TinkerTool System 5

Known Issues

Removing recent entries for documents sent via the share feature of Sierra may have no effect: If you use the option on the privacy pane to remove entries for recent documents sent via the share feature of the operating system, this will not work as expected on some versions of macOS 10.12 Sierra.

Workaround: This is a known compatibility issue. Please download Version 5.99 S3 Build 191219 of TinkerTool System 5 to fix this problem.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can the Standalone Utility of TinkerTool System coexist with other tools that are also designed to be used in Single User Mode? Do I need to uninstall other tools first?

A: You don't need to care about the existence of other Single User Mode applications on your hard drive. As long as macOS is capable of starting in Single User Mode to a command-line prompt, you can select between any commands or programs you might have installed. There are no conflicts to expect.

You only should avoid to use the multi-tasking capabilities of macOS to run several of such tools really in parallel. If you like to use the features of different tools, it will be recommended to reboot the system each time before starting an alternative application.

Release Notes

TinkerTool System may refuse to create installation media for the October 2019 edition of macOS Sierra: If you downloaded the version of macOS 10.12.6 Sierra that was published via Apple’s official download link on October 23, 2019, and then install the package to create the Sierra Installation App, the feature of TinkerTool System to create install media won’t accept this App. It shows the message No valid installer instead.

Workaround: This is the correct and intended behavior. The Installation App created by Apple’s October 2019 download of macOS Sierra is defective and cannot be used for install media. We have informed Apple about this issue, but they have not provided a working copy of the installer so far.

Automatic inheritance of Access Control Lists may fail if objects are copied within the same APFS volume: If you create one or more Access Control Entries for a folder with options that enable automatic inheritance onto new objects in that folder, and the folder is located on a volume using APFS, and you copy this folder or some of its contents into a folder on the same volume, and you use modern software for the copy operation supporting the APFS clonefile feature, inheritance may fail. The operating system just ignores the inheritance options and the ACEs are not copied.

Workaround: This is a known defect of the APFS file system in macOS. Consider using the file system Mac OS Extended (Journaled) instead of APFS as a workaround. We have informed Apple about this bug in March 2019, but they did not fix it so far.

Specifying a time interval when querying the macOS log database may not work: If you use the feature Info > Logs and specify a time interval at Time range, filtering by date and time may not work correctly with some macOS installations. Instead, the operating system returns entries for the entire recorded time range available. TinkerTool System detects this problem and will give you an error message in this case.

Workaround: This is a known defect of macOS. Only specific system installations are affected. We have informed Apple about this problem and hope they will fix it in future versions of the operating system. In case TinkerTool System detects this issue on your Mac, please see the recommendations given in the error panel for possible workarounds.

The option not to remove language support packages from embedded bundles cannot be switched off: The pane Languages provides an option to remove language support packages from all software components, even if these components are nested inside other components. The corresponding setting is always switched on. The check mark cannot be removed.

Workaround: At this time, this is the intended behavior due to a known defect of macOS. Although Apple’s packaging guidelines for software confirm that language support packages can be removed at all nesting levels without harming the affected software bundles, the current implementation of Apple’s code signature checks violates this rule. The digital seals of applications such as the Finder may become invalid when language support packages are removed at deeper levels of the application bundle. We have informed Apple about this issue, but they currently have no interest in fixing it. The associated option may need to be removed in future versions of TinkerTool System.

Although the Faults and Errors mode of the Console application confirms that no errors have occurred, the log feature of TinkerTool System shows errors for the time interval in question: If you are using Apple’s Console application to review log messages and you activate its filter to only show “Faults and Errors”, it may never display any messages.

Workaround: This was a known defect of macOS. Update to macOS 10.12.4 or later to resolve this problem.

When trying to use text mode login of macOS, you only get a black screen: If you like to use the feature of macOS to work with the system in Darwin console mode, without a graphical user interface, as it is described both in the reference manuals of TinkerTool System and Apple, the system might become temporarily unusable. Instead of showing the login prompt in text mode, a black screen appears and the keyboard fails.

Workaround: This is a known defect of macOS. We have informed Apple about this issue and hope they will fix it in future versions of the operating system. In case your Mac has become locally inaccessible, but it is part of a network, you can perform a remote login via Secure Shell as administrator, and restart the system gracefully with the command “sudo reboot”. To protect your system against a possible local denial of service attack, use TinkerTool System to enable the option “Login > Special Features > Don’t allow to switch to text mode via ‘>console’”.

The feature to reset the App privacy database may not work as expected for specific domains: If you select some of the items in the App Privacy table on the Privacy pane and press the Reset button, there may not always be a noticeable effect on the privacy settings. Depending on what domain of personal data you had chosen, macOS may just ignore the command, reporting that the reset operation has been performed successfully.

Workaround: This is a known defect of macOS. Apple may or may not fix this problem in future versions of the operating system. If the automatic reset operation appears to fail, try to delete the individual items manually in the Privacy table of the Security & Privacy pane of System Preferences.