Hello,
I'm working on an app at work and we finally got to signing and notarizing the app. The app is successfully notarized and stapled, I packaged it in a .dmg using hdiutil and went ahead and notarized and stapled that as well.
Now I tried to move this app to another machine through various methods. But every time I download it from another machine, open and extract the contents of the dmg and attempt to open the app, I get the "Apple could not verify my app is free of malware that may harm your Mac or compromise your privacy.
When I check the extended attributes there's always the com.apple.quarantine attribute which from what I know, is the reason that this popup appears
I've tried uploading it to google drive, sending through slack, onedrive, even tried our AWS servers and last but not least, I tried our Azure servers (which is what we use for distribution of the windows version of our app). I tried uploading to Azure through CloudBerry (MSP360 now), and azure-cli defining the content-type as "application/octet-stream", the content-disposition as "attachment; filename=myApp.dmg", and content-cache-control as "no-transform". None of these worked
The only times where a download actually worked with no problems was when I downloaded through the terminal using curl, which obviously not a great solution especially that we're distributing to users who aren't exactly "tech savy"
I want the installation experience to be as smooth as other apps outside the App Store (i.e Discord, Slack, Firefox, Chrome etc....) but I've been stuck on this for more than a week with no luck.
Any help is greatly appreciated, and if you want me to clarify something further I'd be happy to do so
Gatekeeper
RSS for tagGatekeeper on macOS helps protect users from downloading and installing malicious software by checking for a Developer ID certificate from apps distributed outside the Mac App Store.
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Hi fellow developers,
I built Video Restore AI which uses a number of models with CoreML on macOS to provide simple one-blick video upscaling and colorization. After uploading my archive, I received the following notification through email.
ITMS-91109: Invalid package contents - The package contains one or more files with the com.apple.quarantine extended file attribute, such as “{com.kammerath.VideoRestore.pkg/Payload/Video Restore AI.app/Contents/Resources/ECCV16Colorize.mlmodelc/weights/weight.bin}”. This attribute shouldn’t be included in any macOS apps distributed on TestFlight or the App Store. Starting February 18, 2025, you must remove this attribute from all files within your macOS app before you can upload to App Store Connect.
How do I deal with this? Is there a way to get Apple to just accept the model contents or do I need to convert it again with coremltools?
Many thanks in advance!
Jan
Topic:
App Store Distribution & Marketing
SubTopic:
App Store Connect
Tags:
App Store
Core ML
Gatekeeper
App Submission
In XCode I create and export a notarized app for "direct distribution". I then create a tar file of the exported .app to distribute to my users. Until today this worked fine. Now when the users try to run the app it pops up a dialog saying "app is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to the Trash." It is possible to ctrl-click on the app and force it to run but, I think, whether this works or not will depend on system settings and not all users have root access to modify settings. Even simply copying the .app folder from the command line will cause this error.
I work for Brave, a browser with ~80M users. We want to introduce a new system for automatic updates called Omaha 4 (O4). It's the same system that powers automatic updates in Chrome.
O4 runs as a separate application on users' systems. For Chrome, this works as follows: An app called GoogleUpdater.app regularly checks for updates in the background. When a new version is found, then GoogleUpdater.app installs it into Chrome's installation directory /Applications/Google Chrome.app.
But consider what this means: A separate application, GoogleUpdater.app, is able to modify Google Chrome.app.
This is especially surprising because, for example, the built-in Terminal.app is not able to modify Google Chrome.app. Here's how you can check this for yourself:
(Re-)install Chrome with its DMG installer.
Run the following command in Terminal: mkdir /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/test. This works.
Undo the command: rm -rf /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/test
Start Chrome and close it again.
mkdir /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/test now fails with "Operation not permitted".
(These steps assume that Terminal does not have Full Disk Access and System Integrity Protection is enabled.)
In other words, once Chrome was started at least once, another application (Terminal in this case) is no longer allowed to modify it.
But at the same time, GoogleUpdater.app is able to modify Chrome. It regularly applies updates to the browser. For each update, this process begins with an mkdir call similarly to the one shown above.
How is this possible? What is it in macOS that lets GoogleUpdater.app modify Chrome, but not another app such as Terminal? Note that Terminal is not sandboxed.
I've checked that it's not related to codesigning or notarization issues. In our case, the main application (Brave) and the updater (BraveUpdater) are signed and notarized with the same certificate and have equivalent requirements, entitlements and provisioning profiles as Chrome and GoogleUpdater.
The error that shows up in the Console for the disallowed mkdir call is:
kernel (Sandbox)
System Policy: mkdir(8917) deny(1) file-write-create /Applications/Google Chrome.app/foo
(It's a similar error when BraveUpdater tries to install a new version into /Applications/Brave Browser.app.)
The error goes away when I disable System Integrity Protection. But of course, we cannot ask users to do that.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Context: large platform-agnostic CLI tool built as a handcrafted bundle (not via an Xcode project) that has been successfully codesigned, stapled, and zipped; macOS 14.7.5 syspolicy_check reports
App passed all pre-distribution checks and is ready for distribution.
However, running the executable in the Terminal produces a "cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified" popup. The executable does succeed after manually clearing its quarantine attribute.
Having worked through Resolving Gatekeeper Problems, the only detail logged in the Console is
Adding Gatekeeper denial breadcrumb (direct): ... bundle_id: NOT_A_BUNDLE.
Experimental observations: a minimized trivial CLI executable with a similar bundle layout and name successfully executes without being rejected, and oddly, renaming the original bundle from "name" to "name.suffix" allows it to be successfully executed.
It's unclear why the bundle name would affect Gatekeeper only in some circumstances, and we'd greatly prefer not to rename the bundle for compatibility reasons, so it would be good if there were some way to get further diagnostic detail leading to a workaround - thank you.
Hello,
I recently had my Electron app notarized by Apple and then performed the following steps:
Stapling the Notarization Ticket:
xcrun stapler staple "appPath/Aiparalegal.app"
Zipping the App for Distribution:
ditto -c -k --keepParent "appPath/Aiparalegal.app" theAIParalegal.zip
However, after unzipping and attempting to launch the app, macOS displays the following message:
Apple could not verify "theAIParalegal" is free of malware that may harm your Mac or compromise your privacy.
Yet, when I run validation using:
xcrun stapler validate "theAIParalegal.app"
I receive confirmation:
The validate action worked!
I then tried restarting my computer but the problem persist
Could you help me understand why the notarization validation appears successful, yet macOS still displays this security warning? Any advice on how to resolve this would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
Hello,
I recently had my Electron app notarized by Apple and then performed the following steps:
Stapling the Notarization Ticket:
xcrun stapler staple "appPath/Aiparalegal.app"
Zipping the App for Distribution:
ditto -c -k --keepParent "appPath/Aiparalegal.app" theAIParalegal.zip
However, after unzipping and attempting to launch the app, macOS displays the following message:
Apple could not verify "theAIParalegal" is free of malware that may harm your Mac or compromise your privacy.
Yet, when I run validation using:
xcrun stapler validate "theAIParalegal.app"
I receive confirmation:
The validate action worked!
spctl -a -vvv -t install "theAIParalegal.app"
theAIParalegal.app: accepted
source=Notarized Developer ID
origin=Developer ID Application: NIPartnership LLC (M92N2796Q9)
Could you help me understand why the notarization validation appears successful, yet macOS still displays this security warning? Any advice on how to resolve this would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
My Developer ID certificate will expire in few days, so I downloaded and installed new certificate in login keychain. However my key is still linked to my old certificate. I have my .p12 but even if I delete the old certificate from login keychain and reinstall the .12 file, my old certificate reappears in the login keychain.
I tried to select the new certificate in the login keychain and choose Files > Export Items (in Keychain Access) but in the Save dialog under File Format the "Personal Information Exchange (.p12)" option is grayed out. How can I generate a key/.p12 file that will be linked to my new certificate?
We are developing a macOS application for distribution outside the Mac App Store. This application requires additional entitlements, including Keychain access groups, Network Extension, App Groups, and Sandbox. Both the app and the network extension import a custom framework.
After creating the .app via Xcode, I ensured that a new Developer ID Application provisioning profile was generated. These profiles were then injected into the Contents folder of the .app and Plugins/.netappex as embedded.provisionprofile.
Next, .entitlements files were created with the necessary "-systemextension" entitlement for the network extension and used for code signing.
When inspecting the extracted entitlements from the .provisioningprofile as described in TN3125, everything appears correct.
Code signing flow:
codesign --force --options runtime --timestamp --sign "Developer ID Application: <team>" <.app>/Contents/Frameworks/<sdk>.framework/
codesign --force --options runtime --timestamp --sign "Developer ID Application: <team>" <.app>/Contents/PlugIns/vpn.appex/Contents/Frameworks/<sdk>.framework/Versions/A/<sdk>
codesign --force --options runtime --entitlements <vpn-plist>.entitlements --timestamp --sign "Developer ID Application: <team>" <.app>/Contents/PlugIns/vpn.appex/
codesign --force --options runtime --entitlements <app-plist>.entitlements --timestamp --sign "Developer ID Application: <team>" <.app>
The .app is then zipped with ditto -c -k --keepParent and set off for notarization, which is succesful and the .app is stapled.
After that, a .dmg or .pkg is created, which is then sent for notarization and subsequently stapled.
The problem occurs when the app is distributed to the client. Opening the extracted .app fails, as Gatekeeper refuses to launch it with the following error message:
661 debug staticCode syspolicyd Security 0x88d68d818 done serializing <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "https://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"><plist version="1.0"><dict><key>com.apple.application-identifier</key><string><teamid.bundleid></string><key>com.apple.developer.networking.networkextension</key><array><string>packet-tunnel-provider-systemextension</string></array><key>com.apple.developer.team-identifier</key><string>team-id</string><key>com.apple.security.app-sandbox</key><true/><key>com.apple.security.application-groups</key><array><string>teamid.group.appgroup</string></array><key>com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-write</key><true/><key>com.apple.security.network.client</key><true/><key>com.apple.security.network.server</key><true/><key>keychain-access-groups</key><array><string>teamid.group.appgroup</string></array></dict></plist> com.apple.securityd
22207 debug ProvisioningProfiles taskgated-helper ConfigurationProfiles entitlements: { "com.apple.developer.networking.networkextension" = ( "packet-tunnel-provider-systemextension" ); "com.apple.developer.team-identifier" = team-id; "keychain-access-groups" = ( “teamid.group.appgroup” ); } com.apple.ManagedClient
22207 error ProvisioningProfiles taskgated-helper ConfigurationProfiles <bundle-id>: Unsatisfied entitlements: com.apple.developer.team-identifier, com.apple.developer.networking.networkextension, keychain-access-groups com.apple.ManagedClient
After encountering this problem every time, we tried using a different development team with a new bundle ID, app groups, developer ID, developer ID certificate, and provisioning profiles. The .entitlements file remained the same (with different IDs), as did the capabilities for the App IDs in App Store Connect.
With this new development team, we were successful, and the gatekeeper did not block the launch job. From a configuration standpoint, everything appears identical.
Updating the App Store Connect App ID capabilities and generating new provisioning profiles for the first development team did not resolve the issue.
Thank you for your help.
Hi,
I've code-signed my app and notarized it, and created a DMG, and when I slacked it or airdropped it to someone for testing the FIRST time they open it, they get a warning that it was Slacked or airdropped to them and do they want to open it. if they say yes everything is fine. So looking through here someone said I need to sign the app and then make a dmg and sign the dmg and then send that for notorization and then staple that. So I did, and I still get a warning the first tie someone try's to run it.
What am I doing wrong? I know I can buy software and not get a warning from apple. so how do I get my app to work correctly like that?
Hi folks
We have a Developer ID Application which we create using electron.
We made our last release for our Application on Nov'24 which was correctly working.
Using the same code, we tried creating a notarized application again which started showing the following error while opening our Application.
Monterey-
M2-
When we directly run the dmg on the dev machine, it does not give us the prompt. But if we download it from somewhere and run, the prompt comes up even in dev machine.
We executed some commands to verify the notarization:
1- spctl --assess -vv /Applications/Refresh\ Pro.app
On both dev machine and non-dev machine, the output was "accepted"
/Applications/Refresh Pro.app: accepted
source=Notarized Developer ID
origin=Developer ID Application: Prograde Digital Incorporated (*******)
2- xcrun stapler validate /Applications/Refresh\ Pro.app
On dev machine, we executed this command and the output is as follows.
Processing: /Applications/Refresh Pro.app
The validate action worked!
3- codesign -vvv --deep --strict /Applications/Refresh\ Pro.app/
/Applications/Refresh Pro.app: valid on disk
/Applications/Refresh Pro.app: satisfies its Designated Requirement
We have created a bug attaching the dmg. Please suggest anything we can try to make the release out the door.
Bug link- https://feedbackassistant.apple.com/feedback/16811025
Hi,
I develop a Mac application, initially on Catalina/Xcode12, but I recently upgrade to Monterey/Xcode13. I'm about to publish a new version: on Monterey all works as expected, but when I try the app on Sequoia, as a last step before uploading to the App Store, I encountered some weird security issues:
The main symptom is that it's no longer possible to save any file from the app using the Save panel, although the User Select File entitlement is set to Read/Write.
I've tried reinstalling different versions of the app, including the most recent downloaded from TestFlight. But, whatever the version, any try to save using the panel (e.g. on the desktop) results in a warning telling that I don't have authorization to record the file to that folder.
Moreover, when I type spctl -a -t exec -v /Applications/***.app in the terminal, it returns rejected, even when the application has been installed by TestFlight.
An EtreCheck report tells that my app is not signed, while codesign -dv /Applications/***.app returns a valid signature. I'm lost...
It suspect a Gate Keeper problem, but I cannot found any info on the web about how this system could be reset. I tried sudo spctl --reset-default, but it returns This operation is no longer supported...
I wonder if these symptoms depend on how the app is archived and could be propagated to my final users, or just related to a corrupted install of Sequoia on my local machine. My feeling is that a signature problem should have been detected by the archive validation, but how could we be sure?
Any idea would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
I have a .NET 6 application that runs in the background. The installer is a .pkg file built using a third-party tool called "Packages".
All .dylib and executable files are codesigned before packaging. The resulting .pkg file is notarized.
The app uses these entitlements:
com.apple.security.cs.allow-jit
com.apple.security.cs.allow-unsigned-executable-memory
com.apple.security.cs.allow-dyld-environment-variables
com.apple.security.cs.disable-library-validation
The app is built on a macbook Air 2015 running macOS 12.6 and it works without issues on that machine.
On a macbook Pro M3 running macOS 14.6.1 the app fails to run even though the installation itself is successful.
The only logs that I was able to find are related to syspolicyd (4 warnings):
Unable to apply protection to app: 45, PST: (vuid: A78FF6C2-08D5-4DCC-B946-8836251AA0E7), (objid: 1873967), (team: (null)), (id: (null)), (bundle_id: (null))
Failed to register app bundle for protection: 45, PST: (vuid: A78FF6C2-08D5-4DCC-B946-8836251AA0E7), (objid: 1873967), (team: (null)), (id: (null)), (bundle_id: (null))
scan failed, finishing evaluation : PST: (vuid: A78FF6C2-08D5-4DCC-B946-8836251AA0E7), (objid: 1873967), (team: (null)), (id: (null)), (bundle_id: (null))
Terminating process due to Gatekeeper rejection: 95158,
Unfortunately, verification commands such as
sudo codesign --verify --deep --strict -vvv MyApplication.App
spctl -a -vvv -t install MyApplicationInstaller.pkg
do not indicate any issues.
Are there any additional steps that need to be performed in order for my app to work properly on newer machines?
Hello,
I have an application which uses a helper[1] to download[2] files. When files download is a DMG and user mounts the image to run the application from this DMG it doesn't pass Gatekeeper. It presents the "Application XYZ.app can't be opened.".
Same file downloaded via Safari shows a different dialog, the "XYZ.app is an app downloaded from the internet. Are you sure you want to open it?"
In the system log I see this line:
exec of /Volumes/SampleApp/SampleApp.app/Contents/MacOS/SampleApp denied since it was quarantined by Download\x20Helper and created without user consent, qtn-flags was 0x00000187
The application is running sandboxed and hardened, the main application has com.apple.security.files.downloads.read-write entitlement. Everything is signed by DeveloperID and passes all checks[3].
I tried to check the responsible process[4] of the helper. Then trivial stuff like download folder access in System Settings/Privacy & Security/Files & Folders. Everything seems to be fine.
For what it worths the value of quarantine attribute is following:
com.apple.quarantine: 0087;6723b80e;My App;
The Safari downloaded one posses:
com.apple.quarantine: 0083;6723b9fa;Safari;02162070-2561-42BE-B30B-19A0E94FE7CA
Also tried a few more ways and got to 0081 with Edge and 0082 with a sample app with similar setup. Not sure if that has any meaning.
What could I be doing wrong that Gatekeeper right away refuses to run the application from DMG instead of showing the dialog like in other cases?
[1] The executable is in application bundle located in Contents/Helpers/DownloadHelper.app in the main application bundle.
[2] Nothing fancy, curl + regular POSIX file operations
[3] codesign, syspolicy_check, spctl
[4] launchctl procinfo pid
I have something with a new individual on my team I've never seen before. They checked out our code repository from git and now anytime they try to open a .json file that is legitimately just a text file, GateKeeper tells them it cannot verify the integrity of this file and offers to have them throw this file away. I've seen this with binaries, and that makes sense. I removed the com.apple.quarantine extended attribute from all executable files in our source tree, but I've never seen GateKeeper prompt on text files. I could remove the extended attribute from all files in our source tree, but I fear the next time he pulls from git he'll get new ones flagged. Is there someway around this? I've never personally seen GateKeeper blocking text files.
We are using SHC to compile on macOS to convert the .sh script to a binary file. This binary file is then digitally signed by the Apple developer account and then notarised. After that, it will work on the same system where we follow this process. But if we share this file to another system, then it gets quarantined (com.apple.quarantine) while downloading.
Is there any way to prevent it by getting quarantine on another system or something I'm missing, any clues?
I have built a flutter desktop app and I notarized it. I have to distribute it directly as I cannot turn on App Sandboxing due to the functions included in the application.
I created a build of the app from Xcode and then uploaded it for notarization and it was successfully notarized.
If I compress that app into a .zip and share it over the internet, it successfully opens on any computer.
But when I create a dmg using appdmg from npm and I try to distribute it, it does not open and shows me the option to either move to bin or cancel.
When I notarize the dmg using the command:
xcrun notarytool submit "YourApp.dmg"
--apple-id "email"
--password "app-specific-password"
--team-id "YOUR_TEAM_ID"
--wait
It notarizes successfully.
I have also done:
xcrun stapler staple "YourApp.dmg"
And validated it but it does not seem to work when I distribute it over the internet by uploading on my website.
It is a bit strange that when I distribute the notarized app, it does not show any error when distributed over the internet by uploading on my website and then downloading but for a notarized dmg, which is properly signed, it gives that error that wether move to bin or do nothing.
Would love someone's help on this!
I recently got some plugins from Universal Audio, and have licensed them properly through both UA and iLok manager. Whenever I try to load up the plugins (specifically from UA) in GarageBand, it first says that
"NSCreateObjectFileImageFromMemory-p47UEwps” because the developper can not be verified.
After clicking either 'show in finder' or 'okay', it opens the plugin in a form without its GUI and showing that it is not licensed (even though it is). It also displays error code 100001. I have tried only some basic stuff to troubleshoot like restarting the DAW/my computer and reinstalling/relicensing the softwares. I don't know if the macOS version has anything to do with it but for some reason I just can't get it to work.
Hi, I am a long time programmer in C#, and newer to Rust, and a rookie to MacOS 15.1.
Over the past few days I have made numerous attempts to run a Rust GUI binary that I compiled on Mac.
Here are some examples of things I have tried using.
Executable compiled in M1 mac not running on Apple Silicon Mac - help - The Rust Programming Language Forum
And here....
How to run unsigned apps in macOS 15.1
Also here... "sudo spctl --master-disable"
There are many more that I have tried.
I also tried moving the binary from my developer folder to the Application folder and running....
xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/csv
Note that "csv" is the name of my binary.
You have probably seen this 100 times, so can you point me to me to something that allows my Rust binaries to run under MacOS?
PS The Rust program code works just fine under Linux. I can either type Cargo Run and run the binary from the Terminal or go directly to the executable and double click on it to open the GUI application. The only thing that MacOS lets me do it open the GUI from the Terminal. Commander One says that I do not have the proper credentials to open the file directly. Finder also does not allow me to open the binary directly.
Thanks, Jim
I built Mac app with Electron-forge and sign and notarize my app with Developer ID Application Certification and @electron/osx-sign, @electron/notarize module.
I built my app on macOS Sonoma 14.7.
Then I ran the built app on other mac with "App Store and identified developers" Gatekeeper of macOS version 12.7.3 And it worked well.
But when I ran it on another mac PC of macOS Sonoma 14.4.1, it said my app is damaged.
Why does it happen and How can I solve this issue?