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

[kfscoll]

Mine's at (6) with 10.10.1 beta 2.

 

[rodknocker]

I spoke with a senior tech at Apple about this just now. I discovered that the changing computer name has made my TimeMachine backups unaccessible - the permissions are all FUBAR. So in addition to being extremely annoying to see the computer name constantly changing, I cannot get to any TM backups. The Time Capsule sparsebundles cannot be loaded - when I attempt to mount the drives and view the sparsebundles, I get an error saying they are temporarily unavailable. Within the TimeMachine, all of the folder icons have little red dots on them.

He suspected corrupted network files, and suggested the following to fix the issue of the computer name changing:

Go to Macintosh HD > Library > Preferences > SystemConfiguration
and delete the following files:

com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
NetworkInterfaces.plist
preferences.plist

Then reboot. The deleted files will be recreated and you should be good to go.

I have done so, and now we wait.

I tried all solutions of this thread. Only this one worked permanently (for me)

 

[dkrizic]

Hi,

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.

I did and it works. My names are stable (I had a change to (2) or (3) directly after boot, so easy to reproduce.). I have multiple Sleep Proxies in my network that made the thing so worse:

- 4 x Airport Extreme (4th and 5th Generation)
- 3 x Airport Express
- Mac mini with BTTM active
- MacBook
- MacBook Air
- Apple TV 2
- pfSense Router/Firewall, using Avahi to announce services in multiple networks
- QNAP NAS Using Avahi to announce services
- FreeNAS with Avahi
- Canon Ink printer with Bonjour
- Elgato EyeTV with Bonjour services
- Multiple other servers using Avahi

Now Bonjour services are only singly and Back To My Mac (BTTM) works again from my work office to home. I simply backed up the original file and will restore it, after Apple has published a bug fix.

Regards,

Darko

 

[Cory Bauer]

My Mac Mini was up to (10), with all of the ghost mac mini's showing up in the Finder sidebar, until I replaced my 1st generation Time Capsule with a 6th Generation Time Capsule for an unrelated reason. I'll need to check to see if the issue has started again with the new router.

 

[joedec]

My Mac Mini was up to (10), with all of the ghost mac mini's showing up in the Finder sidebar, until I replaced my 1st generation Time Capsule with a 6th Generation Time Capsule for an unrelated reason. I'll need to check to see if the issue has started again with the new router.

I've found on a couple of installations, Release 10.10 and 10.10.1 Seed Beta 2. If I turn off "Wake on network access", restart the Airport Extreme, rename (delete (2)) the host. Everything works fine, except of course I can't wake the machines.

 

[Cory Bauer]

I've found on a couple of installations, Release 10.10 and 10.10.1 Seed Beta 2. If I turn off "Wake on network access", restart the Airport Extreme, rename (delete (2)) the host. Everything works fine, except of course I can't wake the machines.

I'll try that, thanks. "Wake on Network Access" never seems to work for me anyhow; I assumed this would allow me to access media from iTunes on the Mac Mini from the Apple TV in my living room without first having to go upstairs and manually awaken the Mini, but apparently "Wake on Network Access" has nothing to do with waking on network access

 

[joedec]

I'll try that, thanks. "Wake on Network Access" never seems to work for me anyhow; I assumed this would allow me to access media from iTunes on the Mac Mini from the Apple TV in my living room without first having to go upstairs and manually awaken the Mini, but apparently "Wake on Network Access" has nothing to do with waking on network access

One note, make sure you get your host renamed before the Airport Extreme comes back up.

 

[rihia]

I'm regards to the 5ghz network... I've recently moved into a townhouse and was getting really weird results over wifi (dipping bandwidth) after realizing that there are 30+ other wifi routers around me that were interfering with my wifi "wave" I discovered the wonders of the 5ghz network! Since having dual bands on for wifi printer, damn thing is only 2.4ghz#.. I have noticed this network naming and it's frustrating to see the duplicate macs on the network and time machine backups failing. This is the first time I've used dual networks and its a pain!!! But with everyone saying this is a Yosemite only bug might need to rethink what there change to network might have...

Is there a way to only have the MacBook running on 5ghz?

 

[kfscoll]

I'm regards to the 5ghz network... I've recently moved into a townhouse and was getting really weird results over wifi (dipping bandwidth) after realizing that there are 30+ other wifi routers around me that were interfering with my wifi "wave" I discovered the wonders of the 5ghz network! Since having dual bands on for wifi printer, damn thing is only 2.4ghz#.. I have noticed this network naming and it's frustrating to see the duplicate macs on the network and time machine backups failing. This is the first time I've used dual networks and its a pain!!! But with everyone saying this is a Yosemite only bug might need to rethink what there change to network might have...

Is there a way to only have the MacBook running on 5ghz?

Give the 5GHz network a different SSID (e.g. "network2") from your 2.4GHz network (e.g. "network"), then tell your MacBook to connect to "network2" and the rest of your devices to connect to "network." You do this by clicking the "Wireless options" button under the "Wireless" tab of AirPort Utility (assuming you're running an Apple router).

 

[chrfr]

Give the 5GHz network a different SSID (e.g. "network2") from your 2.4GHz network (e.g. "network"), then tell your MacBook to connect to "network2" and the rest of your devices to connect to "network." You do this by clicking the "Wireless options" button under the "Wireless" tab of AirPort Utility (assuming you're running an Apple router).

I have a 2.4 and 5 GHz network with different IDs, and this does not solve the problem either but it should help with network congestion.

 

[kfscoll]

I have a 2.4 and 5 GHz network with different IDs, and this does not solve the problem either but it should help with network congestion.

I wasn't implying that it would; I was answering the previous poster's question about how to get only one of his devices to join his 5GHz network. Sorry, it was a bit off-topic...

 

[ed-hawco]

Just chiming in to give my story:

• This problem only started after upgrading to Yosemite.
• I was up to 14 versions of my machine!
• I turned off "Wake for network access," renamed the machine in Preferences/Sharing, and rebooted.
• Problem appears to be solved (although it's only been a few minutes... maybe ghosts will start appearing later).

Some people have reported problems with TimeMachine after renaming their machines, but I don't use TimeMachine, so no worries for me.

 

[Coltaine]

Since I've turned off all the sharing services, the problem has disappeared.
No more renaming on my iMac.

 

[smithrh]

Hey, we should have a contest, I was up to (20) this morning!

I also saw that I had gone through a slew of IPs, so I'm trying this: I've turned off IP address through DHCP (I have an Airport) and assigned this computer a static IP.

We'll see how it goes, one downside is that the Airport no longer gives the hostname but rather the IP address, but I'm generally fine with that.

This may be what pushes me to drop DHCP entirely.

 

[S.B.G]

What worked for me was turning off wake for network access under Energy Saver in System Preferences.



Then I edited that field and removed the numbers and such. Everything has been fine since I did that a couple of weeks ago. Before I had about 5 or 6 MacBook Pro (2), or (3) etc... Showing in Finder.

Several weeks now and I'm still good with what I did. Nothing has come back.

 

[kfscoll]

Hey, we should have a contest, I was up to (20) this morning!

I also saw that I had gone through a slew of IPs, so I'm trying this: I've turned off IP address through DHCP (I have an Airport) and assigned this computer a static IP.

We'll see how it goes, one downside is that the Airport no longer gives the hostname but rather the IP address, but I'm generally fine with that.

This may be what pushes me to drop DHCP entirely.

Rather than turning off DHCP on your router, couldn't you just simply assign a static IP address to the misbehaving Mac to achieve the same results? That way you could continue to use DHCP with all of your other devices yet see if this solution works for the renaming issue on your Mac.

I assign static IP addresses for my printers (that way I can access the printers' web interfaces at consistent IP addresses) yet leave DHCP on in my AirPort Extreme's settings. It seems to work fine.

 

[kolvorok]

Hey, we should have a contest, I was up to (20) this morning!

I'm up to 28 here and this has been going on for me since the betas of Yosemite. Beta 1 or 2, I'm not shure, but sometimes I get the message that another computer on the network is using the same IP-address, sometimes not.

I've tried some of the solutions mentioned here, but I would like to know how to get rid of all the 27 shared items in my Finder sidebar...:-/

 

[smithrh]

Several weeks now and I'm still good with what I did. Nothing has come back.

I did that a couple of weeks ago (turn off wake for network access) and everything was fine until yesterday when I was up to (20) and my IP address had also increased also in very similar numbers, leading me to think that perhaps this is linked to DHCP...

Rather than turning off DHCP on your router, couldn't you just simply assign a static IP address to the misbehaving Mac to achieve the same results?

Sorry I wasn't clearer, this is exactly what I've done. When I mentioned I had an Airport, it was just to mention the type of AP that I have.

I'm up to 28 here

We have a new leader!

 

[S.B.G]

I did that a couple of weeks ago (turn off wake for network access) and everything was fine until yesterday when I was up to (20) and my IP address had also increased also in very similar numbers, leading me to think that perhaps this is linked to DHCP...



Sorry I wasn't clearer, this is exactly what I've done. When I mentioned I had an Airport, it was just to mention the type of AP that I have.



We have a new leader!

What do you mean your IP address has increased too?

 

[smithrh]

What do you mean your IP address has increased too?

It went from an assigned 198.162.1.5 to 198.162.1.22. DHCP lease time is on the order of days, and I don't have anywhere close to that many devices.

Seemed to be an interesting jump that should not have occurred, I noticed it at the same time I saw the (20) in the computer name. I know it may not be related, but it seems awfully coincidental...

Now, if Apple hadn't butchered the logs on the Airport, I could say more about what the Airport did, but...

 

[S.B.G]

It went from an assigned 198.162.1.5 to 198.162.1.22. DHCP lease time is on the order of days, and I don't have anywhere close to that many devices.

Seemed to be an interesting jump that should not have occurred, I noticed it at the same time I saw the (20) in the computer name. I know it may not be related, but it seems awfully coincidental...

Yeah, agreed. That does seem odd and shouldn't be happening. I'm also using all DHCP at home and I should check out my IP's and see what's going on. Though I suspect since I'm not having the appended numbers problem any longer, the IP's should be good.

 

[smithrh]

Also potentially interesting is that my wired computers haven't ever had a problem with this. Only my laptop has this issue. All are on Yosemite.

 

[S.B.G]

Also potentially interesting is that my wired computers haven't ever had a problem with this. Only my laptop has this issue. All are on Yosemite.

Same here (when I had the issue). It was my wireless cMBP having the problem, but the wired iMac was not.

 

[codeoverride]

iMac Computer Name Changing Automatically

My iMac's computer name keeps changing automatically after Yosemite upgrade. For example it goes from iMac to iMac (1), iMac (2), iMac (3) and so on.

 

[zonly1]

I tried all solutions of this thread. Only this one worked permanently (for me)

This also was the only solution for me. Disabling Wake on Wi-Fi also worked but deleting these files fixed my problem for 4 days now with Wake on Wi-Fi enabled. One of the files was an empty file of Zero bytes.