TinkerTool System 6

Known Issues

Upgrade licenses sold after October 25, 2024 may not work with application builds prior to that date: If you don't use the latest build of TinkerTool System for your operating system, activating the product license with an upgrade registration key purchased after October 25, 2024 will not always work as expected. The application may indicate that the registration data is invalid.

Workaround: This is a known restriction. Simply download Build 241026 or later and copy it over your old version to fix this problem.

Release Notes

After updating Safari in macOS 10.14.6, the feature to repeat system optimization may fail: If you have updated macOS Mojave 10.14.6 with a specific version of Safari 14, the feature Maintenance > System Optimization will indicate error code 11 at the end of processing. The procedure cannot be completed successfully.

Workaround: This was a known defect in the operating system, caused by the Safari 14 installer for macOS Mojave, originally published by Apple on September 16, 2020. TinkerTool System detected correctly that this Safari installation damaged a particular part of the operating system. Apple has withdrawn the defective software on September 30. A corrected version was released under the name “Supplemental Update” together with a corrected version of Security Update 2020–005 on October 1. When you install these update packages, macOS 10.14.6 will be repaired. The optimization feature can then also be used with TinkerTool System again.

When using a network-based Time Machine setup, connecting to the backup may take a long time and may not be successful with specific versions of macOS: Specific versions of macOS have a defect that has influence on performing Time Machine maintenance features in cases where the backup sets are stored on a file server, not on a local disk. Connecting to the file server may take an unusually long time during which TinkerTool System cannot respond to user interactions. macOS will temporarily indicate a “not responding” status during that time. After the connection has been made, Time Machine may still not respond correctly. TinkerTool System shows the warning Time Machine is not ready at the moment. Please wait. when this happens.

Workaround: As a workaround, select an arbitrary folder in the Finder and open the Time Machine user interface. Wait until macOS begins to indicate available backup sets in the Time Machine timeline (which can also take a significant time), then quit the Time Machine screen. After that, press the button Rescan in the TinkerTool System pane showing the Time Machine data. Time Machine should now respond correctly.

When cloning an APFS object containing macOS, the system may add or omit volumes during the copy operation: If you use the feature to quick-copy an APFS object and this object contains a volume that contains an installation of a macOS operating system, the running operating system may automatically optimize the cloning operation, adding or omitting volumes at its own discretion, even if this contradicts the copy command sent by TinkerTool System 6. (1) macOS may automatically omit the volume with the role VM that is associated with the system installation that is copied. (2) macOS may automatically add volumes with the roles Preboot and Recovery that are associated with the system installation that is copied.

Workaround: This is a known issue of macOS Catalina. The operating system will auto-complete and optimize the data set being copied if it detects a macOS installation in a volume that is part of the APFS object to be cloned. As workaround for item (1), just boot the cloned system. An additional volume with the role VM will automatically be created at the correct location. As workaround for item (2), use Disk Utility to delete the Preboot and Recovery volumes manually, if desired.

The privacy feature of macOS that grants TinkerTool System access to the full disk may fail if you have multiple copies of TinkerTool System on your computer: As noted in the chapter Basic Operations: Privacy Policy Settings of your Mac, you have to approve that TinkerTool System has permission for Full Disk Access before you can use all features of the application. When you store multiple copies of TinkerTool System on your Mac however, this approval may fail unexpectedly. TinkerTool System may indicate that it does not have the necessary approval although it was given previously.

Workaround: This is a known design flaw of the Privacy feature of macOS. The protection feature can be confused when working with multiple copies of the same application. Use the following steps to ensure that macOS grants permission to the intended copy of the software:

  1. Identify all copies of TinkerTool System of your computer, e.g. by using Spotlight.
  2. Delete all superfluous copies, keeping the correct one.
  3. In System Preferences, go to Security & Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk Access, authorize as administrator, and remove all entries for TinkerTool System and TinkerToolSystem-PrivilegedTool if available.
  4. Re-add the entry for TinkerTool System. In macOS Mojave, additionally add TinkerToolSystem-PrivilegedTool (not for macOS Catalina or later).

Note that you can always keep backup copies of TinkerTool System on your Time Machine disks. This may not work when using third-party backup applications, however.

The report shown when repeating system optimization may contain many warnings: When macOS is instructed to repeat its system optimization phase, rebuilding the shared cache of the Dynamic Linker Editor, the messages shown by the operating system will contain many lines beginning with “update_dyld_shared_cache: warning”.

Workaround: This is the correct and normal behavior of macOS and of TinkerTool System. A warning line just indicates the technical reason why a particular optimization could not be performed for some specific software components. It is an expected part of its operation and no cause for concern. Only lines containing words such as “error” would indicate a technical issue.

Privileged operations fail after a downgrade of the application: The security features of TinkerTool System won’t work as expected if you use a copy of the application and later use a copy with a lower version number. In this case, operations that require to be authorized by an administrator may no longer work. You will receive an error message instead, indicating that a “trust failure” has occurred.

Workaround: We strongly advise against any kind of downgrade of the software. However, if using an older version cannot be avoided for some reason, you’ll have to make sure that the version of the privileged tool currently running in macOS is matching the version that came with the version of TinkerTool System you like to use. Perform the following steps:

  1. In the running copy, select the menu item Reset > Remove Security Component….
  2. Follow the instructions the program is giving. The program will quit itself as last step of this operation.
  3. Launch the version of TinkerTool System you like to use.

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.