Hello,
I'm trying to adopt the new BGContinuedProcessingTask API, but I'm having a little trouble imagining how the API authors intended it be used. I saw the WWDC talk, but it lacked higher-level details about how to integrate this API, and I can't find a sample project.
I notice that we can list wildcard background task identifiers in our Info.plist files now, and it appears this is to be used with continued tasks - a user might start one video encoding, then while it is ongoing, enqueue another one from the same app, and these tasks would have identifiers such as "MyApp.VideoEncoding.ABCD" and "MyApp.VideoEncoding.EFGH" to distinguish them.
When it comes to implementing this, is the expectation that we:
a) Register a single handler for the wildcard pattern, which then figures out how to fulfil each request from the identifier of the passed-in task instance?
Or
b) Register a unique handler for each instance of the wildcard pattern? Since you can't unregister handlers, any resources captured by the handler would be leaked, so you'd need to make sure you only register immediately before submission - in other words register + submit should always be called as a pair.
Of course, I'd like to design my application to use this API as the authors intended it be used, but I'm just not entirely sure what that is. When I try to register a single handler for a wildcard pattern, the system rejects it at runtime (while allowing registrations for each instance of the pattern, indicating that at least my Info.plist is configured correctly). That points towards option B.
If it is option B, it's potentially worth calling that out in documentation - or even better, perhaps introduce a new call just for BGContinuedProcessingTask instead of the separate register + submit calls?
Thanks for your insight.
K
Aside: Also, it would be really nice if the handler closure would be async. Currently if you need to await on something, you need to launch an unstructured Task, but that causes issues since BGContinuedProcessingTask is not Sendable, so you can't pass it in to that Task to do things like update the title or mark the BGTask as complete.
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Hi,
I have received the following report after app termination. I have researched online but cannot determine the root cause. Any tips or ideas would help please.
Could it be Location Services, UserNotification Services, or Network Requests?
Thank you,
Brendan
Translated Report (Full Report Below)
Incident Identifier: 6CD59A17-15B1-4F4E-AE84-0286F22893A4
CrashReporter Key: 3d12fb7359053239708afd24c7eed0267a9cc601
Hardware Model: iPhone13,3
Process: AnchorNet3 [5605]
Path: /private/var/containers/Bundle/Application/5EA7F893-D562-45B8-8995-5EAB15F85A7E/AnchorNet3.app/AnchorNet3
Identifier: com.sailsecrets.AnchorNet3
Version: 3.17 (3.17)
Code Type: ARM-64 (Native)
Role: Foreground
Parent Process: launchd [1]
Coalition: com.sailsecrets.AnchorNet3 [1443]
Date/Time: 2025-02-06 00:12:03.6136 +0100
Launch Time: 2025-02-05 22:11:19.4220 +0100
OS Version: iPhone OS 18.2 (22C5131e)
Release Type: Beta
Baseband Version: 5.20.03
Report Version: 104
Exception Type: EXC_RESOURCE (SIGKILL)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000020000, 0x0000000000000000
Termination Reason: PORT_SPACE 14123288431434006528 (Limit 131072 ports) Exceeded system-wide per-process Port Limit
Triggered by Thread: 3
Thread 0 name: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
Thread 0:
0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x1e27414e4 kevent_id + 8
1 libdispatch.dylib 0x198f51b40 _dispatch_kq_poll + 228
2 libdispatch.dylib 0x198f51080 _dispatch_event_loop_poke + 340
3 QuartzCore 0x192d4631c CA::Context::commit_transaction(CA::Transaction*, double, double*) + 17164
4 QuartzCore 0x192cb8d58 CA::Transaction::commit() + 648
5 QuartzCore 0x192cb8764 CA::Transaction::flush_as_runloop_observer(bool) + 88
6 UIKitCore 0x193a3fd14 _UIApplicationFlushCATransaction + 52
7 UIKitCore 0x193a3d1e0 __setupUpdateSequence_block_invoke_2 + 332
8 UIKitCore 0x193a3d054 UIUpdateSequenceRun + 84
9 UIKitCore 0x193a3f984 schedulerStepScheduledMainSection + 172
10 UIKitCore 0x193a3d5a0 runloopSourceCallback + 92
11 CoreFoundation 0x1911f1f3c CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_SOURCE0_PERFORM_FUNCTION + 28
12 CoreFoundation 0x1911f1ed0 __CFRunLoopDoSource0 + 176
13 CoreFoundation 0x1911f4b30 __CFRunLoopDoSources0 + 244
14 CoreFoundation 0x1911f3d2c __CFRunLoopRun + 840
15 CoreFoundation 0x191246274 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 588
16 GraphicsServices 0x1de34d4c0 GSEventRunModal + 164
17 UIKitCore 0x193d8f480 -[UIApplication run] + 816
18 UIKitCore 0x1939b5410 UIApplicationMain + 340
19 SwiftUI 0x195b43e30 closure #1 in KitRendererCommon(:) + 168
20 SwiftUI 0x195b43d60 runApp(:) + 100
21 SwiftUI 0x195b43c44 static App.main() + 180
22 AnchorNet3.debug.dylib 0x1025e97bc static MainApp.$main() + 40
23 AnchorNet3.debug.dylib 0x1025eaacc __debug_main_executable_dylib_entry_point + 12
24 dyld 0x1b7352de8 start + 2724
Thread 1 name: com.apple.CoreMotion.MotionThread
Thread 1:
0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x1e2741788 mach_msg2_trap + 8
1 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x1e2744e98 mach_msg2_internal + 80
2 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x1e2744db0 mach_msg_overwrite + 424
3 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x1e2744bfc mach_msg + 24
4 CoreFoundation 0x1911f47f4 __CFRunLoopServiceMachPort + 160
5 CoreFoundation 0x1911f3ea0 __CFRunLoopRun + 1212
6 CoreFoundation 0x191246274 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 588
7 CoreFoundation 0x191259814 CFRunLoopRun + 64
8 CoreMotion 0x19e89cc5c 0x19e88d000 + 64604
9 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x21bcfb7d0 _pthread_start + 136
10 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x21bcfb480 thread_start + 8
Thread 2 name: com.apple.uikit.eventfetch-thread
Thread 2:
0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x1e2741788 mach_msg2_trap + 8
1 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x1e2744e98 mach_msg2_internal + 80
2 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x1e2744db0 mach_msg_overwrite + 424
3 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x1e2744bfc mach_msg + 24
4 CoreFoundation 0x1911f47f4 __CFRunLoopServiceMachPort + 160
5 CoreFoundation 0x1911f3ea0 __CFRunLoopRun + 1212
6 CoreFoundation 0x191246274 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 588
7 Foundation 0x18fdc8338 -[NSRunLoop(NSRunLoop) runMode:beforeDate:] + 212
8 Foundation 0x18ff24e24 -[NSRunLoop(NSRunLoop) runUntilDate:] + 64
9 UIKitCore 0x193e22a74 -[UIEventFetcher threadMain] + 420
10 Foundation 0x18feb4194 NSThread__start + 724
11 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x21bcfb7d0 _pthread_start + 136
12 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x21bcfb480 thread_start + 8
Thread 3 name: com.apple.SwiftUI.AsyncRenderer
Thread 3 Crashed:
0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x1e274162c _kernelrpc_mach_port_allocate_trap + 8
1 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x1e2748478 mach_port_allocate + 36
2 QuartzCore 0x192d4552c CA::Context::commit_transaction(CA::Transaction*, double, double*) + 13596
3 QuartzCore 0x192cb8d58 CA::Transaction::commit() + 648
4 QuartzCore 0x192cb8764 CA::Transaction::flush_as_runloop_observer(bool) + 88
5 CoreFoundation 0x19119f894 CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER_CALLBACK_FUNCTION + 36
6 CoreFoundation 0x19119f3e8 __CFRunLoopDoObservers + 552
7 CoreFoundation 0x1912462c0 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 664
8 Foundation 0x18fdc8338 -[NSRunLoop(NSRunLoop) runMode:beforeDate:] + 212
9 Foundation 0x18fdc4500 -[NSRunLoop(NSRunLoop) run] + 64
10 SwiftUI 0x195c276d8 specialized static DisplayLink.asyncThread(arg:) + 792
11 SwiftUI 0x195c273a8 @objc static DisplayLink.asyncThread(arg:) + 72
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In iOS Background Execution limits, I see this:
When the user ‘force quits’ an app by swiping up in the multitasking UI, iOS interprets that to mean that the user doesn’t want the app running at all. iOS also sets a flag that prevents the app from being launched in the background. That flag gets cleared when the user next launches the app manually.
However, I see that when I close an app on iPadOS 26 with the red X, the app doesn't appear in the multitasking UI. So are they treated as force closes and prevented from running background tasks?
I'm working on an enterprise product that's mainly a daemon (with Endpoint Security) without any GUI component. I'm looking into the update process for daemons/agents that was introduced with Ventura (Link), but I have to say that the entire process is just deeply unfun. Really can't stress this enough how unfun.
Anyway...
The product bundle now contains a dedicated Swift executable that calls SMAppService.register for both the daemon and agent.
It registers the app in the system preferences login items menu, but I also get an error.
Error registering daemon: Error Domain=SMAppServiceErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted" UserInfo={NSLocalizedFailureReason=Operation not permitted}
What could be the reason?
I wouldn't need to activate the items, I just need them to be added to the list, so that I can control them via launchctl.
Which leads me to my next question, how can I control bundled daemons/agents via launchctl? I tried to use launchctl enable and bootstrap, just like I do with daemons under /Library/LaunchDaemons, but all I get is
sudo launchctl enable system/com.identifier.daemon
sudo launchctl bootstrap /Path/to/daemon/launchdplist/inside/bundle/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.blub.plist
Bootstrap failed: 5: Input/output error (not super helpful error message)
I'm really frustrated by the complexity of this process and all of its pitfalls.
I'm developing a macOS console application that uses ODBC to connect to PostgreSQL. The application works fine when run normally, but fails to load the ODBC driver when debugging with LLDB(under root works fine as well).
Error Details
When running the application through LLDB, I get this sandbox denial in the system log (via log stream):
Error 0x0 0 0 kernel: (Sandbox) Sandbox: logd_helper(587) deny(1) file-read-data /opt/homebrew/lib/psqlodbcw.so
The application cannot access the PostgreSQL ODBC driver located at /opt/homebrew/lib/psqlodbcw.so(also tried copy to /usr/local/lib/...).
Environment
macOS Version: Latest Sequoia
LLDB: Using LLDB from Xcode 16.3 (/Applications/Xcode16.3.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/lldb)
ODBC Driver: PostgreSQL ODBC driver installed via Homebrew
Code Signing: Application is signed with Apple Development certificate
What is the recommended approach for debugging applications that need to load dynamic libraries?
Are there specific entitlements or configurations that would allow LLDB to access ODBC drivers during debugging sessions?
Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for any assistance!
I'm trying to schedule a background task that will run on an iPhone and I'm looking into creating a task request using BGProcessingTaskRequest and scheduled it using BGTaskScheduler.shared.submit().
Per earliestBeginDate documentation, this property can be used to specify the earliest time a background task will be launched by OS. All clear here.
However, the question is: how is the value interpreted with respect to timezone ? Is the specified date in device timezone ? Is GMT ? Is something else ?
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
Processes & Concurrency
Tags:
iOS
Background Tasks
Foundation
The following code worked as expected on iOS 26 RC, but it no longer works on the official release of iOS 26.
Is there something I need to change in order to make it work on the official version?
Registration
BGTaskScheduler.shared.register(
forTaskWithIdentifier: taskIdentifier,
using: nil
) { task in
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// This closure is not called on the official release of iOS 26
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
let task = task as! BGContinuedProcessingTask
var shouldContinue = true
task.expirationHandler = {
shouldContinue = false
}
task.progress.totalUnitCount = 100
task.progress.completedUnitCount = 0
while shouldContinue {
sleep(1)
task.progress.completedUnitCount += 1
task.updateTitle("\(task.progress.completedUnitCount) / \(task.progress.totalUnitCount)", subtitle: "any subtitle")
if task.progress.completedUnitCount == task.progress.totalUnitCount {
break
}
}
let completed = task.progress.completedUnitCount >= task.progress.totalUnitCount
if completed {
task.updateTitle("Completed", subtitle: "")
}
task.setTaskCompleted(success: completed)
}
Request
let request = BGContinuedProcessingTaskRequest(
identifier: taskIdentifier,
title: "any title",
subtitle: "any subtitle",
)
request.strategy = .queue
try BGTaskScheduler.shared.submit(request)
Sample project code:
https://github.com/HikaruSato/ExampleBackgroundProcess
In macOS 26 I noticed there is a section Menu Bar in System Settings which allows to toggle visibility of status items created with NSStatusItem. I'm assuming this is new, since I never noticed it before.
Currently my app has a menu item that allows toggling its status item, but now I wonder whether it should always create the status item and let the user control its visibility from System Settings. Theoretically, keeping this option inside the app could lead to confusion if the user has previously disabled the status item in System Settings, then perhaps forgot about it, and then tries to enable it inside the app, but apparently nothing happens because System Settings overrides the app setting. Should I remove the option inside the app?
This also makes me think of login items, which can be managed both in System Settings and inside the app via SMAppService. Some users ask why my app doesn't have a launch at login option, and I tell them that System Settings already offers that functionality. Since there is SMAppService I could offer an option inside the app that is kept in sync with System Settings, but I prefer to avoid duplicating functionality, particularly if it's something that is changed once by the user and then rarely (if ever) changed afterwards. But I wonder: why can login items be controlled by an app, and the status item cannot (at least I'm not aware of an API that allows to change the option in System Settings)? If the status item can be overridden in System Settings, why do login items behave differently?
Hello,
I am developing an application which is communicating with external device using BLE and L2CAP. I wonder what are the best practices of using Input & Output streams that are established with L2CAP connection when working with Swift 6 concurrency model.
I've been trying to find some examples and hints for some time now but unfortunately there isn't much available. One useful thread I've found is: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/756281
but it does not offer much insight into using eg. actor model with streams. I wonder if something has changed in this regards?
Also, are there any plans to migrate eg. CoreBluetooth stack to new swift 6 concurrency ?
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
Processes & Concurrency
Tags:
External Accessory
Swift
Core Bluetooth
Concurrency
Hello,
My team has developed a DNS proxy for macOS. We have this set up with a system extension that interacts with the OS, and an always-running daemon that does all the heavy lifting. Communication between the two is DNS request and response packet traffic.
With this architecture what are best practices for how the system extension communicates with a daemon?
We tried making the daemon a socket server, but the system extension could not connect to it.
We tried using XPC but it did not work and we could not understand the errors that were returned.
So what is the best way to do this sort of thing?
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
Processes & Concurrency
Tags:
XPC
System Extensions
Network Extension
Service Management
Hello everyone!
I'm having a problem with background tasks running in the foreground.
When a user enters the app, a background task is triggered. I've written some code to check if the app is in the foreground and to prevent the task from running, but it doesn't always work. Sometimes the task runs in the background as expected, but other times it runs in the foreground, as I mentioned earlier.
Could it be that I'm doing something wrong? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
here is code:
class BackgroundTaskService {
@Environment(\.scenePhase) var scenePhase
static let shared = BackgroundTaskService()
private init() {}
// MARK: - create task
func createCheckTask() {
let identifier = TaskIdentifier.check
BGTaskScheduler.shared.getPendingTaskRequests { requests in
if requests.contains(where: { $0.identifier == identifier.rawValue }) {
return
}
self.createByInterval(identifier: identifier.rawValue, interval: identifier.interval)
}
}
private func createByInterval(identifier: String, interval: TimeInterval) {
let request = BGProcessingTaskRequest(identifier: identifier)
request.earliestBeginDate = Date(timeIntervalSinceNow: interval)
scheduleTask(request: request)
}
// MARK: submit task
private func scheduleTask(request: BGProcessingTaskRequest) {
do {
try BGTaskScheduler.shared.submit(request)
} catch {
// some actions with error
}
}
// MARK: background actions
func checkTask(task: BGProcessingTask) {
let today = Calendar.current.startOfDay(for: Date())
let lastExecutionDate = UserDefaults.standard.object(forKey: "lastCheckExecutionDate") as? Date ?? Date.distantPast
let notRunnedToday = !Calendar.current.isDate(today, inSameDayAs: lastExecutionDate)
guard notRunnedToday else {
task.setTaskCompleted(success: true)
createCheckTask()
return
}
if scenePhase == .background {
TaskActionStore.shared.getAction(for: task.identifier)?()
}
task.setTaskCompleted(success: true)
UserDefaults.standard.set(today, forKey: "lastCheckExecutionDate")
createCheckTask()
}
}
And in AppDelegate:
BGTaskScheduler.shared.register(forTaskWithIdentifier: "check", using: nil) { task in
guard let task = task as? BGProcessingTask else { return }
BackgroundTaskService.shared.checkNodeTask(task: task)
}
BackgroundTaskService.shared.createCheckTask()
How can I return the results of a Spotlight query synchronously from a Swift function?
I want to return a [String] that contains the items that match the query, one item per array element.
I specifically want to find all data for Spotlight items in the /Applications folder that have a kMDItemAppStoreAdamID (if there is a better predicate than kMDItemAppStoreAdamID > 0, please let me know).
The following should be the correct query:
let query = NSMetadataQuery()
query.predicate = NSPredicate(format: "kMDItemAppStoreAdamID > 0")
query.searchScopes = ["/Applications"]
I would like to do this for code that can run on macOS 10.13+, which precludes using Swift Concurrency. My project already uses the latest PromiseKit, so I assume that the solution should use that. A bonus solution using Swift Concurrency wouldn't hurt as I will probably switch over sometime in the future, but won't be able to switch soon.
I have written code that can retrieve the Spotlight data as the [String], but I don't know how to return it synchronously from a function; whatever I tried, the query hangs, presumably because I've called various run loop functions at the wrong places.
In case it matters, the app is a macOS command-line app using Swift 5.7 & Swift Argument Parser 1.5.0. The Spotlight data will be output only as text to stdout & stderr, not to any Apple UI elements.
Dear Apple:
We are developing an app for file sharing between mobile devices. We want to create an iOS app that can continue sharing files with other devices even when it is running in the background. We are using WLAN channels for file sharing. Could you please advise on which background persistence measures we should use to ensure the iOS app can maintain file transfer when it goes to the background? Thank you.
Hello,
I have a few questions regarding the documentation here:
Can this method described in the article be built with Xcode 26 and run on iOS 26? Or is it restricted to run only on iOS 26, since AppExtensionPoint appears to be available starting from iOS 26?
Does this approach allow two apps under the same Team ID to communicate with each other?
Does this approach also allow two apps under different Team IDs to communicate with each other?
Is it mandatory to implement EXAppExtensionBrowserViewController and obtain user consent before using this method to exchange information?
In our implementation, we followed the documentation. Inside EXAppExtensionBrowserViewController, we were able to see the Generic Extension from another app and enabled the permission.
However, we still get the following error:
Failed to connect: Error Domain=NABUExtensionConnector Code=1
"No matching extension found"
UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=No matching extension found}
Could someone clarify whether this is expected behavior, or if we are missing an additional configuration step?
Thanks in advance!
I can see a number of events in our error logging service where we track expired BGAppRefreshTask. We use BGAppRefreshTask to update metadata.
By looking into those events I can see most of reported expired tasks expired around 2-5 seconds after the app was launched. The documentations says: The system decides the best time to launch your background task, and provides your app up to 30 seconds of background runtime. I expected "up to 30 seconds" to be 10-30 seconds range, not that extremely short.
Is there any heuristic that affects how much time the app gets?
Is there a way to tell if the app was launched due to the background refresh task? If we have this information we can optimize what the app does during those 5 seconds.
Thank you!.
I'm trying to launch a command line app from my objective C application (sandboxed) using NSTask and I keep getting "launch path not accessible"
Here is the path:
[task setLaunchPath:@"/usr/local/bin/codeview"];
I have set the appropriate attributes for codeview and it is working perfectly when I use it from the command line and /usr/local/bin IS in the $PATH
I know I have NSTask configured correctly because this WILL work:
[task setLaunchPath:@"/usr/bin/hexdump"];
With the exception being that I'm using a command already in /usr/bin. But I can't copy codeview into /usr/bin due to SIPS.
I've tried moving codeview to various other non-SIPS protected locations all to no avail. Must all NSTask commands come from /usr/bin? Where might I put codeview so that it can be launched.
Today I'm going to use an older computer and disable SIPS to put my command in /usr/bin and see if that works. If it does. I will do it on my main machine.
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
Processes & Concurrency
Tags:
Entitlements
Objective-C
Command Line Tools
App Sandbox
Hi, I have been recently debugging the BGContinuedProcessingTask API and encountered some of the following issues. I hope you can provide some answers:
First, let me explain my understanding of this API. I believe its purpose is to allow an app to trigger tasks that can be represented with progress indicators and require a certain amount of time to complete.
After entering the background, these tasks can continue to be completed through the BGContinuedProcessingTask, preventing the system from terminating them before they are finished.
In the launchHandler of the registration process, we only need to do a few things:
Determine whether the actual business processing is still ongoing.
Update the progress, title, and subtitle.
Handle the expirationHandler.
Set the task as completed.
Here are some issues I encountered during my debugging process:
After I called register and submit, the BGContinuedProcessingTask could not be triggered. The return values from my API calls were all normal.
I tried different device models, and some could trigger the task normally, such as the 15 Pro Max and 12 Pro Max. However, there were also some models, such as the 17 Pro, 15 Pro, and 15, that could not trigger the task properly. Moreover, there was no additional error information to help locate the issue.
The background task failed unexpectedly, but my app was still running normally. As I mentioned above, my launchHandler only retrieves the actual business status and updates it.
If a background task fails unexpectedly while the app is still running normally, it can mislead users and degrade the user experience of the app.
Others have also mentioned the issue of inconsistent behavior on devices that do not support Dynamic Island. On devices that support Dynamic Island,
when a task is triggered in the foreground, the app does not immediately display a pop-up notification within the app. However, on devices that do not support Dynamic Island,
the app directly displays a pop-up notification within the app, and this notification does not disappear when switching between different screens within the same app.
The user needs to actively swipe up to dismiss it. I think this experience is too intrusive for users. I would like to know whether this will be maintained in the future or if there is a plan to fix it.
On devices that do not support Dynamic Island, using the beta version 26.1 of the system,
if the system is in dark mode but the app triggers a business interface in white, the pop-up notification will have the same color as the current page, making it difficult to read the content inside the pop-up.
Users can actively stop background tasks by using the stop button, or the system can also stop tasks automatically when resources are insufficient or when a task is abnormal.
However, according to the current API, all these actions are triggered through the expirationHandler.
Currently, there is no way to distinguish whether the task was stopped by the user, by the system due to resource insufficiency, or due to an abnormal task.
I would like to know whether there will be more information provided in the future to help distinguish these different scenarios.
I believe that the user experience issues mentioned in points 2 and 3 are the most important. Please help to answer the questions and concerns above. Thank you!
Purpose
I want to use launchd to run a shell script asynchronously every minute, but I'm encountering an issue where the job does not run, and I receive the error "Bootstrap failed: 5: Input/output error". I need help identifying the cause of this issue and how to configure launchd correctly.
What I've done
Created the shell script (test_ls_save.sh)
The script is designed to list the contents of the desktop and save the output to a specified directory.
#!/bin/bash
DATE=$(date +%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S)
SAVE_DIR=/Users/test/Desktop/personal/log_gather
FILE_NAME="ls_output_$DATE.log"
ls ~/Desktop > "$SAVE_DIR/$FILE_NAME"
echo "ls output saved to $SAVE_DIR/$FILE_NAME"
File permissions (ls -l output): -rwxr-xr-x 1 test staff 1234 Feb 17 10:00 /Users/test/Desktop/personal/log_gather/exec/test_ls_save.sh
Created the launchd plist file (com.test.logTest.plist)
The plist file is configured to execute the shell script every minute.
<key>Label</key>
<string>com.test.logTest</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/bin/bash</string>
<string>-c</string>
/Users/test/Desktop/personal/log_gather/exec/test_ls_save.sh
</array>
<key>StartInterval</key>
<integer>60</integer> <!-- Run every minute -->
File permissions (ls -l output): -rwxr-xr-x 1 test staff 512 Feb 17 10:00 /Users/test/Library/LaunchAgents/com.test.logTest.plist
Ran the job with launchctl
I used the following command to load the plist file into launchd:
sudo launchctl bootstrap gui/$(id -u) /Users/test/Library/LaunchAgents/com.test.logTest.plist
pc spec
MacBook Pro
Apple M1
16 GB RAM
macOS 15.3 (Build 24D60)
what I know
The configuration has been set, but the launchd job is not running every minute as expected.
I don't believe there is a mistake with the path.
When I check the job using launchctl list, the job does not appear in the list.
I don't know where the error log files are supposed to be. I checked /var/log/system.log, but there are no error logs.
The .sh file runs fine by itself, but it cannot be executed via launchctl.
Want to ask
What could be the cause of the launchd job not running as expected?
Also, is there a way to check where the logs are being output?
If there is an error in the plist file configuration, which part should be modified?
Specifically, what improvements should be made regarding environment variables and path settings?
If my information is not enough, please tell me what is not enough!
Hi everyone, I’m Jaswanth. My friends and I are students working on a project where we’ve developed a website and a companion app.
Here’s the key functionality:
When two users enter a virtual room, one of them is prompted to download a desktop app.
The app is built with Python and uses psutil to check for certain running processes.
It does not send any data over the internet.
It has a GUI that clearly shows the system is being monitored , it’s not hidden or running in the background silently.
We want to sign and notarize the app to make sure it runs on macOS without warning users. However, we’re concerned that since the app accesses system process information, it might be flagged as malicious.
Before we pay for the Apple Developer Program, we wanted to ask:
Will an app like this (which only reads running processes and does not exfiltrate or hide activity) be eligible for notarization?
Thanks in advance for any insights. We'd appreciate any clarity before moving forward.
Best,
Jaswanth
I've discovered that a system network extension can communicate with a LaunchDaemon (loaded using SMAppService) over XPC, provided that the XPC service name begins with the team ID.
If I move the launchd daemon plist to Contents/Library/LaunchAgents and swap the SMAppService.daemon calls to SMAppService.agent calls, and remove the .privileged option to NSXPCConnection, the system extension receives "Couldn't communicate with a helper application" as an error when trying to reach the LaunchAgent advertised service. Is this limitation by design?
I imagine it is, but wanted to check before I spent any more time on it.
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
Processes & Concurrency
Tags:
Service Management
XPC
System Extensions
Network Extension