I was trying out Apple’s new MobileMe service and I was having a hard time registering my computer for sync. I would click the Register button and things would spin for a while and then nothing. No error message of any sort, it would just stop and the registration would fail. After searching log and hard on the web, I found an article that offered a number of potential solutions. It turned out my problem was a series of entries in my /etc/hosts file for mac.com. I edited the file and removed the entries and voila, registration worked.
Do the following:
1. Type ‘sudo nano /etc/hosts’ in the terminal. Type your admin password.
2. Delete any line that is related to dotmac. By default /etc/hosts contains only four entries.
You can easily delete them from the command line by using the arrow
keys to get to the right line, then press CTRL+K to cut them out.Save the file (CTRL+O then ENTER) and close the terminal window.
3. Either wait for the OS X DNS server to reload the file, or restart your computer. I did the latter, just to be sure.
A far easier way is to log in to iTunes with the Mobileme information. While there, I went to my account information. Without closing iTunes, I then went to Mobileme to register the computer and it registered right away. Go figure
I’m in MobileMe hell. I’ve had three chats with their AWFUL support people and I’m getting nowhere. I’ve seen this posted as a solution for a few people but when I check mine, I see 4 lines with no mention of MobileMe or .Mac or anything like that. What should it say? If I delete it all will it rebuild?
If you only have 4 lines in your /etc/hosts file, this is likely not your problem. Your lines are probably similar to:
##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting. Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1 localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost
fe80::1%lo0 localhost
That’s what my hosts file looks like now (and works). Yours is probably similar so I don’t think this is your issue. Sorry.