Okay, I just pushed a release and notarized. Works great on my test laptop (macOS 26.2) and my test desktop (macOS 14.x)
But it seems to fail for a friend who's running macOS 15.
I've been using the same GitHub actions successfully for months.
How can notarization work for macOS 14 and 26, but not for macOS 15?
I think everything looks okay as far as the signing?
I've checked codesign -dvv
Executable=/Applications/Avogadro2.app/Contents/MacOS/Avogadro2
Identifier=cc.avogadro
Format=app bundle with Mach-O thin (arm64)
CodeDirectory v=20500 size=11607 flags=0x10000(runtime) hashes=352+7 location=embedded
Signature size=8986
Authority=Developer ID Application: Geoffrey Hutchison (…..)
Authority=Developer ID Certification Authority
Authority=Apple Root CA
Timestamp=Feb 5, 2026 at 8:47:21 PM
Info.plist entries=24
TeamIdentifier=…..
Runtime Version=15.5.0
Sealed Resources version=2 rules=13 files=3306
Internal requirements count=1 size=172
And from spctl -a -vv
/Applications/Avogadro2.app: accepted
source=Notarized Developer ID
origin=Developer ID Application: Geoffrey Hutchison (….)
How can notarization work for macOS 14 and 26, but not for macOS 15?
That’s not what’s happening here. Notarisation has worked, but your app is failing to pass Gatekeeper. This is actually pretty common. Notarisation and Gatekeeper are separate subsystems, and notarisation is necessary but not suffiient to pass Gatekeeper.
It’s less common for this to vary by macOS version, but I’ve certainly see that before.
You can find my general advice on this topic in Testing a Notarised Product. Specifically, by setting up a macOS 15 VM you can test this for yourself, which has a couple of benefits:
- It shortens your debugging cycle for this specific issue.
- It’ll help you avoid problems like this in the future.
Finally, when it comes to debugging this issue I have a bunch of advice in Resolving Trusted Execution Problems.
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