unusual pop-up message

[agwilliams]

Greetings all,

I have an iMac and recently a strange message popped up on the screen:

The name of your computer “Anthony’s iMac” is already in use on this network. The name has been changed to “Anthony’s iMac (2)”.

What's this about? Is it anything to worry about? There is only one iMac in use on this network

 

[IWT]

Nothing to worry about in my view. Others may disagree of course.

I've had this happen with all my iMacs over the last 15 years. It may be because another Mac is/was on the same server (not in your case you said), or you didn't disassociate a previous Mac you owned from your Apple ID or, often the commonest, it's a macOS bug related to DNS cache.

If this was to become a recurring message, then there are ways, via Terminal, to rename your Mac.

For the moment, I'd ignore it.

Ian

 

[agwilliams]

Many thanks!

 

[MacInWin]

I think I'm up to 6. And it happens, I think, because the mDNS server doesn't purge names fast enough, so when you take it out of the network, then bring it back, the server still is keeping the records for the "previous" machine and assigns a new number. At least, that is all I can figure out for it happening. In any case, it's not an issue.