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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

Sep 27, 2012 10:18 AM in response to araym

Hi all. Have exactly the same problem and have written to Apple to complain. Meanwhile, I seem to have circumvented the problem by adding Google (one letter at a time, clicking ok on the whiny window after every letter) to my daughter's favourites bar. She can now access google from there and then, via Google, any other website she wants. This is not ideal but it meas that she still has time limits, until Apple fixes this very annoying bug.

Sep 27, 2012 1:30 PM in response to araym

You never got these problems with my old Classic...


But seriously, me too: Unfortunately, I only upgraded to Mountain Lion two days ago so went straight to 8.0.2 so no chance of stepping back to 8.0.1.


I notice that there's nothing about this on the feedback on the app store which would certainly have prevented me from wasting my time. I wonder if any mention of this issue has been moderated?

Sep 27, 2012 7:03 PM in response to araym

I too am having this problem. I am half tempted to delete my kids account all together and recreate it and not touch the parental controls and just hope and pray that they wont get into too much trouble. I've tried everything I can think of. Even turning parental controls back off does not fix the issue.


PLEASE MAKE THIS A PRIORITY AND FIX ASAP APPLE.

Sep 28, 2012 12:13 PM in response to araym

I have a lab of 25 iMacs, and I really need a solution from Apple for this problem. This is now what they consider customer service. I have been with Apple from the beginning, but I am more and more disappointed with their actions, inactions, and quality control. I'm going to have to do hours of work because proper testing did not take place before this release. Why is there not a solution yet?

Sep 29, 2012 6:05 AM in response to araym

Had the same Issue with the guest account and Parental Controls.


This seems to fix it:

Und Parental Controls - Settings / Web

I selected "Try to Limit access to adult websites automatically"

Under Customize I removed all sites at "Allway allow these websites" (tools.google.com which was the site which was always denied)

Now it seems to work 😉

Sep 29, 2012 6:43 AM in response to angus_stirling

Did you tried accessing google (takes a while, as you have to do it one letter at a time, clicking ok on the warning window after each letter) from your child's web browser? If you can manage to do that, you can then add google to his/her favourites bar. He/she can then access google from the toolbar and then, from google, all other websites. Time limits thus remain. Far from ideal but as a temporary fix... worked on my daughter's MacBook anyway (for now, at least)

Parental Controls bug in Mountain Lion 10.8.2

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