[Solved] PSA: Beware Mac Catalina update

Ui.Vision Bug Reports
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I disabled Gatekeeper by following these instructions: How to Allow Apps from Anywhere in macOS Gatekeeper (Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, Sierra, High Sierra)

[Original Post]

Installed Catalina this morning and am getting these errors when trying to access File System:

“kantu-xy-host” can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software.

“kantu-file-access-host” can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software.

I’m also trying to open Firefox and I can’t even do that.

2

Thanks for this information. We did not test with Catalina yet.

1 Like
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The final version of macOS Catalina (10.15) was released a few days ago. Here are our instructions on how to enable the XModules again(*). The above solution with turning off gatekeeper is still valid and works well. But you can also enable the XModules without disabling gatekeeper:

The procedure is the same for all 3 XModules (file access, mouse and keyboard control and desktop automation/computer vision):

  1. Run (demo) macro that uses the XModule app.
  2. Click “Cancel” on security prompt
  3. Allow the XModule app
  4. Press “Open” (XModule) at the next macro run

In addition, for Mac desktop automation, you need to enable Chrome and/or Firefox to do screen recording. The reason is that UI Vision needs to take periodic desktop screenshots.

The first time you run UI automation you will get this prompt:

chrome-enable-desktop-screenshots-catalania
chrome-enable-desktop-screenshots-catalania1785×1485 498 KB

enable-desktop-screenshots-catalania
enable-desktop-screenshots-catalania1339×1167 188 KB

(*) Technically these changes are required because Catalina enforces now notarization. Catalina is Apple’s first Mac operating system to require app notarization . The stipulation impacts apps distributed outside of the Mac App Store, which must now be vetted by Apple before they are allowed to run on user machines.

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Update: Meanwhile we sign all UI.Vision RPA binaries and submit them for notarization to Apple. So the above “cannot be recognized” warning dialogs no longer appear.