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OS X keeps appending "(2)" to computer name

L

lefooey

macrumors member
Dec 26, 2009
64
0
Spokane, WA
What worked for me

I disabled "Wake for LAN access" on all machines connected via WiFi.
I renamed them back to their original names without the (2), (3), etc.
I rebooted my Airport Extreme (most recent "tall" version).

So far so good - five days and everything normal.
 
D

dennosaurus

Suspended
Nov 3, 2014
6
0
Intell said:
This is caused by your computer seeing a ghost of itself on your network. You can make it stop by turning off Wake for Network Access in the Energy Saver pref pane. Once off, rename your machine to finish.
Click to expand...

laurihoefs said:
So far this has been the only trick that has worked. Thanks Intell!
Click to expand...

lefooey said:
I disabled "Wake for LAN access" on all machines connected via WiFi.
I renamed them back to their original names without the (2), (3), etc.
I rebooted my Airport Extreme (most recent "tall" version).

So far so good - five days and everything normal.
Click to expand...

Several days now and this method seems to have addressed the problem for me, too. (Let me also extend my thanks to Intell!) During this period the problem machine has slept several times a day and has been shut down a few times. I definitely miss the ability to wake the machine remotely, but this will have to do until a permanent fix is available. Now, about those lingering ghosts in the Finder sidebar...nothing seems to get rid of them. Minor issue, I suppose, but annoying nonetheless. I'm going out on a limb here, but Yosemite seems a tad buggy. ;)
 
fisherking

fisherking

macrumors G4
Jul 16, 2010
11,252
5,563
ny somewhere
Intell said:
This is caused by your computer seeing a ghost of itself on your network. You can make it stop by turning off Wake for Network Access in the Energy Saver pref pane. Once off, rename your machine to finish.
Click to expand...

almost 3 weeks here, with the above fix, and no numbers added. thanx again, intell...!
 
C

Coltaine

macrumors 6502
Jan 7, 2012
321
337
I disabled all the sharing services in the "Sharing" settings in Preferences Pane.
This has prevented the problem from occurring for eight days now.

My MacBook Air, which never had any sharing services enabled, never exhibited this behavior. So at least in my case, I suppose it must have been caused by some sharing services related problem.

Edit: "Wake for Network Access" is and always has been enabled on both of my machines (iMac and MacBook Air).
 
randomgeeza

randomgeeza

macrumors 6502a
Aug 12, 2014
624
460
United Kingdom
Bl**dy H*ll!

Mines back, I seriously spoke too soon... I got as far as 3/4 days... Looked this morning and a (3) was staring back at me! No restarts just sleep. I wonder if it is something to do with that and the TC/AE not recognising that the machine has dozed off... Keeping the connection live. Hence when it wakes, it thinks ahhhh another machine with the same name... NUMBER!
 
laurihoefs

laurihoefs

macrumors 6502a
Mar 1, 2013
793
23
dennosaurus said:
Several days now and this method seems to have addressed the problem for me, too. (Let me also extend my thanks to Intell!) During this period the problem machine has slept several times a day and has been shut down a few times. I definitely miss the ability to wake the machine remotely, but this will have to do until a permanent fix is available. Now, about those lingering ghosts in the Finder sidebar...nothing seems to get rid of them. Minor issue, I suppose, but annoying nonetheless. I'm going out on a limb here, but Yosemite seems a tad buggy. ;)
Click to expand...

Aaand it's back. Took a bit over a week for the issue to reappear, but disabling Wake for Network Access wasn't the solution afterall.
 
L

lefooey

macrumors member
Dec 26, 2009
64
0
Spokane, WA
randomgeeza said:
Bl**dy H*ll!

Mines back, I seriously spoke too soon... I got as far as 3/4 days... Looked this morning and a (3) was staring back at me! No restarts just sleep. I wonder if it is something to do with that and the TC/AE not recognising that the machine has dozed off... Keeping the connection live. Hence when it wakes, it thinks ahhhh another machine with the same name... NUMBER!
Click to expand...

My hunch is that's exactly the issue, and I expect we'll see a firmware update for Airport Extreme/Time Capsule to fix it. When your machine goes idle, the AE creates a "ghost" of it if you have sharing and wake on LAN enabled called a Sleep Proxy. The sleep proxy is directly related to the original MAC address of the sleeping computer. The persistent ghost issue, in my opinion, is related to the new MAC address randomization that came with OS X 10.10 and iOS 8.0.

If only we could trust people to not use a very important part of the internet's infrastructure to track us, we wouldn't need this silliness (or have these sorts of issues). *sigh*
 
nebrot

nebrot

macrumors regular
Oct 25, 2011
101
1
北京 (Beijing)
lefooey said:
My hunch is that's exactly the issue, and I expect we'll see a firmware update for Airport Extreme/Time Capsule to fix it. When your machine goes idle, the AE creates a "ghost" of it if you have sharing and wake on LAN enabled called a Sleep Proxy. The sleep proxy is directly related to the original MAC address of the sleeping computer. The persistent ghost issue, in my opinion, is related to the new MAC address randomization that came with OS X 10.10 and iOS 8.0.

If only we could trust people to not use a very important part of the internet's infrastructure to track us, we wouldn't need this silliness (or have these sorts of issues). *sigh*
Click to expand...
This is what I believe also. I am also having a Windows PC connected to my AE/TC and it´s kicked out of the network regularly since a while. I believe there must be coming a patch for AE/TC to fix the whole story.
 
D

Dopeyman

macrumors 6502a
Sep 5, 2005
614
48
Los Angeles!
Maybe it'll be a little bit helpful if we posted our network setup and see where there might be differences??

I personally have a 3rd gen TC with both 2.4 and 5ghz running. That's it.

The only machine with the name changing problem is my late '08 MBP. My '11 27" iMac (3.4/i7) does not have this problem. On both these machines I did fresh installs of Yosemite. I did not do a transfer from time machine backup to either machine. I

After reading through all 10 pages, I decided to try this:

Through my iMac I went into the TC drive and deleted my MBP backup image completely. I didn't have anything there important anyways and neither on my MBP. So now I can say that I really did a fresh install of Yosemite and my new TC backup is fresh as well.

Anyway, 2 hrs after a new backup it hasn't changed. It would constantly change every minute or so. It never went higher than (2) in my case.

I have that Wake for network access turned on. I also have Screen Sharing, File Sharing and Printer Sharing turned on.

I'll post if anything changes while both I and my MBP sleep.
 
D

dennosaurus

Suspended
Nov 3, 2014
6
0
Here's my setup...

My network consists of a TC (ac, only a few months old) using both 2.4 and 5GHz channels with the same name, and an AirPort Express (n) extending the network. My 2013 13" MacBook Air (1.7 GHz i7) has never exhibited the problem, nor has my wife's late-2008 MBP. My mid-2011 27" (3.1 GHz i5) iMac has been the only problem machine. I did a clean install on both the MBA and the iMac, and just upgraded my wife's MBP. All machines are on wireless.

If memory serves, these are the steps I followed: (1) Disabled all sharing preferences along with "Wake for network access." (2) Restarted the TC (I don't believe I've ever disabled BTMM in the TC settings). (3) While the TC was restarting, I quickly renamed the iMac to its original name and rebooted. I've also resisted the urge to enable any of the sharing preferences on any machine. It's been almost a week and so far, so good. But as others have had the issue reoccur after following a similar procedure, I'm awaiting the same fate. At which point I'll resemble the bishop from Caddy Shack as I bellow, "Rat farts!"

I should also note that my TC has been flaky since upgrading to Yosemite (the MBA's AirPort Utility won't see it and I'm mostly unable to connect to it when I select it under Shared in the Finder). But I believe someone else here reported having the same renaming problem using a different router. Hope this helps as we try to pinpoint the problem. My money's on Bonjour, but what do I know.
 
randomgeeza

randomgeeza

macrumors 6502a
Aug 12, 2014
624
460
United Kingdom
Billion 7800DXL acting as a bridge to the newest TC.

TC broadcasting on two channels, 2.4 & 5, slightly different SSID's.

Have WFLA turned on. Have all sharing options turned off. Have B2MM turned off.

It seems to slow the re-numration issue down, so that it happens maybe once a week as opposed to once, twice a day.

The only temporary remedy that I have is to restart the TC, and as that boots, to rename the MBP. And then to keep fingers and toes crossed.
 
Swiss-G

Swiss-G

macrumors 6502a
Jun 3, 2010
750
88
United Kingdom
Had this problem since the early beta's. Installed 10.10.1 earlier today and it appears to have solved the issue.

Edit: Worked for about 24hrs. Switched wifi connection earlier and the (2) is back again.
 
Last edited:
U

unobtainium

macrumors 68030
Mar 27, 2011
2,650
4,086
lefooey said:
My hunch is that's exactly the issue, and I expect we'll see a firmware update for Airport Extreme/Time Capsule to fix it. When your machine goes idle, the AE creates a "ghost" of it if you have sharing and wake on LAN enabled called a Sleep Proxy. The sleep proxy is directly related to the original MAC address of the sleeping computer. The persistent ghost issue, in my opinion, is related to the new MAC address randomization that came with OS X 10.10 and iOS 8.0.

If only we could trust people to not use a very important part of the internet's infrastructure to track us, we wouldn't need this silliness (or have these sorts of issues). *sigh*
Click to expand...

Could the same bug be causing my Mac to refuse to connect to a USB drive attached to my AirPort Extreme? It keeps giving me errors when I try to connect through Finder. I wonder if it's because of mismatched MAC addresses? I don't know much about this stuff.
 
S

snarfquest

macrumors regular
Jun 7, 2013
210
4
Swiss-G said:
Had this problem since the early beta's. Installed 10.10.1 earlier today and it appears to have solved the issue.

Edit: Worked for about 24hrs. Switched wifi connection earlier and the (2) is back again.
Click to expand...

It's now gotten worse for me with 10.10.1.

/sigh
 
D

Dopeyman

macrumors 6502a
Sep 5, 2005
614
48
Los Angeles!
Dopeyman said:
Maybe it'll be a little bit helpful if we posted our network setup and see where there might be differences??

I personally have a 3rd gen TC with both 2.4 and 5ghz running. That's it.

The only machine with the name changing problem is my late '08 MBP. My '11 27" iMac (3.4/i7) does not have this problem. On both these machines I did fresh installs of Yosemite. I did not do a transfer from time machine backup to either machine. I

After reading through all 10 pages, I decided to try this:

Through my iMac I went into the TC drive and deleted my MBP backup image completely. I didn't have anything there important anyways and neither on my MBP. So now I can say that I really did a fresh install of Yosemite and my new TC backup is fresh as well.

Anyway, 2 hrs after a new backup it hasn't changed. It would constantly change every minute or so. It never went higher than (2) in my case.

I have that Wake for network access turned on. I also have Screen Sharing, File Sharing and Printer Sharing turned on.

I'll post if anything changes while both I and my MBP sleep.
Click to expand...

Everything is still good. The name has not changed. This worked for me.
 
lpb

lpb

macrumors member
Jul 26, 2013
42
15
Sweden
medgirl2001 said:
Has anyone tried this fix to stop the name changing?

http://ispire.me/computer-name-changing-constantly-yosemite/

I'm a little nervous about changing the discoveryd .plist file. But nothing else I've tried has worked. It seems like it's getting worse. I could delete com.apple.preferences.sharing.plist and go a few days between ghost appearances, but now it's happening all the time.
Click to expand...

I have tried this and so far (48 hours) my iMac has not changed its name...
 
K

KenniJH

macrumors newbie
Apr 15, 2012
17
1
joedec

joedec

macrumors 6502
Jul 25, 2014
443
51
Cupertino
Swiss-G said:
Installed 10.10.1 (14B23) yesterday. When it rebooted it jumped to (4).

Renamed it and it has remained stable for about 18 hours.
Click to expand...

Installed 10.10.1 (14B23) or Beta 2, switched System Preference/Energy Saver/Wake for network access back ON.

So far so good. A few hours, some sleep, wake from sleep...
 
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