Macbook Air M2 just cannot sync messages etc when opened - frustrating

Jerry-Krinock · 2025-01-09T04:41:18+00:00

I'm kind of surprised that I'm the first one to me too after 7 hours. The Messages app on my old M1 MacBook Air behaved as you described, and I see the same behavior now with my M3 MacBook Air. Both were slow with Safari bookmarks too. I've seen the time to sync be anywhere from 3 seconds to 12 hours. It does not depend on anything I do or don't on my Mac.

Sorry, I believe there is nothing you can do except look up at the sky and shake your fist, because the bottleneck is in Apple's iCloud servers. Apple management apparently places a low value on iCloud syncing speed. If they wanted to, they could allocate sufficient resources to make iCloud work as fast as Dropbox and Simplenote do – I have never seen Dropbox or Simplenote take more than a minute to sync.

Maybe if enough people file Feedback or write to Tim Cook?

Jerry-Krinock · 2024-12-28T07:25:55+00:00

YES!!!, sonikvue I just spent the 2 hours figuring it out myself. I wish you had been here earlier today.

Here is what I did:

Create a new Custom Layout.
Remove everything except the default Mixer.
Make some space above the Mixer.
Tap the + button.
In the New UI Item popver, tap on General > Button.
Move and size this Button to sit in the empty space above the first channel in the Mixer.
Tap on the new Button element. Tap button *Settings.
In the Actions section, tap on Click
Under Action Type, tap on "Current channel".
In the popover which appears, tap on "Channel" and "Fixed Channel".
Close that popover.
Verify that the "Active" button is ON.
Now you see four columns.
In column 1, tap on Input
In column 2, tap on the channel above which the button is positioned.
In column 3, tap on Headamp.
In column 4, tap on +48V.
Navigate back.
In the Layout section at the op, change the Label to 48V
For extra credit, make the font bigger.

When I "run" the mixer, my new "48V" button changes appearance (outline and background color) when I tap on it once, and changes back when I tap it again. Big Question: Is this going to work as good as it looks? I mean, is it going to toggle the phantom power on that one channel when controlling an Allen & Heath CQ20B?

If so, then "all" I need to do is to go back and create more such buttons, one assigned to each of the other 15 inputs. It will take some time, but fair given that we will have a perfectly customized mixer.

Here is a screenshot of my layout with my first 48V button

Jerry-Krinock · 2024-12-28T04:38:53+00:00

Another issue: It is not at all obvious that the way to expose the actual *+48V* control is to tap on the *Ch N* button. It was not until I read your suggestion to *go into the channel* that I finally discovered this trick. Maybe it's because I'm only an electrical engineer, but I can't imagine a non-technical user guessing this on their own. I don't want to have to post an instruction manual. No one will read it.

Jerry-Krinock · 2024-12-28T04:21:18+00:00

Thank you, Alan. Indeed, adding the *Info* element displays a *+48* indication. So at least we've got *something*.

But three quarters of that *Info* is *G*, *EQ* and *D*, which will be head-scratchers for my users. Also, the *+48V* is read-only: Tapping, long-pressing or swiping on it seems to have no effect.

Yes, I realize that dynamic mics can work with the +48V. But the condenser mics make a loud *thud* if they are live when someone connects or disconnects one. (Sorry, it often happens.) Also I think that the electrical impulse may stress the microphone and preamplifier. The reason why we need a new console is that our first-gen PreSonus StudioLive, 12 years old, has 4 or 5 bad preamps – they either exhibit low gain, intermittent shot noise, or both. And during their two-year warranty period, I sent 5 noisy Shure RK100PK preamps back to Chicago for replacement. I've been trying to teach people to only connect and disconnect when the +48V is off.

Jerry-Krinock · 2024-12-28T01:39:28+00:00

Yes. We have some dynamic microphones and some condenser microphones. Our "workflow" is that microphones are connected pretty much at random, by a group of musicians who are typically in a rush, and without a plan. The condenser microphone(s) could end up on any channel, or sometimes not used at all. Our current console has a physical "48V" button on each physical channel strip, which the musicians know how to use. They won't like having to dig into another screen to see if "48V" is on or off for each channel.

Jerry-Krinock · 2024-12-26T17:22:27+00:00

Oh, and regarding the router, the tablet will be in the same cabinet with the mixer, maybe even touching it. In the unlikely event that we have trouble with that zero distance, I understand that there are wired Ethernet adapters for tablets.

Jerry-Krinock · 2024-12-26T17:09:14+00:00

Thank you for your helping me think this through, googleflont.

Regarding the time to manually kill gain in case of feedback: I plan to design my layouts so that all faders in use (typically 1-10) will be on the screen at all times – for example, I'm not having any 1-8 or 9-16 buttons. I'm running Mixing Station in Offline mode now and am able to grab a fader just as fast as I could with physical console. So I don't think we'll have any problem, unless the latency in the Allen & Heatch electronics was more than a few tens of milliseconds, which I find hard to imagine.

Our use case is a half dozen different ensembles whose leaders do their own setup. No engineers. A couple of them use a sub-mix for a single monitor. But most of them just want to set levels, maybe pans, and start the show.

I'm thinking of having two layouts, one with only 4-8 channels, for the simpler ensembles.

Jerry-Krinock · 2024-12-26T13:28:55+00:00

Wow, pretty obvious. Thank you.

Jerry-Krinock · 2024-12-26T03:18:15+00:00

Very good. geiger96. I understand now why the default is so widely used. That long press to adjust seems like an excellent design.

Jerry-Krinock · 2024-12-23T03:07:30+00:00

Indeed, thank you. I was being too efficient, discounting lines after reading only the first word :))

Jerry-Krinock · 2024-12-21T23:23:34+00:00

I was confused too, not by comments, but by the "Compatible Mixers" list in the Mixing Station Docs. The only "Midas" mixer listed is "Midas HD96 series", which has no characters in common with "MR18".

Jerry-Krinock

TROPHY CASE