Some years ago, Apple stopped supplying Mac
firmware updates separately, and now delivers
them inside macOS upgrades, updates, and
security updates instead. For example, the
macOS Mojave 10.14.1 update, High Sierra
Security Update 2018-002 and Sierra Security
Update 2018-005 all brought a set of firmware
updates which also changed the numbering
system for the firmware.
Some Macs don’t appear to install these
correctly, though, and one common feature to
such problems is that the internal storage of
that Mac has been replaced, normally with
a non–Apple product, such as an original hard
drive which has been upgraded to an SSD.One workaround is to replace the original
storage in order to perform the required
update, but as “firmware” is largely stored on
disk that may not have any effect when the
new storage is swapped back in. That also
doesn’t help if the original drive has failed,
or been repurposed.
Sometimes installing macOS from scratch
as a clean install onto a freshly formatted disk
can address this. In a few instances, the boot
drive doesn’t get properly formatted in the
first place and may lack the Recovery or other
partitions. Sorting these problems out gets
very technical, and is probably best done by
your nearest Apple store.> Out of date firmware
I replaced the internal Fusion Drive in my iMac with an SSD. It’s now fallen behind with
firmware updates. How can I bring it up to date?HOW DO I STOP AN
APP HAVING ACCESS
TO MY CAMERA?
Go to System Prefs >
Security & Privacy, select
the Privacy tab, then click
the Camera item on the left.
That app should be listed
with a checkbox. Click on
the padlock and
authenticate to gain access,
then uncheck the box. For
FaceTime, open the app
instead and turn it off, as it
isn’t listed in Privacy.HOW CAN I HIDE
QUICK ACTIONS IN
MOJAVE’S FINDER?
You have to do this by
document type. Select an
example document of one
type, such as PDF or text,
then use the Show Preview
Options command in
Finder’s View menu to open
the editor. At the foot, untick
Show Quick Actions to
disable them.HOW CAN I ACCESS
SNAPSHOTS IN TIME
MACHINE BACKUPS?
Open the Time Machine app
in Applications, and step
back through its backups.
They occur in pairs roughly
an hour apart over the last
24 hours, the more recent in
each pair a few minutes
after the first. Those second
backups are the snapshots.
They’re stored for up to 24
hours before being removed.Normally, configuring a Mac to start up into
a user account without using a password is a
very bad idea. Apart from a complete lack of
security, it also means that every user of that
Mac would have access to the same account,
no one could do anything in privacy, and key
features like iCloud wouldn’t be possible.
It’s often simpler to set up each Mac with
a simple password which users can type in
from a note placed on that Mac. However,
if physical access to the Macs is strictly
controlled and users are in full agreement,
it should be possible, at least on a Mac
without a T2 chip, like the 2019 iMac.
Ensure that the startup disk doesn’t use
FileVault encryption, and that the account to
be used doesn’t use iCloud to log in or for its
keychain. Open the Users & Groups pane,
and select Login Options for the user account.
Click on the padlock and authenticate, then
enable the Automatic login item in the pop–
up at the top, ensuring that no password is
set for that user.You’ll also need to open System Prefs >
Security & Privacy, and in the General tab
ensure that none of its upper checkboxes
are checked, as they would prompt for a
password to wake up that Mac or clear its
screen saver.
If the firmware in these new iMacs still
doesn’t oblige, you’ll have to revert to using
a short and simple password instead.> Password–free login
We keep iMacs in a secure area which we want to give free access to without using
a password. How can we do this in Mojave?If your combination of Mac and macOS lets users log
in without a password, Automatic login should
appear in its Login Options.
Ask
76 DEC 2019 maclife.com