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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

Reply
186 replies

Aug 8, 2013 11:07 AM in response to minikris

For folks with slightly older (2009-2010) this might not be an option. It doesn't look like I can upgrade. In proper Apple style, they only really support patching the current version of OSX and the previous version. For me, I'm on Leopard on one machine, Lion on another, and Mountain Lion every where else. I can't say if it was really fixed on Mountain Lion as I've seen mixed results based on what the machine administrator was trying to do. (e.g. Web Filtering vs. Application Access to network interfaces vs. time quotas, etc.) I honestly gave up and used an alternative approach. I use time quotas successfully on all versions; I use OpenDNS for content filtering; I use Intego's Family Protector bundle for app auditing and intrusion protection; I Apple's application controls to keep the kids from using certain apps (personal financial software); and I have everyone set up with their own account. Oh... and I have a wifi router that that emails me a daily log.

Sep 14, 2013 1:55 PM in response to mick80234

I've been experiencing the same problem with my son's account on the mac. He is a good kid, abd I pray that I am not doing something that will affect him, but I am going to remove parental controls. This is completely ridiculous - what a wasted feature.


Mac is completely slipping in quality, it is like what happened to intuit in the late 90s early 2000/s, Software getting too complex, people not as smart - trying to grow too much, being driven by Wall Street and not original vision of "it just works."


Bad software plain and simple. I mean... really... look at my username... LOL... the discussions don't even work, Each time I picked a username, the system would tell me that username was available, then I would click submit and it would tell me the username was already taken ... huh? Really?


Bad software - all around. I have a MacBookPro that I have win8 on bootcamp - much preferred. I wanted to like Mac, but can't get the vibe.

Jan 15, 2014 5:48 PM in response to araym

I have never used parental controls before but my 13 year old sold his computer and needs to use mine for some online classes. He likes to fiddle with settings so I set him up with with a restricted acount so that he didn't inadvertently mess with my machine. His mum is a big fan of controls too, so everything was good, untill a recent upgrade to 10.8.5. Safari now blocks the course website but no message appears. Instead, safari just freezes in fetch mode. Chrome allows connection but freezes from time to time. I had the computer set to allow unrestricted web access so the only thing I lose by removing parental controls, is a log of his web activity but I will have to live with it. Parental controls now make web use pretty much impossible, exept in an extremely limited sense. As there were no messages at all, it took me a while to work all this out and I am annoyed at Apple for being so cavalier in it's attitude to users' experiences. I suppose that I will change to Maverics one day and revisit the issue if I can be bothered.

Feb 14, 2014 7:40 AM in response to araym

Has anyone found a workaround for this problem yet? I bought an iMac to show my daughter how much nicer a mac is to use rather than a Windows 8 PC, well that idea backfired, as the iMac is just seen as 'the annoying computer' by her now. The https/Parental Controls thing needs fixing - Apple you're losing fans fast and not getting any new ones while this problem persists.

Mar 8, 2014 2:19 PM in response to araym

I'm having the issue with Mavericks (10.9.1). Found this on a cnet site (http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57523360-263/fixing-parental-controls-probl em-in-os-x-10.8.2/) and it appears to work:


1. log in to an administrator account

2. go to the Macintosh HD/Library/Managed Preferences/ folder

3. open the folder for the managed user with the problem

4. removed the "com.apple.familycontrols.contentfilter.plist" file (I put a copy on the desktop, deleted the copy in this folder, in case this did not work)

5. log out of admin account

6. log back in to the restricted account


Problem (so far) appears to be gone.

Nov 6, 2014 7:55 AM in response to liquidcable

Error: Parental Controls web filtering

When enabling web restrictions in Parental Controls and choosing the radio button for Allow unrestricted access to websites, the account still applies the web restrictions.

1. Login to the admin account and open a web browser.

2. For 10.8, download the Workgroup manager at http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1567.

3. For 10.9, download the Workgroup manager at http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1698

4. Install the workgroup manager for your specified OS.

5. From the desktop, click on Go, Applications, Workgroup Manager.

6. For the address type in localhost, username is admin username, password is admin password.

7. Click on Connect.

8. Click on ok to the warning, You are working in a directory node that is not visible to the network.

9. On the left hand side, you should see a list of user accounts.

10. Select the account that you wish to change the web restrictions on, then choose the Preferences button located in the upper right corner.

11. Click on ok to the warning, You are working in a directory node that is not visible to the network.

12. Click on the Details tab next to Overview.

13. Double click on com.apple.familycontrols.contentfilter

14. Click on the arrow next to Always

15. You should now have two items that are showing, restrictweb and useContentFilter. They both should be set to true.

16. Click on the up/down arrow on the far right side for restrictweb and set it to false.

17. Click on the up/down arrow on the far right side for useContentFilter and set it to false

18. Click on Apply Now in the lower right hand corner.

19. Click on Done.

20. Close Workgroup Manager and reboot/log off.

21. Log-in to account that you with the Parental controls.

22. You should now be able to access websites without warning messages and any SSL based websites.

Parental Controls bug in Mountain Lion 10.8.2

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