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

grahamperrin

grahamperrin

macrumors 601
Jun 8, 2007
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648
joedec

joedec

macrumors 6502
Jul 25, 2014
443
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Cupertino
grahamperrin said:
Spun off from https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=20590558#post20590558 under Apple's Software Quality Decline

From Why DNS in OS X 10.10 is broken, and what you can do to fix it | Ars Technica (2015-01-12):

"… couldn't possibly have escaped the attention of the software engineers in question, let alone the quality assurance department. …"​

– I agree.

It'll be unfair to blame people in those areas.
Click to expand...

The Ars Technica article is spot on. Now Apple needs to be a little more forthcoming on what they changed and why they changed it.
 
N

noremacyug

macrumors member
Feb 5, 2014
42
0
i've fought this a day or two now and tried the .plist deletion process tonight with no avail. what i did do that worked in my instance was apparently a fault of my router of sorts. i have a ubiquiti edge router lite and at one point had the wifi access point on one port (eth2) and my mac mini on the another port (eth1), with eth0 being the wan. anyhow, in order to get things to work across subnets of eth1 and eth2 i read that enabling something called "mdns reflector" was needed on my router. well, i've rearranged my setup and temporarily put my mac mini and with wifi access point on the same subnet via a hub connected to eth1. i suddenly started getting the appended names. i, just a moment ago, remembered the mdns option i had enabled and disabled it. no more name changes since doing so and the ghost machines have all disappeared but one. i think this has fixed my issue, i'll report back if that changes.
 
Sandman619

Sandman619

macrumors newbie
Aug 7, 2007
24
5
San Diego, CA
Did you get this resolved ?

Did you get this resolved ?

BriMercer said:
Does anyone know how to fix this? A while back OS X started adding a "(2)" to my computer name. (See below.) I've tried deleting the "(2)", I've tried changing the computer's name various times, but the "(2)" always comes back.

Since this computer is the only with this name on my network, I don't understand why it insists on adding a "2".

Does anyone know why it's doing this and how to get rid of it for good?


.
Click to expand...
 
H

herbencrusted

macrumors newbie
May 16, 2014
2
0
Hostname keeps changing in 10.10.2

Installed the public version of 10.10.2 (14C109) today. Unfortunately, the highly frustrating climbing hostname bug (i.e. hostname (8)) lives on.
 
joedec

joedec

macrumors 6502
Jul 25, 2014
443
51
Cupertino
joedec said:
In my case it wasn't present before, but is now. I installed this fix, jury is still out.

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

crjackson2134 said:
Check back in after a good testing period and let us know how it worked out.
Click to expand...

Failed. Machine didn't rename, but I did acquire same name (2) in the Finder which is worse. Before I could just rename it back and all was well, now I have the ghost.

One other thing, the 'revert' instruction doesn't work either. However, just hand edit the file, removing the string with "--no-namechange"
 
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crjackson2134

crjackson2134

macrumors 601
Mar 6, 2013
4,847
1,957
Charlotte, NC
joedec said:
Failed. Machine didn't rename, but I did acquire same name (2) in the Finder which is worse. Before I could just rename it back and all was well, now I have the ghost.

One other thing, the 'revert' instruction doesn't work either. However, just hand edit the file, removing the string with "--no-namechange"
Click to expand...

Thanks for reporting back. I've considered forcing mDNSResponder over discoveryd but it's just a pita and may not work anyway.
 
vegetassj4

vegetassj4

macrumors 68000
Oct 16, 2014
1,928
10,740
so far, my dreaded (3) is finally gone after 10.10.2 on one MBP, and the awful wake every 2 hours gone from the other.

Keeping my fingers crossed.
 
joedec

joedec

macrumors 6502
Jul 25, 2014
443
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Cupertino
crjackson2134 said:
Thanks for reporting back. I've considered forcing mDNSResponder over discoveryd but it's just a pita and may not work anyway.
Click to expand...

One other thing I noticed was the file;

/Library/Preferences/com.apple.preferences.sharing.plist

gets flagged by Cocktail (the diagnostic tool) as corrupted. Its a zero length file. For kicks I added the default header to it, now Cocktail is happy, let's see how this works out.
 
joedec

joedec

macrumors 6502
Jul 25, 2014
443
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Cupertino
joedec said:
One other thing I noticed was the file;

/Library/Preferences/com.apple.preferences.sharing.plist

gets flagged by Cocktail (the diagnostic tool) as corrupted. Its a zero length file. For kicks I added the default header to it, now Cocktail is happy, let's see how this works out.
Click to expand...

None of these hacks seems to produce a result. ;-(
 
smithrh

smithrh

macrumors 68030
Feb 28, 2009
2,746
1,791
Honestly, I'm not going to read through 14 pages to see if this was mentioned again... but here's how I fixed this:

I gave every machine on my network a fixed IP address. Boom.

Now, if you have a portable device, you need to remember this, so you can make a mobile profile with DHCP client enabled so you can get an address assigned to you when roaming about (accessing other wifi hotspots, for example).

This has been a total fix with 0 reoccurrences since I made the change.
 
joedec

joedec

macrumors 6502
Jul 25, 2014
443
51
Cupertino
smithrh said:
Honestly, I'm not going to read through 14 pages to see if this was mentioned again... but here's how I fixed this:

I gave every machine on my network a fixed IP address. Boom.

Now, if you have a portable device, you need to remember this, so you can make a mobile profile with DHCP client enabled so you can get an address assigned to you when roaming about (accessing other wifi hotspots, for example).

This has been a total fix with 0 reoccurrences since I made the change.
Click to expand...

Of course static addressing will work but I can't believe we have to go back technologically 25 years (or more) for something that "works".

I'm not putting you down for doing it, its on Apple's shoulders to fix this.

PS Even MacWorld, the Mac faithful can't keep quiet any longer.

http://www.macworld.com/article/287...nue-to-hamper-os-x-users-despite-updates.html
 
smithrh

smithrh

macrumors 68030
Feb 28, 2009
2,746
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joedec said:
Of course static addressing will work but I can't believe we have to go back technologically 25 years (or more) for something that "works".

I'm not putting you down for doing it, its on Apple's shoulders to fix this.

PS Even MacWorld, the Mac faithful can't keep quiet any longer.

http://www.macworld.com/article/287...nue-to-hamper-os-x-users-despite-updates.html
Click to expand...

Agreed - Apple needs to fix.

However the pragmatic side of me says if a 1 minute fix solves the issue, then... apply the fix.
 
joedec

joedec

macrumors 6502
Jul 25, 2014
443
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Cupertino
smithrh said:
Agreed - Apple needs to fix.

However the pragmatic side of me says if a 1 minute fix solves the issue, then... apply the fix.
Click to expand...

Then just add all your hosts to /etc/hosts and make a cron job that uses rcp to copy to all the other machines in your network. Don't forget the .rhosts entries.

Circa 1989! ;)
 
smithrh

smithrh

macrumors 68030
Feb 28, 2009
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joedec said:
Then just add all your hosts to /etc/hosts and make a cron job that uses rcp to copy to all the other machines in your network. Don't forget the .rhosts entries.

Circa 1989! ;)
Click to expand...

You're overcomplicating the fix, actually.

Just give your Mac IP addresses, that's it. Bonjour still works fine.
 
joedec

joedec

macrumors 6502
Jul 25, 2014
443
51
Cupertino
smithrh said:
You're overcomplicating the fix, actually.

Just give your Mac IP addresses, that's it. Bonjour still works fine.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I'm just being facetious. I might do something like this also. I mostly travel between two networks of which I own both, so it would be fine to run a static address for a while.

"Bonjour", that dates you man, I always liked that name better than Rendezvous, I wish Apple wouldn't have changed it. Bonjour in my opinion was the first really good implementation of mDNS.
 
smithrh

smithrh

macrumors 68030
Feb 28, 2009
2,746
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joedec said:
"Bonjour", that dates you man, I always liked that name better than Rendezvous, I wish Apple wouldn't have changed it. Bonjour in my opinion was the first really good implementation of mDNS.
Click to expand...

Apple user since 1978 or so. Apple ][ was the bomb back then... 16k RAM... no floppies, yeah, things have changed a bit...
 
joedec

joedec

macrumors 6502
Jul 25, 2014
443
51
Cupertino
smithrh said:
Apple user since 1978 or so. Apple ][ was the bomb back then... 16k RAM... no floppies, yeah, things have changed a bit...
Click to expand...

VAX/VMS was my first love. The good old days.

Anyway, did you use "Using DHCP with manual Address" in System Preferences/Network/Advanced Wi-Fi TCP/IP? I did and no joy I still have the bug. I was hoping I could get by with the minimum.

BTW, last night I set DHCP to the default and turned OFF "Wake on network access". This was the fix for me during 10.10.0, 10.10.1 everything worked as normal. Now in 10.10.2 seems we have a regression, with "Wake on network access" OFF, the problem stopped.
 
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