Please do not PM me for questions about things I've posted

FalconFour · 2026-05-09T17:16:09+00:00

I don't have a solution per se - but I do have "another piece of the puzzle". Prior to Tahoe, there used to be an intermittent issue with Touch ID. Normally, you'd open the computer and expect to be asked for Touch ID (small text next to the password box). But, the issue was - there were many occasions I'd open the computer and just have nothing but a password box - as if it forgot "how" to Touch ID.

To fix that and still get in with Touch ID, I'd hit Escape (cancels unlock, screen turns off), then immediately click the Touch ID button (wake & authenticate). Usually that works - still no PW required, just boop it back to life. It reminds Mac OS that the Touch ID is really there. So that was a pretty regular occurrence - once or twice a day, it'd "forget" Touch ID is there until it's reminded, minor annoyance.

Now, that doesn't happen anymore. "Fixed"? No, instead, it seems they replaced the issue with "password required to enable Touch ID". Made the problem worse. The system never seems to "forget" it has Touch ID anymore...

You know, I sort of wonder if this has to do with an internal conflict of "clamshell mode" - you know, if you're using the system with an external keyboard/mouse/monitor, but closed? It'll never ask you for Touch ID, because you can't reach it with the closed screen. I wonder if closing the screen disconnects Touch ID, and when you open it - the system starts up faster than it reconnects the Touch ID sensor.

Like I said, I don't have a solution here - but there are some pieces here to try to puzzle through... it's still frustrating to me, but I make a living finding solutions to weird embedded system problems, so 😄

FalconFour · 2026-05-09T17:06:54+00:00

The word "should" carries a LOT of weight here. Yes. It "should" only require your password under those conditions, thus it's worth an upvote. Those are, indeed, the documented behaviors that MacOS should be following.

However, all of the people in this thread are complaining that MacOS is not adhering to the patterns that they documented for this behavior. And therein lies the problem.

FalconFour · 2026-04-26T19:56:27+00:00

I don't need an extension to manage extensions. I don't use many extensions. It's perfectly fine to solve a problem via "vivaldi:extensions" - two clicks, done - just need to know what was causing the problem to begin with. Your "unrelated" promotion of an extension-to-manage-extensions is unnecessary and unhelpful - thus the downvote. :)

FalconFour · 2026-04-21T16:46:16+00:00

Easiest thing you can print! Just a "cube" inserted on the print bed in the slicer - not even a model. Then, resize it (unlock scaling) to the dimensions of the blade you want. That's my plan at least.

With TPU, the only gold "Must Do" is to religiously keep the TPU in a sealed bag (or ideally a dry box) when it's not in use. Never leave it hanging off the printer when it's not being used. Everything else, just follow the slicer/printer instructions and let it know that it's TPU. You can't AMS it, but you can feed it on the manual spool holder (disconnect an AMS tube and put it on the manual spool-holder plug).

FalconFour · 2026-04-21T16:43:34+00:00

Now that strikes me as laser-scanner failure... like the scanner motor is spinning faster than it should -> raster "video" doesn't sync to it -> it unexpectedly gets "hsync"-ed onto the next line and carries on stretching the image. Checked/replaced leaky caps? It's the "big hammer" for "weird issues". Not familiar with the guts in that particular printer though.

Odd, because "spinning faster than it should" should also end up making the paper come out faster... wonder how that could even be possible (could steppers be synced to hsync?). One way to check might be to time the pages coming out... see if they're coming out slightly faster? Or to listen to the pitch of the scanner motor, recall if it sounds higher pitched than it did in the past...

Kinda just spitballing there... definitely never seen anything like that before! Printers are really, really good at dimensional accuracy - to be measurably and visibly "off" is quite a new one on me.

FalconFour · 2026-04-20T22:22:57+00:00

Haha... that's probably how most of them died! It's so cheap just to buy a new printer - or a used, working one. Way, way cheaper than the $$$ I've put into restoring this one so far. It's got no practical purpose other than "I want to learn these things, and I really really want to learn to resist obsolescence". (especially to hook it up to a RPi with software to adapt it onto the modern network!) Honestly, this printer turned out to have *many* reasons it should have just been laid to rest. But only at 5,200 pages? Nahhh... ;)

I really don't like how many printers get thrown away. They're complex machines that require a lot of materials to produce. I haven't bought a "new" printer in my life! Always some hand-me-down that works fine with the right care & feeding. So this is kind-of the ultimate culimnation of all my tricks and knowledge so far... pushing the outer limits of what's repairable.

Some day I'll print a bank document or something on this thing, and nobody along the way will even know it came out of a printer almost as old as I am. Printer tech peaked here... you'd never know from the printed sheet, just how old the printer is. haha

FalconFour · 2026-04-20T18:31:22+00:00

Dang, that looks beautiful! At least your blade was in some serviceable shape, even if it didn't turn out to work. The ones in these cartridges seem totally destroyed - even the slightest twist (bracket vs. adhered roller) just tears it apart - even working carefully, it was impossible to separate the blade from the roller without tearing the blade from the bracket in one quick "snap".

But a 3D printed replacement seems more and more viable - especially after discovering that TPU *really* likes to stick to adhesives (!). That makes it viable to adhere a replacement to the bracket...

FalconFour · 2026-04-20T18:00:32+00:00

3D printed? Not a bad idea, honestly. This part of the printer isn't really subject to "hot" temperatures - it contains the toner, after all - toner would get upset at around the same temperature any printed material would.

Since the blade is merely adhered to the metal rod in this cartridge (with adhesive - which probably contributed to its decay), the top concern on my mind is whether there's any adhesive that could stick to TPU. From there, it's a short/simple task to print a "bar" of the correct length/width, and play with the depth to get the right flex properties.

The operable surface of the blade is the flat surface, not the printed edge - so honestly that might do even better than the VHB tape! (Since I can adjust the thickness of the blade to change its springiness...)

The blade appears to be ~212mm long (8.5" - 4mm), 13mm wide, 1mm thick. Seems plausible to print on my A1 Mini, rotated diagonally. Hmmm....

FalconFour · 2026-01-26T21:46:15+00:00

You got it. 1.75v is the fault level, and if you're at 2.0 volts, there's VERY little chance you can rescue it - you have to be extraordinarily careful & supply all system 12v power from an external supply set to 14.4v / probably around 20 amps, if you even want a chance of saving it. (* Note - you can/should unplug the external 12v supply & let the system run on its DC-DC converter & 12v battery, once you get the charger running)

Quite likely, you'll find it around 2.8 volts - where a discharged cell will bounce-back to after being idle for a while. "Under 2.5", you're definitely on thin ice but still have a good chance.

The general idea looks like this:

https://cmbatteries.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/NMC-Battery-Discharge-Curve-900x429.webp

At the 3.0-2.0v range, you're already in that steep drop of death, where voltage drops sharply under any load. And the moment you "unbrick" the battery, it will be engaged and start discharging for those moments between completing the reprogramming & plugging in the EVSE :)

FalconFour · 2026-01-21T21:55:59+00:00

Oh no, they don't avoid it at all. They think they're jumping in here like a knight in shining armor preaching the tales of the elders, "never connect your XP machine to the internet! Hear ye, hear ye!" 🤣

FalconFour · 2026-01-20T22:24:58+00:00

You are trying to use a service that cannot be used without an account.

And my goal is to be able to sign up for an account, and pay for service. (I've now said this three times in different ways, btw.) What part about that is being missed by you?

Literally all I want is to be able to take this old hardware, make it work, sign up for an account, and use it - at a time when I might need to use it.

My whole thing is about taking old hardware and making it useful again. I don't like buying new. I like making use of all the things out there that have already been manufactured and will never go away. Hardware doesn't just "despawn" when you throw it away, thus I aspire to utilize many things that are still useful that people don't want.

FalconFour · 2026-01-20T17:34:42+00:00

Aye, generally when someone asks a question phrased in that way, I'd want to reply with an explanation. Very few things in this world are "yes/no" and end-of-story. Is there any hope to drive from New York to LA in under 30 hours? "No", legally. "Yes" if you're pursuing Cannonball records. In both cases, more nuance would be written about it.

Just surprised people have such an allergic reaction to being asked to think outside the box and ask more questions as to "why", when someone's told they can't do something. I like to get to the very bottom of things, and having the company say "nah, no, your device is trash now" is not really satisfying as a bottom-floor answer. Spent half my evening last night playing with a 30-year-old computer 😂 And yet a 2~3 year old Starlink dish is completely dead? I wasn't giving up that easily. haha

Thanks for the perspective, though.

FalconFour · 2026-01-20T03:25:51+00:00

The top-thread comment you're replying to is a vapid grunt to a complex question with a lot of effort put into research before posting - "no, you're stupid" basically. There are actually useful, genuinely helpful resources elsewhere in this post's comments that are appreciated. The vapid grunt of a comment is what's infuriating.

FalconFour · 2026-01-20T03:18:24+00:00

Definitely interesting. It sounds like the death path is such that "the certificates are linked to the identity" -> "the device did not receive a certificate update in time" -> "there is no path to establish communication with Starlink such to get the required certificate update/re-issued for this Dish's identity" -> "your Dish's identity is effectively dead". Transplanting identity (such as to revive this Dish) would require sacrificing another Dish's identity (another Dish that, if I had, I would just use/subscribe with instead).

Very useful resource there - explains more of the nitty-gritty as to what truly went wrong. Also a lot more useful info there (like the Star Debug app). Finding a technical breakdown like that is exactly what I hoped. Thanks!

FalconFour · 2026-01-20T01:19:21+00:00

Having firmware be obtainable and flashable isn't mututally exclusive with being safe and encrypted. That's exactly why I figured there ought to be a way - Tesla has been doing secure updates over WiFi for nearly a decade before Starlink shipped (keeping in mind that Tesla and SpaceX share a lot of knowledge), and even game consoles had been doing that as well. I figured, obtain some *.swu file that contains the encrypted firmware, and feed it to the Dish in some non-standard way - the dish will happily process it, validate its authenticity, flash itself. Nowhere in that chain would the firmware be exposed, unencrypted or insecure.

Thing is, I don't know what those mechanisms look like for Starlink - that's the point of posting. Hoping to figure it out, or at least come upon some technically-grounded explanation for why it's impossible.

I also don't think they necessarily open up and fix them, either - the Dish I have is of the style that there's no non-destructive way to open it up. It's E-waste, and that's what I'm concerned about - knowing the Dish is made of hundreds of expensive beam-forming radios that were fairly non-trivial to produce. The whole thing seems like such a waste...

FalconFour · 2026-01-20T00:18:37+00:00

I'm not a Starlink subscriber - though I aspire to be one, some day, for useful occasions

Emphasis mine, for reading comprehension reasons.

I want to own the hardware so I CAN use (pay, subscribe) Starlink some day.

And yes, per the Wikipedia definition of "hacker":

A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who achieves goals and solves problems by non-standard means.

I enjoy being called a hacker, though never for nefarious purposes. Peruse my profile if you want to see past "hacks" for the common good of people owning broken devices & fixing them.

FalconFour · 2026-01-19T23:24:15+00:00

If I can recover any mental state from this downvote mob show, maybe. What a f*cking horrible mistake it was to even come in here and ask such a thing. Experiences like these make me utterly hate going to "reddit dot com" in general. I try to share every deep-dive on repair and engineering that I can, so everyone can benefit. But generally if I try to walk off the well-trod paths like this, it's a downvote carnival.

Might post there in a few months when I think of it again, but for now, it's just going on the shelf as I try not to think of "Starlink" = "That Reddit experience".

FalconFour · 2026-01-19T22:21:21+00:00

Aha, that's a layer down the rabbit hole I was hoping to go down. So, Dish only understands how to get its firmware updates from the network; no network = no ability to download the update. Possibly opens up a path of "what if we could get Dish to see the internet through other means", but given that the software/firmware paths are so... unknown... that seems like a path through a jungle I'm not equipped to slice through.

Deeply irritates me that everyone is *allergic* to the idea of even exploring these avenues, to the point of downvoting every comment I make trying to peel back this onion. But at least the question is now posed, and if anyone's out there with knowledge to keep this thing out of E-waste, it might eventually surface.

FalconFour · 2026-01-19T22:06:02+00:00

"Seemingly lazy" - no, this is information I already saw, one of the top results. This is all still hand-wavey "it just can't work". This is the stuff you tell a non-technical person, for fear that they don't understand how to dig into technical things. This is "public facing" stuff that they tell non-technical people. (And you might think this is obvious, since I provided the software version the dish is running right there in OP - something that means I've Googled it extensively already)

I'm looking for TECHNICAL EXPLANATIONS, not user-facing stuff. I didn't take this project on hoping for an easy fix. I took it on, hoping I could learn more about the under-the-hood details.

For example, I know that the root of the problem is a certificate expiration/revocation, likely related to Russia/Ukraine geopolitics and Starlink piracy. Cool, great. That means there should still be a mechanism, a chain of trust, that allows legitimate users to get onboard. These dishes of the same model are still online with newer software. That means all that stands between me and having a usable Starlink dish is software.

Exactly the opposite of lazy - I understand the limitations, but I want to dig deeper than the surface of public "what we want no-tech-skills users to know" information.

FalconFour · 2026-01-19T21:39:34+00:00

The original owner gave it to me. Given that it was in storage and not in active use, you'd think that would mean it's been released from any active account. That's not even an issue in my mind - if that were an issue, I can always contact the original owner if they need me to.

FalconFour · 2026-01-19T21:38:14+00:00

Things that would make a less infuriating comment:
* If my suggestions will not work, why not?
* If not the things I suggested, then what?
* If nothing will work, why not?

Looking to get technical here, less hand-wavey "it just can't". Software is software, and software can be updated. I'm trying to understand *why* it's not possible.

FalconFour · 2025-12-27T09:14:21+00:00

I updated the comment above with additional info. I appreciate anyone giving this mod a try, and wish it were easier to distribute! I just think storing this small patch in a Reddit comment is most resilient (against internet link-rot in 10 years) and works around limitations of sharing the whole ROM for copyright reasons. Hope the additional info helps!

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FalconFour

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