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Computer name changes incrementally (1, 2, 3...)

Dear Apple Friends,


I have an issue that is affecting all the Macs on my home network: 3 MacBooks (wireless) and an iMac (hardwired) connected to an Apple Airport Extreme dual-band 802.11n/a/b/g 5Ghz/2Ghz wireless router. All the Macs are running Yosemite 10.10, I am running firmware v7.6.4 on the Airport (latest version). We have turned on Back to my Mac, File Sharing, and Screen Sharing (all are used pretty regularly) in the Sharing screen.


So here is what is happening...


All the Macs on our network are having their computer names changed with the suffix of (1), (2), all the way to 6 now.


I have tried resetting our Airport router (turn off/on again) and that seems to stop it for a day but then it starts again.


A few days ago, I did a factory reset on the Airport router per the instructions on the Apple website (hold down reset until it blinks constantly) to clear the router. Sure enough, the names started changing again after about a day.


Sometimes, I will change the name back, and it will rename itself again automatically right after I change it. i.e. John's MacBook Pro => John's MacBook Pro (1)


I have gone so far as to reboot every Mac on the network, shutting off the router, then turning it on again, and the issue returns. I am going to try and set up a DHCP reservation next and see if that helps.


Has anyone else run across this? If so, is this a bug or is there something I'm missing here? Thanks you for your time.

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Oct 30, 2014 11:02 AM

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Oct 30, 2014 11:54 AM in response to Oso Grande

I’m seeing this also on my iMac. In the Share window it shows...


iMac27 (10)

iMac27 (15)

iMac27 (21)


...and so forth. I have posted on one other thread about this same issue. It’s either a bug or some new feature nobody knows about so far. So far it doesn’t seem to be causing me any trouble but I would like to know what is going on. Turning off File Sharing doesn’t clear the multiple names.


User uploaded file

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Oct 30, 2014 1:19 PM in response to lkrupp

Dear Lkrupp--


Thank you for validating my concern, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one noticing this.


Something I have tried that (knock on wood) so far seems to have alleviated the issue.


I looked under the System.log and noticed that my computer is colliding with a specific MAC address on my network--the MAC address of the router's Ethernet port (I am connected wirelessly). Check your system.log to see if you are noticing the same thing, especially if you're using an Airport Extreme.


I went into the Airport Utility and set up DHCP reservations for two of my Macs, one hardwired and one wireless, with two others left on regular DHCP for control samples. Thus far, I am not seeing this issue since I set up DHCP reservations for the two Macs that I set up DHCP reservations for on the Airport router.


(For the lay person, this means that the Airport will give the same IP address every time to the node that connects to the Airport with the MAC ID I set in the Airport router settings. The MAC id's are not to be confused with Macintosh, they are, essentially, addresses for the network connection on a specific computer; your Ethernet and Wi-Fi connection each have individual MAC addresses.)


I am modifying the following log slightly for anonymity....


  • Oct 30 10:26:45 Johns-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: en1 duplicate IP address 10.0.1.9 sent from address (**Removed1**)
  • Oct 30 10:26:45 Johns-MacBook-Pro.local configd[26]: DHCP en1: defending IP 10.0.1.9 against BonjourSleepProxy (**Removed2**) 1 (of 5)
  • Oct 30 10:27:00 Johns-MacBook-Pro.local discoveryd[51]: Basic Bonjour Changing computer name from John's MacBook Pro to John's MacBook Pro (2)
  • Oct 30 10:27:00 Johns-MacBook-Pro.local discoveryd[51]: Basic Bonjour Not trying to change host name from John's MacBook Pro to John's MacBook Pro (2) because it's too soon


The MAC ID Removed1 is the same as the Ethernet jack on the Airport router; the MAC ID Removed2 is the same as the Wi-Fi (5Ghz) on the router.


In sum, it appears that the Airport router is having an issue giving out the same IP to the same machine, and the system.log says it is BonjourProxyService that is is fighting for the address. Therefore, setting up the DHCP reservation tells the router not to give that IP to anyone but the MAC ID I specified in the router settings.


User uploaded file


User uploaded file

As I said, thus far I have not seen the issue since I set up a DHCP reservation. I will give it a few more days before I am certain but thus far it has been a couple of hours and I haven't seen the issue resurface.


Hope that helps!


I hope everyone sends feedback to Apple about this: http://www.apple.com/feedback/airportextreme.html


--John

lkrupp wrote:


I’m seeing this also on my iMac. In the Share window it shows...


iMac27 (10)

iMac27 (15)

iMac27 (21)


...and so forth. I have posted on one other thread about this same issue. It’s either a bug or some new feature nobody knows about so far. So far it doesn’t seem to be causing me any trouble but I would like to know what is going on. Turning off File Sharing doesn’t clear the multiple names.


User uploaded file

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Oct 30, 2014 1:24 PM in response to Oso Grande

This issue has been reported here in a number of threads. It appears there is some sort of naming conflict (maybe Bonjour).


I believe it's a bug, and I don't think there's anything you can really do to fix it right now. Some people have tried workarounds, which work for a while, but after a number of sleep/wake cycles, it comes back.


I saw it a lot on my Mac Pro, but I'm not seeing it as often on my iMac (the iMac is brand new; the Mac Pro was 5 years old).

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Nov 2, 2014 11:17 AM in response to Oso Grande

I have been having the exact same issue and it actually has AppleCare support baffled. I'm at second level support and they had not seen it or know why its happening. Maybe it is a Yosemite bug of some sort.


It would not be a big deal for me if not for employing a SONOS wireless system to share my music library. About every other day or so I have to delete the share that is set up in my SONOS controller and re join using the latest reiteration of whatever my iMac Desktop 2009 running 10.10 is calling itself that day. It seems to go up to (6) and then start over again at (2).


I have turned off the wireless connection and only have it hard wired as AppleCare thought the conflict of using both may be the reason. It still happens however. My latest attempt is to turn off my auto shut down which happens between midnight and 6AM. I have manually powered off the Mac unplugged and all several times which doesn't change the name but who knows, it might have to do it over time.


Thanks for making me feel better that it is not just me or some crazy hacker sharing my files and changing my name!

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Nov 2, 2014 5:58 PM in response to Mobill415

Unfortunately, DHCP Reservations did not work, so I decided to try a new router. The new router (AEBS 802.11AC) did not alleviate the issue either.


I am now attempting to set the DHCP renew interval to 30 days instead of the default 24 hours, and we'll see if that helps.

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Nov 3, 2014 7:19 AM in response to Oso Grande

I'm having the same exact issue with both of my MBP's. I downloaded Yosemite as a part of the beta program on one of my MBP's, and saw the issue right away. I submitted multiple Feedback reports as the issue continued to get worse. When they finally released Yosemite publicly, I installed it on my other MBP, and the issue started a couple of days later with that one, as well. I have a Time Capsule, and Apple TV, and I believe the issue is somewhere in one of those. I did a factory restore on my Time Capsule, and Apple TV after disconnecting everything from my network (Apple TV, computers, iPhones, etc.). Set everything back up, and it held for a couple of days, but then the issues began again. It never happened in Mavericks, and it creates problems with my Apple TV connecting to my iTunes library.


I've noticed a lot of people posting about this, so the issue is wide spread. No one has found a resolution to the issue, and restarting things, and renaming the computers all of the time is a pain. I'm sure multiple people had this issue in the beta, and developer program, and I don't understand why it wasn't addressed.


I'm really hoping that everyone is submitting Feedback to Apple about this so they can address the issue.

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Nov 9, 2014 9:59 AM in response to Oso Grande

I have the same issue and I also see the conflicting IP errors in the system log. I think this may have something to do with the AppleTV as it's always the AppleTV Mac address that is conflicting with my MBP. When this happens my MBP is completely unusable on the net. Cycling wifi off/on temporarily fixes it. This started happening as soon as I upgraded to Yosemite.

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Nov 9, 2014 1:22 PM in response to zoid_99

I do not want to get mine, or anyone else's hopes up but I am noticing a trend here....


My network topology is pretty basic....


Cable Modem (Cisco) -> Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS) 802.11AC

  • LAN (Ethernet CAT 6 Gigabit)

    (1) One Early '08 iMac - Yosemite 10.10

  • 802.11a/b/c/g/n
    • (2) Two MacBook Pros (802.11N 5Ghz) - Yosemite 10.10
    • (2) Two iPads (802.11N & 802.11AC) - iOS 8.1
    • (2) Two iPhones (802.11N & 802.11AC) - iOS 8.1
    • (1) One Apple TV - v7.0.1


Normally, the iMac is left on with the ability to Wake On Lan (WOL) as needed. We use Back to my Mac and Splashtop Remote semi-regularly in this setup. The computer renaming itself with incremental numbers happened sporadically on the iMac, most of the time on wirelessly-connected Macs (MacBook Pros).


Since shutting down the Ethernet-connected iMac (temporarily), the issue has yet to present itself on any of the wirelessly-connected iMacs in the last two days. I am planning to wait a few more days but so far this is a promising development, something I did not expect.


As the situation progresses and there is no change, I will connect the iMac wirelessly (it is Airport-enabled) and see how it progresses from there. I do not want to speak too soon but if your network topology is like mine, this might be something worth trying, likely reporting to Apple.


--Oso Grande

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Dec 12, 2014 2:47 PM in response to Oso Grande

To "fix" I:


  1. First, I turned off networking which was WiFi in my circumstance.
  2. Next, I named my computer back to the original desired name in the "Sharing" system preference without the (n).
  3. Then I added a "--no-namechange" parameter in the /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist.
  4. Unloaded and loaded the deamon:
    • sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist
    • sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist
  5. Last, I reconnected to the network.


Now when I connect to the network instead of getting something like below in the Console.app:

"discoveryd: Basic Bonjour Changing computer name from <hostname> to <hostname> (2)"

This appears in the Console.app:

"discoveryd: Basic Bonjour Would have changed computer name from <hostname> to <hostname> (2), but it's disabled"

I could not find a Yosemite bug filed https://bugreport.apple.com/, but this site helped me hack my solution:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/301118-computer-name-changing-constantly- two-or-one-network-interfaces-enabled

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Apr 14, 2015 12:11 PM in response to schrecktech

HUGE thank you, schrecktech. I did the very same and my Mac is no longer suffering from multiple personalities.


Before the change I too got Console logs like:

4/14/15 2:03:58.597 PM discoveryd[86]: Basic Bonjour Changing computer name from wowbagger (3) to wowbagger (2)


After the change I get:

4/14/15 2:10:58.576 PM discoveryd[41842]: Basic Bonjour Would have changed computer name from wowbagger to wowbagger (20), but it's disabled

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Computer name changes incrementally (1, 2, 3...)

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