araym

Q: Parental Controls bug in Mountain Lion 10.8.2

For years I've used Parental Controls, not to restrict my daughter's web content, but to limit her time on the computer.  But tonight I upgraded Mountain Lion from 10.8.1 to 10.8.2 and something broke.

 

Suddenly every secure web page she tries to access (to include google, gmail, amazon, etc.) fails.  It says "Parental controls restricts access to secure websites".

 

A little hunting around turned up the following Apple Knowledge Base article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2900 that says "https note: For websites that use SSL encryption (the URL will usually begin with https), the Internet content filter is unable to examine the encrypted content of the page. For this reason, encrypted websites must be explicitly allowed using the Always Allow list. Encrypted websites that are not on the Always Allow list will be blocked by the automatic Internet content filter."

 

I understand that logic however that should NOT apply to me since I'm not trying to automatically restrict her adult web content or create allowed/blocked site lists, etc.  She has *unrestricted* web site access, so the Internet content filter shouldn't even be in play here.

 

Just to get this up and running, I did type the Admin account and password in at the prompt to let her gain access to the web pages.  However that did not work.  Even though it said it would now allow access - it did not.

 

I also tried going into Parental Controls, turning ON web site filtering, going into Custom, and adding in approved secure web sites (google, etc.)  Even *that* did not work.

 

Everything was great until 10.8.2 came along but now her account is for all intents and purposes unusable.

 

Help?  And thanks.

MacBook, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), iPod touch 2nd gen 16GB, iPad 1st gen 3G 16GB

Posted on Sep 20, 2012 11:37 PM

Close

Q: Parental Controls bug in Mountain Lion 10.8.2

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

first Previous Page 9 of 13 last Next
  • by Rembert Oldenboom,

    Rembert Oldenboom Rembert Oldenboom Oct 2, 2012 12:31 PM in response to AdeleS
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    Oct 2, 2012 12:31 PM in response to AdeleS

    @AdeleS

     

    This sounds like you don't need parental controls at all: just allow your kids to have their own account on your mac. That way they won't be able to see your Mail and at the same time they can use the Mail program for their own email. This is exactly similar to my setup.

  • by Király,

    Király Király Oct 2, 2012 4:12 PM in response to AdeleS
    Level 6 (9,824 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 2, 2012 4:12 PM in response to AdeleS

    Well, lo and behold, I actually fixed it. This is what I did:

     

    1. Turn off parental controls for all accounts
    2. Make a new user account
    3. turn on parental controls only for the new account, set web browsing to unrestricted
    4. log in to the new account
    5. log out of the new account
    6. delete the new account
    7. Turn parental controls back on for the accounts that needed them
    8. Log in to the managed accounts and see if browsing now works

     

    Voila! It works! Hopefully it will work for some of you too.

  • by Kmbornmann,

    Kmbornmann Kmbornmann Oct 2, 2012 5:23 PM in response to Király
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 2, 2012 5:23 PM in response to Király

    Kiraly,

     

    You rock!  Just updated to the new OS and discovered the same problem everyone else has stated. Thank you for the work around - saved major homework headaches to night. Now, if Apple would just fix the bug parents everywhere would be much happier.

     

    I wonder if we would have had the same problems if we had turned off parental controls before the update?

     

    Thank you!

  • by danykaffee,

    danykaffee danykaffee Oct 2, 2012 11:15 PM in response to Király
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 2, 2012 11:15 PM in response to Király

    @Kiraly

    I've tried... did not work. As a matter of facts, by doing this, only few web sites can be accessed. For most of them (Apple, Google, ...) I get a masseage saying that Safari cannot connect to the web. No more pop-ups, but no web either...

  • by sarahandjames,

    sarahandjames sarahandjames Oct 3, 2012 5:10 AM in response to Weborican
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 3, 2012 5:10 AM in response to Weborican

    My problems started with ML 10.8.  I upgraded to 10.8.1 a few weeks ago, hoping the problem had been addressed, but I still lacked access to certain sites when PC was enabled.  I decided not to upgrade to 10.8.2 after I read all the problems encountered with that version. 

     

    I don't want some quick fix, I want an operating system that has working parental controls!  Is that too much to ask?

  • by Horsman,

    Horsman Horsman Oct 3, 2012 6:02 AM in response to Horsman
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 3, 2012 6:02 AM in response to Horsman

    I've tried a number of work-arounds as suggested on this thread but none work. The only thing that stops the security warnings is deleting the account, creating it again and allowing unrestricted web access in parental controls.

     

    The main problem for me comes from url references that are hidden from the user. For instance http://www.google.co.uk pops up a security warning for multiple https urls that I've not tried to get to - they are linked to in the site code. The the amount of similar hidden links (trackers, advertisers, facebook 'like' button links ......) makes the whole thing unusable.

     

    Here's a screenshot example (even opening the Skitch application to take the screenshot caused two https warnings!):

     

    Parental Controls Issue.jpeg

  • by MaxPowerBE,

    MaxPowerBE MaxPowerBE Oct 3, 2012 8:58 AM in response to araym
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 3, 2012 8:58 AM in response to araym

    SOLUTION

     

    Here is the solution that worked for me. I have done it on 4 different Macs and it has worked everytime. The problem appears to have been around for several years and keeps popping back up with various updates to OS/X. There seems to be some issue created when you turn on Time Limits under the Bedtime section which creates the problem. You need remove those settings and then disable the logging that is done for the family controls. Here is how to do it:

     

    1: Logon as a user with administrator permissions.

     

    2: Open the Parental Controls settings for the user. Go to the Time Limits section. Remove any check boxes and settings under the Bedtime section such as School Nights or Weekends.

     

    3: Run the Terminal app. Enter the following line in the terminal app. Make sure you replace username with the actual username of the user you are trying to fix. It will probably ask you for a password which is your password as administrator.

     

    /usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/dscl . -mcxset /users/username com.apple.familycontrols.logging web always -bool false

     

    4: Logout and test the user

  • by jsalino,

    jsalino jsalino Oct 3, 2012 12:05 PM in response to MaxPowerBE
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 3, 2012 12:05 PM in response to MaxPowerBE

    MaxPowerBE I have tried your SOLUTION on numerous macs and I'm sorry but it doesn't really fix anything. 

     

    There are at least 7 documented bugs for parental controls in this thread and all of them return after a reboot.

     

     

     

    bedtime vs hour allotment conflict

    secureweb access issues even if website control is deselcted

    multiple versions of same program appearing in app control

     

    etcetera

     

    if you are reading this thread please take the time to lodge a complaint through the apple web site

     

    the link can be found in several posts in the preceeding pages

  • by joshuagans,

    joshuagans joshuagans Oct 3, 2012 3:57 PM in response to araym
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 3, 2012 3:57 PM in response to araym

    I just posted about this at Forbes.

     

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuagans/2012/10/03/first-there-was-apples-mapgate -now-welcome-parentgate/

     

    Hopefully it will spur them to a quicker solution.

  • by Rohit L,

    Rohit L Rohit L Oct 3, 2012 5:35 PM in response to joshuagans
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 3, 2012 5:35 PM in response to joshuagans

    Thanks for bringing some attention to "Parentgate". Hopefully it will help spur Apple to respond.

     

    Cheers,

  • by devinhedge,

    devinhedge devinhedge Oct 4, 2012 8:40 AM in response to araym
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 4, 2012 8:40 AM in response to araym

    It appears this is a problem with Lion also. I enabled Parental Controls, switched on "Try to limit access to adult websites automatically" and am blocked from any website using https.

  • by danykaffee,

    danykaffee danykaffee Oct 4, 2012 1:24 PM in response to devinhedge
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 4, 2012 1:24 PM in response to devinhedge

    Strange... 10.7.5 on my MacBook and no issue with that.

  • by Weborican,Helpful

    Weborican Weborican Oct 4, 2012 2:00 PM in response to araym
    Level 1 (115 points)
    iPhone
    Oct 4, 2012 2:00 PM in response to araym
  • by danykaffee,

    danykaffee danykaffee Oct 4, 2012 2:24 PM in response to Weborican
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 4, 2012 2:24 PM in response to Weborican

    GREAT! It does seem to work as before! thanks... still desappointed that Apple did not tell us offiscially they were working on that...

  • by jsalino,

    jsalino jsalino Oct 4, 2012 2:44 PM in response to danykaffee
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 4, 2012 2:44 PM in response to danykaffee

    Can anyone who has installed the update tell the rest of us if the repairs only one issue (secured web) or all the issues as outlined in this thread?  Thank you.

first Previous Page 9 of 13 last Next