MacBook Local Hostname

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MacBook Local Hostname

I have an Apple M1 MacBook Pro running Ventura. A few days ago I did a factory reset of my Macbook and reinstalled macOS due to an issue with my computer lagging. Yesterday I logged into Eduroam WiFi, and today when I opened up my laptop from sleep mode (I was on the same Eduroam network), I received a random popup that said the following:

This computer's local hostname "----Macbook-pro.local" is already in use on this network. The name has been changed to "------Macbook-Pro-2.local" To change the local hostname, open system preferences and click sharing, then click "edit" and type the name in the local hostname field.

Please advise if the factory reset caused this issue since I am using the same network that I used before the reset. Interestingly, this popup did not appear when I used my home wifi. I also read somewhere that there could be some unauthorized access into my computer, but I spoke with an Apple advisor who dismissed that issue.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 13.3

Posted on Mar 30, 2023 03:48 PM

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Answer 1

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etresoft

Level 9

55,286 points

Mar 30, 2023 06:44 PM in response to joanna0397

joanna0397 wrote:

Please advise if the factory reset caused this issue since I am using the same network that I used before the reset.

It could have. The way something like eduroam works could easily get tripped up.

Interestingly, this popup did not appear when I used my home wifi.

Your home Wi-Fi is probably better and less buggy.

I also read somewhere that there could be some unauthorized access into my computer, but I spoke with an Apple advisor who dismissed that issue.

I agree with the Apple advisor. Those higher education, enterprise IT networks are flaky.

The only problem is that the instructions in that pop-up are wrong, kinda. Ventura really complicated this. There are now two places to set your computer name in Ventura. There is a top-level, settings > computer name setting that you should use on Ventura. This will fully change your computer name. However, the old sharing value also works. But if you use the sharing setting it will leave your computer with two different names, which you might find confusing. But is you change it via the top level, it will reset both names to be the same.

<sigh>

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MacBook Local Hostname

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