Shared name of Mac keeps changing

I am experiencing the same issue with Yosemite OSX.

It was OK with Mavericks but since I updated my MacBook Pro keeps updating it's name by incrementally like Sputnik, Sputnik-1, Sputnik-2, Sputnik-3 and so on. Resetting te name to it's original and proper version some times lasts for a few days, some other times I can see it changing under my own eyes immediately after I do the resetting.

Very annoying indeed

/P

This bug hit me for the first time when I installed Yosemite. Resetting my router, an older Airport Extreme, fixed the issue. Since I reset the router the problem has not returned.

regards

What happens if you use the command:

sudo scutil --set HostName "name-of-host"

As it turned out this was not a permanent solution, after a few days one of the laptops on the network starting resetting its hostname.

One other data point, though Im not sure how this fits in, just noticed my Apple TV has done the same thing (add a (2) to its name). Never noticed this until now as it did not affect its use so not sure if this happened before the computer upgrades to Yosemite.

regards

I'd look for a loop in the local network, possibly including a loop in or among switches, and would look for proper subnetting particularly when multiple network controllers are present in any of the hosts involved or when multiple routers (firewall and WiFi, for instance) are present in the network. I'd also look for a problem with the local Bonjour sleep proxy, if there's an AirPort around. Also ensure there isn't a host name being provided to the client devices from the local DHCP device.

The dns-sd command-line tool can be used to watch the Bonjour traffic, and there's a Bonjour Browser tool around, though that'll involve some digging.

Alternatively, log a bug report with Apple. They don't necessarily read stuff posted here.

Hi Mr Hoffman, yours sounds like a sensible consideration and I have been in fact chasing for some duplicate settings in my system that where causing the problem. So far no luck. This bug is really infuriating (to use mr_bee's own words) and apparently it can't be fixed just fiddling with my network settings.

I tried swapping routers, changing DNS setting, turning off Bonjour and everything else that could possibly make sense, all to no avail.

And once you thing you nailed the bugger as for a few hours everything behaves properly, all of a sudden the problem reappears.

Very, very frustrating indeed and it appeared with the upgrade.

Anybody out there made some progress with this issue?

This is a ridiculous problem that Apple really needs to address. Ive been having the same troubles since installing Yosemite on my two systems and while it isn;t causing any system problems as far as I an tell it is annoying.

Resetting the router (an Airport extreme) seem to resole the issue for a few days but it started up again. An the frustrating part is there does;t seem to be any rhyme-or-reason t what triggers it. My network is simple, a cable modem hooked to the Airport Extreme. The laptop connect with WiFi the iMac is cabled to the APE (though I have tried different configurations of wired and WiFi from the iMac and now of it makes a difference).

So no loop, no multiple switches nothing. The only difference this time is that I did a clean install of Yosemite on both systems. Erased the disk, installed Yosemite and manually added back what I wanted. After so many years and so many upgrades the drug was building up and wanted a fresh install.

Still looking for an answer but as it does;t affect system performance it has dropped a few notches down the list of things to do.

regards

Hi Frank

in System Preferences > Sharing, remove the (2) [or whatever is extra: mine was iMac (2), so I removed the (2)

exit Preferences

shutdown

- restart machine in Recovery mode (machine off. press and hold Command + R, power on, when Apple logo appears release keys)

- may take a few minutes to boot (depends on machine generation/speed. RAM and such)

- select the OS disk (mine was Macintosh HD: selected the 'indented' item)

- run Verify Disk Permissions

- when finished run R pair Disk Permissions

restart

Thats the FIX

Gary

Repair permissions may solve the problem temporarily, but it comes back. I now have three Yosemite laptops on my network with incremental names Mac (2), OtherMac (3), etc. At one point I had five instances of my MacBook Pro showing in my own Sharing sidebar in Finder.

While this is annoying, I would choose to ignore it if it caused no harm. But my Time Machine backups fail once a machine increments itself. I'm resetting the machine names manually in sharing, but they all start name-changing after a sleep cycle or two.

Almost as annoying as the ARD "update" stuck in my App Store. But that's another story.

Hi dbengston, I can confirm exactly what you just said.

I have tried the repair-permission solution out of curiosity but to no avail, we can scrap also that one from our list.

The bug seems more prone to appear after a sleep/awake cycle but is not limited to that.

It happened just now while typing this comment: I corrected my computer name before and found it changed back to (2) right now.

****!

P

Well, it seems to me that the system appends a digit to the computer name when it believes that there is already one or more machines on the network that share that same name. If that is not true of the network, then I'd assume that the system is seeing ghost images (something from system or network caches, maybe) that it believes are computers of the same name. So that leads to two thoughts:

First thought, use the terminal command: network setup -setcomputername ComputerName to reset the computer name to its proper value. This has the same effect as changing the computer name from System Preferences -> Sharing, but it needs to be run as administrator so I think it trumps any cached versions. You could even set up a small shell script that checks the computer name and resets it if needed, then run it at startup from launchd. Something like (and pardon my poor shell scripting; I'm sure this can be done better, assuming this code works at all):

#/bin/bash

compName = `/usr/sbin/networksetup -getcomputername`

if [ "$compName" != "ComputerName"]; then

/usr/sbin/networksetup -setcomputername "ComputerName"

fi

Second thought, download one of those free system utility apps (like Yasu or Onyx) and clear out all the system, local, and user caches, then reset the computer name as above.

Hi twtwtw,

thanks for adding your contribution in trying to solve this issue.

Your suggestion sounded good to me.

Installed Onyx, deleted cache, re-started and renamed computer but in no time i had “mycomputername (2)“ back. %!%°§!?!!

Unfortunately another check on our list that didn't help.

Who is next?.