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araym Author

Level 1

11 points

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

186 replies

cinehaus

Level 1

0 points

Sep 24, 2012 9:35 AM in response to araym

We are using Parental Controls in a hotel setting, where we have a number of Macs for guests use, but want to disable users from installing their own software, etc.
But how can Apple restrict https sites, when we clearly want "unrestricted website access"! Now guests can't check their email, can't book tickets, can't check their banking, basically cannot do anything useful any more ...

This needs to be fixed quickly, please!

Only solution was to give our hotel guests full access to the computer. We hate that! All that damage that can be done. They could wipe everythings, install nasty stuff, change preferences and other settings ...

MUCH more dangerous than a few SSL sites could ever be.

jsalino

Level 1

7 points

Sep 24, 2012 9:54 AM in response to freeranger69

freeranger69 to be fair to Apple this is what communityhosts sent me:

Your post was removed from Apple Support Communities as it contained feedback or feature requests. These areas are intended to address technical issues about Apple products. Although your feedback is appreciated, unfortunately these forums are not designed for it and your thoughts/concerns will not get the attention they deserve.

If you would like to send feedback to Apple about a product, please use the appropriate selection at http://www.apple.com/feedback/

As part of submitting feedback, please read the Unsolicited Idea Submission Policy linked to the feedback page.

Sometimes you have comments or concerns for which there is no technical response. If you need the kind of help that a troubleshooting expert can't provide, you can call Apple's Customer Relations group.

Best Regards,

Apple Support Communities Staff

Sep 24, 2012 9:56 AM in response to cinehaus

I'm sure you have a good reason for doing this using PC, but couldn't you just enable Guest Access from the Users and Groups control panel. Guests then won't be able to save anything onto your machines as it is restored to the default setting when the guest logs out?

cinehaus

Level 1

0 points

Sep 24, 2012 10:11 AM in response to araym

Yes, Wierdostomps, the Guest Account is good for that. But we had some nice touches running, like showing a slideshow of pictures from the hotel facilities and services as a screen saver when not in use, and limiting access to Browsers and MS Office Suite, no other software that is also on some of these computers. For example, we don't want hotel guests using Skype, or Facetime, or any of that ...
If we use the Guest Account, then this kind of personalization is not possible.

jsalino

Level 1

7 points

Sep 24, 2012 10:17 AM in response to araym

I spoke to Apple Customer Relations just now. This is seemingly not to the point of being acknowledged!

I am forwarding this thread to the agent.

My suggestion is to please take a minute and provide feedback to apple on the feedback form and certainly thru apple care if you have an active account.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Sep 24, 2012 12:53 PM in response to araym

I opened an Apple Care support case about this just now. They acknowledged they have reproduced the problem and passed the steps to engineering, but didn't have (or want to give) me a bug# reference.

The senior support engineer was helpful and offered to step me through a sequence of steps that he claimed would resolve the problem, but it would have involved wiping the disk (or creating a new partition), re-installing Lion (on the new partition, if going that route), performing an upgrade of that reinstalled Lion to Mountain Lion 10.8.2 without using the AppStore, creating a new user account with parental controls, and migrating all the backed up content to get the account back working again.

I thanked him for his time but said I preferred to avoid that Microsoft-Windows-style solution to the problem, and was content just knowing they were aware of the problem. For the moment, I'll keep parental controls disabled until they are able to provide a fix through software update.

jsalino

Level 1

7 points

Sep 24, 2012 1:09 PM in response to Steve.Muench

Was the engineer suggesting a solution for all of the problems? I know of five so far:

- SSL

- conflict between daily hour requirement and bedtime when both are used

- account stays open regardless of time limits

- no notification of time remaining

- app list shows multiple instances of same app

Also of note. Im running 10.8.2 on 4 different vintage machines and 2 of them are clean installs. Makes me wonder about the clean install migrate suggestion.

Thank you for your efforts.

Sep 24, 2012 1:16 PM in response to jsalino

I'm only personally experiencing the problem related to SSL (since I only use the website list feature of parental controls with my daughters) so that is the only one I can assume the support engineer was talking about resolving.

Sep 24, 2012 3:43 PM in response to Zach Ciappara

no you shouldnt. it will ruin your machine

Sep 25, 2012 7:45 AM in response to araym

Apple...please fix this soon. Pandora's Box can not be left open for too long before real damage is done.

Sep 25, 2012 8:47 AM in response to araym

As with the issues jsalino posted, I had issues with Lion with the SSL sites....I sort of understand it, but when I upgraded to 10.8, we noticed the time limits were not working.

The web filtering has become such a joke, I have moved on to using OpenDNS to do the web filtering. It is free, and will cover all devices in the home (ipods, phones, windows units, etc)......so I probably will never go back to using the apple solution......

But the time limits....is a big one. I have set how long the kids can be on and also the bedtime limits. Now with 10.8.2....it is really broke. I had to remove the parantal filters (by granting admin rights to the account).

What next....will I start getting viruses like windows systems????

Sep 25, 2012 2:46 PM in response to Looney128

ok, fine, but since it's a global protection system, it will limit whole house internet connection... and what if I want to prevent my children from violent sites and still wish to be able to access not filtered information? Apple parental control was a good solution since I could prevent my children, even my wife who, I d'ont know how, always comes down to strange internet sites when googling the web (!!!), and keep a totally open web access for myself. Apple did it perfectly well with 10.7. I wanna believe they can do it again with 10.8... just a matter of bothering if it, isn't it?

Sep 25, 2012 2:52 PM in response to Looney128

On top of that, I have tried third party solutions, even commercial ones... not satisfactory! The last one I've tested for free 30 days trial kept trying to launch for more than 1 hour.... *** was it trying to do, I do not know, but Apple OS integrated solution was good! I want it back!... If not, considering other iPhoto updates bug and all... I will just bootcamp 7 and that's all! what a pity...

Sep 25, 2012 3:53 PM in response to araym

Same problem.

Apple... Please fix this very soon.

Sep 25, 2012 5:49 PM in response to jsalino

@jsalino:

In additiont to the bugs you list, I've encountered two others:

• Apps list doesn't include all apps available to the user being managed (eg. apps within apps, such as I encountered with Steam)

• Authenticating apps that were missed because of the previous point once logged into in the managed account, via the pop-up dialogue box, is not always successful (eg. 1PasswordAgent refused to be Always Allowed or Allowed Once, no matter how many times I entered the correct username and password)

What concerns me most is that, with the more rapid release cycle of OS iterations, will ML be fixed and stabilised before the next one comes out?

Parental Controls bug in Mountain Lion 10.8.2