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I normally create some Mac apps on one computer and transfer them to another computer for testing. Several months ago I ran into the "gateway problem" where the Mac blocks unidentified apps and solved it by going to the security & privacy and changing my settings to allow apps downloaded from "anywhere". Now all of a sudden apps that I transfer for testing will not run on the test computer. When I double-click on the app there is a brief flash but nothing happens. I can click on the same app file that I transferred to the test computer four months ago and it has no problem opening.

I'm running OSX 10.9.2.

JWWalker
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danika
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    Is there anything printed in Console.app? – SevenBits May 06 '14 at 19:48
  • This sounds like a problem with your builds rather than anything to do with Gatekeeper. – Chuck May 06 '14 at 21:11
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    How do you do the "transfer"? E.g., DropBox would not properly transfer Mac apps, last time I checked. – JWWalker May 06 '14 at 21:39
  • >This sounds like a problem with your builds rather than anything to do with Gatekeeper.< It is not a problem with the build. As I said the build I transferred from the other computer is the same file that I transferred 4 months ago. The old build file works on the test Mac but the new one does not. – danika May 06 '14 at 22:17
  • >How do you do the "transfer"?< The two computers are linked together on a LAN. – danika May 06 '14 at 22:20
  • >Is there anything printed in Console.app?< Here's what's in the console after I double click on the app: 5/6/14 3:22:21.431 PM Finder[208]: 8837325: Attempting to SIGCONT to pid #1099 failed, with errno=#3, or the process failed to actually start – danika May 06 '14 at 22:25
  • danika, don't quote other comments, but click the **help** link next to the comment box to see how to notify a previous commenter. – JWWalker May 06 '14 at 22:49
  • When you say the computers are linked by a LAN, that doesn't fully answer the question of how you do the transfer, e.g., people use DropBox on a LAN. But I suppose you mean that you used AFP file sharing. – JWWalker May 06 '14 at 22:51

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It sounds like some part of the application isn't getting transferred properly between the two computers. My guess would be that the executable file (generally AppName.app/Contents/MacOS/AppName) lost its execute permission in the transfer. I Googled that Console error message, and found a couple of cases where missing execute permissions caused that error (1, 2).

I haven't tested, but this might be a result of transferring it via SMB instead of AFP file sharing (SMB version 2 is now the default between Mavericks computers). If I'm right, there are several ways to fix/avoid the problem:

  1. Add execute access with something like chmod +x /Applications/AppName.app/Contents/MacOS/AppName (note: it's possible there are other executables in the the app bundle that'll also need execute added).
  2. Transfer the app with AFP instead of SMB. You can force AFP connections by using the Finder's Go menu > Connect to Server option, and using "AFP://servername.local" to connect.
  3. Zip the app (using the Finder's File menu > Compress option), transfer the zip archive, then expand it (using the Finder/Archive Utility) on the other computer.
Gordon Davisson
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  • Ditto on #3; zip/unzip consistently works across NSF volumes also. – geowar May 07 '14 at 16:21
  • >It sounds like some part of the application isn't getting transferred properly between the two computers. My guess would be that the executable file (generally AppName.app/Contents/MacOS/AppName) lost its execute permission in the transfer. I Googled that Console error message, and found a couple of cases where missing execute permissions caused that error (1, 2). – danika May 07 '14 at 17:35
  • Improper transfer was in fact the problem. These apps are created on a Win computer. In the past I have used the Mac finder to pull these apps over. However since the Mac has been so slow accessing the Win computer I started pushing the files over from the Win computer. – danika May 07 '14 at 17:44