1.22.1 Distribution flagged as Damaged by OS 12.6.1 (Monterey) about owlplug

[Mistertoad17]

I've just got this error too in Ventura. Whether this maybe helpful or not I've had the "damaged message with other apps in Monterey before and that was something to doing with gatekeeper. I'm no programmer and I offer this purely in case it could be helpful in troubleshooting the problem.

One other thing on Gatekeeper, in Ventura the Privacy & Security GUI has changed . In Monterey, Big Sur etc the Privacy & Security Sys Prefs item opened a series of tabs and on the first one was options for installing from Appstore , Appstore and Identified Suppliers. To solve issues with damaged files before the plugin company Digital Brain Instruments supplied an excel spreadsheet that allowed me to turn gatekeeper off and on which adds a third option of Anywhere to that list. In Ventura I still see that option in the list that now appears in an extra section under Privacy & Security that is just called Security. Other than that the Full Disk Access and Accessibility options are still found under Privacy & Security and appear to function as before.

Apologies for the lengthy text above but I wanted to supply as much info as I could to help.

Kindest regards
Ade

[Mistertoad17]

I should have said that I followed the Terminal instructions in the FAQ at https://owlplug.com/faq/ and after a few false starts and adding Terminal.app to the new App Management tool to allow it to alter other applications, it still says the same despite following each step.

[Mistertoad17]

Success!

Delete damaged app
Reinstall new version.
Goto Terminal and rerun the code
Close and quit Terminal
Find the app icon in the applications folder and Control Click it. Choose Open from the menu that opens up.
A message appears about it being damaged but crucially there is now an OPEN option. Click it and the app runs.

Also don't forget to download the latest java runtime from Java.com

Hope this helps others.

Ade

[DropSnorz]

Hi all!

Thank you for reporting the issue and helping macOS users. 🙂
The issue is caused by the application not being notarized by Apple #31.

Delete damaged app
Reinstall new version.
Goto Terminal and rerun the code
Close and quit Terminal
Find the app icon in the applications folder and Control Click it. Choose Open from the menu that opens up.
A message appears about it being damaged but crucially there is now an OPEN option. Click it and the app runs.

Thank you @Mistertoad17 for sharing this workaround! I've never tested the app on MacOS Monterey. This is a strange way to bypass protections.

I have reports from macOS Ventura users about restrictions far heavier for non-notarized app. The procedure seems to be the following for Ventura (but needs confirmation)

• Attempting to run OwlPlug may show a window explaining it cannot be opened because "Apple cannot check it for malicious software." Click Ok.
• Open System Preferences and select Security & Privacy.
• If the padlock in the bottom left is locked, click it and authenticate to unlock it.
• Next to the message explaining the app "was blocked from use because it is not from an identified developer," click Open Anyway.
• Close System Preferences.
• Run the app.
• A notice will reiterate the warning about an inability to check if it is malicious each time you run the app. Click Open.

I'm aware that these issues are very frustrating and discourage app usage on macOS. For now, the main problems on my side are:

• Apple Developer program annual costs
• I don't have a mac under my hands, I'm using virtualization to test stuff for macOS which is not ideal and sometimes really tricky to set up.

We have more and more users on macOS so I may dig into the problem in the next months.