Share Sheet crash in iOS 13.3 - try removing apps that have associated share sheet actions

I upgraded from iOS 12 to 13.3. Most things worked (Parental Controls/Screen Time may be more broken, but it’s always broken), but I had one significant bug.

If I opened a .docx (Word) file in Mail.app it would display in the docx viewer as expected. If I then tapped the share sheet icon the viewer would crash.

David Yeh found a workaround — do a long press on the document and then use the share sheet from that popup screen. Another contributor suggested removing and restoring the mail account, that didn’t work for me.

Today I found a fix for my case. I deleted two utilities: Pinner (last updated 2y ago) and Opener (frequently updated) then restarted my phone. That removed their associated share sheet action apps.

Now the share sheet works for me.

I’ll reinstall Opener if I find I miss it. Pushpin.app was updated relatively recently so I’ll use that instead of Pinner (really, I only use the Pushpin app action).

How to create a file system reference to an iCloud Note

My daughter wanted us to use a shared Apple Note for trip planning. That's fine, but I wanted a way to reference it from the macOS folder that held other trip documents.

This worked:

1. Open Safari and view the specific Note.
2. Drag the URL ref to desktop creating a .webloc file, name it as desired
3. Store .webloc file in folder

Funny bit: If you double-click the .webloc file it doesn't open Safari. It opens Mojave Notes.app with the specific Note selected and contents displayed.

This is the actual webloc content (I tweaked the GUID just in case it allows global access):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>URL</key>
<string>https://www.icloud.com/notes/0HxBnHC0QgNjaCyxlsPXOLLvw</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Unable to use MarsEdit with Blogger - Google web OAUTH failure with DHCP mode on AirPort Extreme

I'm now unable to use MarsEdit with Blogger on Mojave or High Sierra. When Google asks me to authenticate instead of getting the usual embedded web page for entering credentials I get a blank page.

Either Google has changed something so this only works on Catalina or there's something odd about my Google accounts. I've tested with

• two non-2FA Google Apps identities that used to work
• my personal 2FA Gmail Google ID
• my wife's personal Gmail Google ID never used for blogger
• two user accounts on my Mojave machine
• 1 user account on High Sierra
• Admin and non-admin account
• Clearing caches with Onyx
• I think I also tried an older version of MarsEdit that was on my old account on the High Sierra machine

macOS Console has not been helpful, but I have yet to download and try it using Consolation.

 

MarsEdit dev (Daniel Jalkut) says it works for him on Catalina and on pre-Catalina.

Update 12/6/2019: I eventually realized the problem was my home network. I have a Comcast Xfinity router and an Apple AirPort Extreme. Both have had no configuration changes in months, but Comcast recently updated my service and the AirPort firmware went to version 7.9.1 a few months ago.

 

Inquiry on Apple Discussions.

 

Update 12/7/2019: Today I discovered my AirPort Extreme Guest Network no longer works. That’s the network all our IOT devices connect to.  Turns out suggests that the Guest network doesn’t work in Bridge mode unless the internet router is configured for VLAN support. Would be nice if Apple documented some of this stuff. Maybe this is why they exited the router business.

 

So I have to go back to double NAT for now then try reverting the firmware. (Though once I’ve authenticated a blog I don’t need the web OAUTH, so there is that option.)

 

Update 12/8/2019: So I reverted from 7.9.1 (79100.2) to 7.7.9 and it still doesn’t work! So I think I’ve ruled out a problem with the AirPort Extreme firmware update. I think I tried an older version of MarsEdit. I can’t say for sure but now I suspect it’s something Google did that broken compatibility with Double NAT (DHCP) on the AirPort Extreme.

 

I went back to 7.9.1 (got an ominous notice that firmware update failed but it seems fine) and I guess I’ll use my TunnelBear VPN when I need to authenticate with Google. I’ll test periodically to see if Google fixes things.

 

I tried out Google OAUTH playground. It’s a bit above my pay grade but it seemed to work across my Double NAT setup.

Removing encryption from PDF on macOS with Chrome

My son's employer has one of those obsolete and spectacularly awful SAP style web sites that distributes pay statements.

The PDFs are encrypted. They won't render in macOS Mojave Preview; I can enter the password but I see a blank page. (For more on all the many issues with PDF on every platform but especially macOS see the great Eclectic Light series on macOS PDF by Howard Oakley.)

To remove encryption:

1. Drop onto Chrome. Enter password. Chrome will render them.
2. In Chrome select Print.
3. Change print destination to PDF.
4. Save.

The saved PDF is not encrypted and will render in Preview.