13

I use SelfControl quite frequently for completing homework and such, but at school, while I was away from my keyboard at the white board, my friend thought it would be funny to set the timer to 10 hours. I am currently using a proxy to ask this question. Is there any way to disable this useful, but inflexible application?

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  • 2
    As a note, you should have your computer to ask for a password before making changes. So when I activate my self control program, i have to put my password in first. This will prevent unauthorized of the program. – user51266 Jun 14 '13 at 15:34
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    the purpose is to not disable it – SuperUberDuper Jan 15 '17 at 2:09
15

Have you tried opening Terminal (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal) and using the commands:

killall SelfControl

or

sudo killall SelfControl

As it is not working try the hosts file:

sudo nano /etc/hosts

And look for something like this

# BEGIN SELFCONTROL BLOCK
127.0.0.1   www.nasa.gov
127.0.0.1   nasa.gov
# END SELFCONTROL BLOCK

delete the entire block and hit CTRL + O to save the file and CTRL + X to exit. Everything you put at hosts file like:

127.0.0.1 facebook.com
127.0.0.1 nasa.gov
127.0.0.1 stackoverflow.com

Those addresses will be blocked, you will not be able to access them while they are inside the hosts file

To stop and delete SelfControl running as a background process:

sudo su -
cd /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/
rm org.eyebeam.SelfControl

To delete the firewall rules that have been introduced by SelfControl, read this blog article by Joshua Kehn:

http://joshuakehn.com/2010/10/25/Defeating-SelfControl.html

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  • Yes. It keeps running even when the application is closed, so killall won't work... – ruddfawcett Jun 1 '12 at 0:18
  • Sorry I didn't understand you – msmafra Jun 1 '12 at 0:21
  • I have the # BEGIN SELFCONTROL BLOCK and # END SELFCONTROL BLOCK. What should I do now? – ruddfawcett Jun 1 '12 at 0:36
  • Delete the entire block and save the file. There probably be IP numbers and sites addresses inside the block. if you put: 127.0.0.1 facebook.com for example it will be blocked – msmafra Jun 1 '12 at 0:44
  • Hit CTRL + O to save the file and CTRL + X to exit – msmafra Jun 1 '12 at 0:51
14

Sometimes deleting what's between the # BEGIN SELFCONTROL and # END SELFCONTROL doesn't work.

On the other side, changing the Date or Time worked perfectly for me! All you gotta do is change your date to something in the future, for example if today is Sep 4 you can change your system date to something like Sep 5 !

  1. You open Preferences Open Date & Time
  2. Change the date to something like Sep 5 or any date in the future.
  3. Open SelfControl, the countdown will be gone now.

Try opening a website that you blocked with selfControl! if it does work! then it's all you gotta do ... otherwise try changing the date back to the original date (Sept 4) for example, and try again opening the website that you blocked with SelfControl!

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  • You are genius! – alexmorhun Dec 22 '14 at 11:09
  • could self control prevent this? – SuperUberDuper Jan 15 '17 at 2:09
7

It's simple, just open preferences, and change the date to the next day!

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  • Changing the time does not work if you are connected to the internet. – user56848 Sep 10 '13 at 21:53
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    @Mindy How so? I change time often when connected to he network. – bmike♦ Sep 11 '13 at 4:13
6

I had to remove the lines in /etc/hosts, change the date in /etc/SelfControl.lock, and reopen the SelfControl application:

sudo sed -i '' '/# BEGIN SELFCONTROL/,/# END SELFCONTROL/d' /etc/hosts
sudo sed -i '' 's|<date>.*|<date>2010-01-01T01:01:01Z</date>|' /etc/SelfControl.lock
killall SelfControl; open -a SelfControl

Just deleting /etc/SelfControl.lock didn't work. If you have removed SelfControl.app, download it again first.

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3

Quit SelfControl.

Open System Preferences > Date and Time > Change the day 1 day in the future.

Launch SelfControl again. Quit SelfControl and then change the date back.

This works because SelfControl checks the date and time, sees that you are past the blocking period, and removes the host file additions.

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  • 1
    Can confirm this works. – Nick Crawford Jul 10 '16 at 17:56

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protected by Community♦ Sep 11 '13 at 6:08

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