rather then looking for files, and on a quick search I found some helpful stuff. Before I come to that I did notice that Parallels was actually still installed. So I recommend first you delete Parallels from the Applications folder.

Next would be deleting parallels library files. I found this forum, and down the bottom they mention:

cd /Library/
sudo rm -rf Parallels
cd /Library/Preferences/
sudo rm -rf Parallels
cd /Library/StartupItems/
sudo rm -rf ParallelsTransporter
cd /System/Library/Extensions/
sudo rm -rf prl_hid_hook.kext
sudo rm -rf prl_hypervisor.kext
sudo rm -rf prl_vnic.kext
sudo rm -rf prl_usb_connect.kext
sudo rm -rf prl_netbridge.kext
cd /Users//
sudo rm -rf .parallels/
sudo rm -rf .parallels_settings

I of course did all of this, but I think just deleting the Parallels application should do the job.




.... well, had a little play around and it turns out it's best doing all of it and heres ARD send command thing (under root)



rm -R /Applications/Parallels
rm -R /Applications/Parallels\ Desktop.app
rm -rf /Library/Parallels
rm -rf /Library/Preferences/Parallels
rm -rf /Library/StartupItems/ParallelsTransporter
rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/prl_hid_hook.kext
rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/prl_hypervisor.kext
rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/prl_vnic.kext
rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/prl_usb_connect.kext
rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/prl_netbridge.kext
rm -rf /Users//.parallels/
rm -rf /Users//.parallels_settings

It's impossible to delete network devices via command line, but doing the above disconnects them, which is the next best thing.

Mac OS X Power Saving Schedule via Command Line

I now have, or want to have, all computers booting up on weekdays at 8:30 which will give me a good idea of which ones are working and which aren't via Remote Desktop. Also I have them shutting down at 16:50 as they will not be needed after this time (apart from times when they might be doing updates/scripts but I'll just have to remember this problem)

I also plan on changing the schedule for Half Terms and holidays so no extra power is wasted.

To control it all the xserve is set up to manage machine preferences and so through Workgroup Manager I change the preferences. A problem I'm having is that not all machines boot up at 8:30 even though they all appear in good working order. To check/manage preferences from Remote Desktop (to troubleshoot also) you can use the command line:

pmset -g sched

This works well and gives you what the schedules are. So far they are telling the right schedules:

N251-04899 (192.168.32.22)

Repeating power events:

  wakepoweron at 8:30AM weekdays only

  shutdown at 4:50PM every day

Scheduled power events:

 [0]  wakeorpoweron at 01/14/11 08:30:00 by Repeating

 [1]  shutdown at 01/13/11 16:50:00 by Repeating

I'll update this more when I find out more.

Final cut pro "Preview Disabled"

So yesturday a student was capturing film from a DV deck. Logged out for break and logged back in and low and behold when in "Log and Capture" it said "Preview Disabled". So I tried different tapes, different computer, different user (cove), different PAL settings and refresh rates to no avail. Only thing I didn't try was different tape deck (all were in use).


A quick search on google came up with a few results:

1. Switch from PAL to other and then switch back (should refresh it)
2. View drop-down menu in FCP and clicking on 'Refresh AV devices'
3. Trying leaving the camera on and plugged into your Mac and then reboot your computer

after this guess I'll do some more searching (maybe even in console)

ARD Client not working

I've had a problem with about 20 apple macs refusing to work with Apple Remote Desktop. They would screen share but I could not get ARD admin to connect to ARD client on these machines. I tried many things including:

• Reinstalling ARD Client 3.3.2
• PR reset
• Disk Permissions
• OS X 10.5.8 update

Only on re-imaging the machine would the computer comumicate with ARD admin.

I had the chance yesturday to sit down at one of these computers and work out what was wrong. Restarting the services was the first port of call. I then moved on to the "Console". This showed an ARD error message about "/Library/Application\ Support/Apple/Remote\ Desktop/Client/Tasks/..../OS X 10.5.8/.....plist not a directory. I thought this would be related to the Task Server as I did send this update to all computers. I stopped the task server but the error kept coming up. When I stopped ArD client the error stopped. I decided to rename the directory (which was owned by root) using the below command:

su root

password ..................

mv /Library/Application\ Support/Apple/Remote\ Desktop/Client/Tasks /Library/Application\ Support/Apple/Remote\ Desktop/Client/old_Tasks

Yay! It worked. Probably a permissions problem with that folder which was created during the update. I noticed that the ARD icon at the top turned from gray to black. On ARD admin I had to re-type the password for the particular mac (but I could have restarted ARD which would have refreshed it). This fixed all other computers. Only bad thing was that I had to go around these computers personally because ARD wasn't working on them. Oh well, it did give me a chance to check all the computer suites.