..message icon in mac dock shows Red (1) unread message..

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Level 8

35,554 points

..message icon in mac dock shows Red (1) unread message..

While no unread messages exist, these that appear in the Messages submenu from Dock icon have never been seen by me; nor opened on any Mac or iDevice.

Mac mini Late 2012 quad-core 2.3GHz server & dual stock 1-TB rotational

5400-RPM HDDs with two present macOS installs, that can boot this Mac.

An original Mavericks server edition (runs) shipped with this unit; was upgraded through El Capitan, then settled on primarily High Sierra. A Mojave installer, is on second HDD in a partition; didn't have time offline to delve into this. Too busy with life and estate issues, when mom passed.

I've been able to make the 'Red number' dot disappear, from my Mac's Messages dock icon, on occasion. Sometimes by restarting Mac into one of the Recovery modes (several installed macOS are accessible in partitioned hard drives) and use recovery offline. Start up into Opt and choose.. I've used the SMC Reset instructions for Mac desktop computers, with 5 steps.

This sometimes works; while Safe Boot sometimes does. Keys, dexterity

and timing; when exactly co-ordinated, deploy these startup options OK.

Or when I occasionally restart the Mac, this (1) unread message will just disappear. This past five months, this symptom has repeated; so the underlying cause remains. So guess I need make sure my 2FA logins are correct, erase and restore from backup, and try try again(?)

Had hoped to time this effort for when I haven't a dogpile of things using web browsers or webmail logins in use. I don't use Apple Mail, while login to browsers; and reply on Firefox ESR115.8; and/or Brave browser, version for High Sierra 10.13.6 Version 1.57.64 Chromium: 116.0.5845.188 (Official Build) (x86_64), and set 'Profile1' or 'Profile2' for best security.

This may or not be useful. While my iPhone is first edition SE-1 near end of its rope, w/ iOS 15.8.3. Hoped for last round number update, could happen.

A newer iPhone8+ awaits; needs new battery and iOS16.x While SE-1 runs a two+ y/o Apple battery, from authorized AK Mac local service provider. And harder to extract the SIM card; from durable LifeProof case.

Anyway, that's a longer story of some

associated factoids shaken into a pile!

Posted on Dec 12, 2024 5:46 PM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

246,419 points

Dec 12, 2024 8:03 PM in response to K Shaffer

How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac

If searching your Mac doesn’t return expected results, rebuilding the Spotlight index might help.

Choose Apple menu () > System Preferences, then click Spotlight.
Click the Privacy tab.
Drag the folder or disk that you want to index again to the list of locations that Spotlight is prevented from searching. Or click the Add (+) button and select the folder or disk to add.
To add an item to the Privacy tab, you must have ownership permissions for that item. To learn about permissions, choose Help from the Finder menu bar, then search for “permissions.”
From the same list of locations, select the folder or disk that you just added. Then click the Remove (–) button to remove it from the list.
Quit System Preferences. Spotlight will reindex the contents of the folder or disk.

If still not working...

Safe Boot.

Safe mode attempts to repair Disks & clears lots of caches & loads safe Drivers, & prevents loading of 3rd party extensions, so if Safe Mode works try again in regular boot.

Manually Rebuilding Spotlight via Terminal

If the aforementioned Spotlight control panel approach doesn’t spur a reindexation of the drive, you may need to initiate it manually through the command line. Open Terminal and use the following command string to do so:

sudo mdutil -E /

This basically asks for temporary super user status, which is why Terminal may ask you for your password (it may not if you’ve used a sudo command recently or are already logged in as a super user or root. The command asks the unix tool mdutil to reindex the spotlight database for everything on the computer, including external drives, mounted disk images, etc. To re-index only for a specific drive, use the /Volumes path. For example, for an external drive named “MiniMe,” the command would look like this:

sudo mdutil -i on /

Rebuilding a drive index can take a long time, so be prepared to wait whether you do it through the System Preference panel or the command line.

If still need be…

Open Terminal and run each of these one at a time

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

sudo will ask you for an Admin password that won't be echoed.

Carefully type your admin password when asked & hit enter.

sudo /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -seed -lint -r -f -v -dump -domain local -domain system -domain user -domain network

killall Dock

sudo mdutil -E /

sudo mdutil -i on /

Rebuilding a drive index can take a long time, so be prepared to wait whether you do it through the System Preference panel or the command line.

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Answer 2

K Shaffer Author

Level 8

35,554 points

Dec 12, 2024 8:45 PM in response to BDAqua

Thank you for some ideas with detailed links!

Won't get to all that this evening (already 8PM)

with other practical duties to try & accomplish.

At least I no longer have to haul water, by bucket

several miles away; that certainly can take its toll!

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Answer 3

K Shaffer Author

Level 8

35,554 points

Dec 16, 2024 5:56 AM in response to BDAqua

Perhaps this item is like malware, insomuch as I found one thing

in my iPhone iMessage; it showed in "Unknown Senders" there.

A third instance within four weeks, this oddity in Mac messages.

But only first time, it first appeared in iMessages in iPhone SE-1..

..Then shows up in Mac Messages. Only time it should've deleted

from iPhone; but no means to report an odd message from there.

In each of three: a different fake contact, I'd never visited appears.

(..And that was never saved as real Contact at all!!)

This did not occur before, but could have been hidden from the

Mac Messages. But this was unable to be reported as phishing

or scam, to Apple Support either way. Maybe my older macOS

can't be patched to find these newer bad players? I wonder!!😳

At least this item materialized first, within iPhone (iOS15.8.3)

Unknown Senders, in iMessage then went to Mac Messages.

Hadn't caught this in iPhone's Messages, as it was Unknown.

And those only Announce, as SMS attachments. When Cellular

Data is turned On. ~ Turns out iPhone settings does that too.

A measure of difference in how iMessages handles non-Apple

text message attachments; they load separately in my gear.

And audible alert like second message notification is heard.

Image attachments get held in that same buffer, and don't

appear in SMS text unless Cellular Data is on.

A quirk of my GCI cellular provider, too. Seems these effects

occur with lower Data plan; least costly GCI/Liberty @ $20mo.

Many different things contribute to this (mess) Kit + its issues!

And hadn't figured to reset items in Spotlight, nor had time yet.

Thanks for the reply! This issue has mystery elements involved.

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Answer 4

BDAqua

Level 10

246,419 points

Dec 12, 2024 7:38 PM in response to K Shaffer

Generally the notification number of unread items for anyting is a Spotlight issue, but if intrmitent a possible RAM, HDD, SSD, corruption deal.

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..message icon in mac dock shows Red (1) unread message..