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Buadhai

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 15, 2018
1,121
436
Korat, Thailand
My wife has a 2017 MBA still running Catalina (10.15.7 - Yeah, I know).

Recently she's had a couple of odd password problems that I think are keychain related:

• The machine keeps "forgetting" WiFi passwords. When I check the keychain on her machine, there is no entry for the SSID she's trying to connect to, even though it is our home WiFi which has had the same SSID and password for a decade. Her M1 iMac keychain does have an entry for that SSID with the correct password. When we enter the password on the Intel MBA, it immediately appears in the keychain - until next time. I thought keychains were synced via iCloud. They should be identical between machines. They are not.

• The machine will not log in to her own domain's email account. With her M1 MBA it works fine. I went in to the cPanel for her domain and "changed" the password to the one she's always been using and tried again. Mac Mail still says that it is "Unable to verify account name or password". I have painstakingly compared the email account info on the M1 iMac and the Intel MBA and they are identical. I entered the password on each by copying and pasting from the cPanel email setup to the Mail Accounts screen, so I know the passwords are identical on each machine.

[Edit] - Like an idiot I just kept trying the same password over and over and over again and finally it worked. Perverse.

As luck would have it, she's going to be away for two days on a business trip. I'm planning on updating her machine to Ventura Monterey hoping that will fix the keychain and mail log-in issues.

Any thoughts on that plan?

(I should note that last year at this time I bought her a fully loaded M2 MBA to replace the old Intel MBA. She sent it back to Apple. Any regrets, sweetheart?)
 
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russell_314

macrumors 604
Feb 10, 2019
6,695
10,294
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My wife has a 2017 MBA still running Catalina (10.15.7 - Yeah, I know).

As luck would have it, she's going to be away for two days on a business trip. I'm planning on updating her machine to Ventura Monterey hoping that will fix the keychain and mail log-in issues.

Any thoughts on that plan?

It wouldn't hurt to try but it's difficult when you're working on someone else's computer because if anything goes wrong they're not going to be happy. If it was my computer, I would factory reset it then install a fresh copy of the latest version of macOS.

(I should note that last year at this time I bought her a fully loaded M2 MBA to replace the old Intel MBA. She sent it back to Apple. Any regrets, sweetheart?)
Wow. I couldn't imagine using an old Intel dual core MacBook Air in 2023, but if it works for her, then she's happy
 

Buadhai

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 15, 2018
1,121
436
Korat, Thailand
It wouldn't hurt to try but it's difficult when you're working on someone else's computer because if anything goes wrong they're not going to be happy.

Yep, this is my concern. What if something goes wrong.

Wow. I couldn't imagine using an old Intel dual core MacBook Air in 2023, but if it works for her, then she's happy

I still use a 2010 MacBook (the heavy white one) that I've upgraded to 8GB RAM with a 512GB SSD and a new battery. It's surprisingly responsive. I mostly use it for terminal sessions with a few remote Raspberry Pies, but I also crank up LibreOffice or GraphicConverter now and then. It seems fine. The only read drawback is that the display is failing. It presents as a nice vignette of a normal screen.
 
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Buadhai

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 15, 2018
1,121
436
Korat, Thailand
Update the machine, if someone goes wrong, that's what backups are for.
Indeed. Installing now after I made sure my wife made a recent backup.

[Edit] Oops. Not enough free space on the boot drive and I'm not gonna be the one to figure out what can be moved/deleted.

Oh, well.
 
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Buadhai

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 15, 2018
1,121
436
Korat, Thailand
I changed my mind figuring that if I'm ever going to get a chance to clean up this machine it's now; while she's away for a couple of days. I'll just stay away from documents (she's an attorney so has thousands).

I found 12GB of obsolete and incompatible (32 bit) apps. I found a iPhoto library import that was 22 GB and dated from 2012.

Just that was enough to enable the update, but there were lots of other deletable oddities that are now gone.
 

MagnusTheDog

macrumors newbie
Nov 28, 2020
17
16
I changed my mind figuring that if I'm ever going to get a chance to clean up this machine it's now; while she's away for a couple of days. I'll just stay away from documents (she's an attorney so has thousands).

I found 12GB of obsolete and incompatible (32 bit) apps. I found a iPhoto library import that was 22 GB and dated from 2012.

Just that was enough to enable the update, but there were lots of other deletable oddities that are now gone.
Remember, Forgiveness is often easier to obtain than permission!
 
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