MicroBlocks does not run on OS X Big Sur

[Humberto Sanchez II]

I am getting this error:

[Bernat Romagosa]

Hmm… I just asked around and other people are able to run it on Big Sur. That’s really strange. @John Maloney are you running Big Sur?

[John Maloney]

I’m not running Big Sur.

Based on the error message, this could be a corrupted download issue. The zip file should be 6,805,302 bytes. I just verified that I can download, unpack, and run the current version on my Mac (Mojave). You might try downloading it with a different browser to see if that helps.

[Humberto Sanchez II]

Originally downloaded with Safari

Also, tried via chrome and the zip file appears the correct size

But still getting error; I double clicked to unzip; Also used Keka to unzip; Same error; very puzzling

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Also, peeked inside the app

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[Humberto Sanchez II]

Tried this with the latest 1.0.8 release; I still get the above seemingly correct zip file, but once unzipped Big Sur says the app is corrupt

[John Maloney]

Puzzling… The file sizes are correct. You might try running it from a Terminal like this:

./MicroBlocks.app/Contents/MacOS/MicroBlocks

Perhaps that will show a more helpful error message.

It’s possible that this is actually a security error that’s claiming to be a corrupted file error. The app is signed but since it is not downloaded from the App Store it may not be fully trusted. You might check your security settings to make sure it allows you to run apps downloaded from “App store and identified developers”, not just “App store”.

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[Humberto Sanchez II]

right, I did this: I get this:Killed: 9

Here is a picture of my security preferences:

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[John Maloney]

Your security settings are fine.

”Killed: 9” indicates that the process received the signal “9” which what Unix uses to terminate processes. ”Killed: 9” is not the sort of error I’d expect to see if the file were actually corrupted. That suggestes that some other process is killing the MicroBlocks process, rather than an internal error. Are you running any third-party anti-virus software? If you are using a school or institutional computer, it’s possible that it is running some anti-virus software that you didn’t install yourself.

Here’s another thing you might try. After downloading and unzipping the MicroBlocks application, run:

xattr -c -r MicroBlocks.app

That removes the “quarantine” attribute from the .app folder and all files within it. If there is some antivirus software running, this might prevent it from being triggered. Then try to run the app from the command line as described above. If that succeeds, you can probably double-click to launch it in the future.

If that doesn’t work, you could fall back on running MicroBlocks in the Chrome browser. See the instructions here:

https://microblocks.fun/mbrun

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[Humberto Sanchez II]

Ok, when I run

xattr -c -r Microblocks.app

and then attempt to execute the app I get:

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Just out of curiosity I removed the app and re-extracted it and executed

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xattr -l -r MicroBlocks.app

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I get a big hex dump and this interesting stuff:

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I also tried just remove the quarantine bit as follows:

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xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine MicroBlocks.app

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Same result “no permission”

[John Maloney]

Yes, any downloaded file has a “com.apple.quarantine” attribute added to it. On Mojave, removing that attribute allows it the app to be run without triggering the usual security dialog the first time the app is run. I was hoping that would work on Big Sur, too.

Looks like other folks have run into this with other apps on Big Sur. There are some suggestions here:

https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/666611

One quick idea is to check the file permission bits:

 ls -al MicroBlocks.app/Contents/MacOS/MicroBlocks 

You should get something like this:

rwxr-xr-x  1 john  staff  10572544 Dec  8 11:47 MicroBlocks.app/Contents/MacOS/MicroBlocks

The key thing is the “x”, which means executable. If you don’t see that, you can change the file permissions with:

chmod 755 MicroBlocks.app/Contents/MacOS/MicroBlocks

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[John Maloney]

Since others are able to run MicroBlocks on Big Sur, I think this issue may be caused by some third-party anti-virus or security software. I’m going to mark this as resolved but feel free to continue to comment on this thread if you get more information. Meanwhile, you might run MicroBlocks in the Chrome Browser as a work-around.

[Humberto A. Sanchez II]

Running this command:

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pkgutil --check-signature MicroBlocks.app

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displays this

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Package "MicroBlocks":

Status: package is invalid (checksum did not verify)

[John Maloney]

I’m sorry you are still having problems.

On Mojave (Mac OS 10.14.6) I get this:

JohnsMac-5:Desktop johnmaloney$ pkgutil --check-signature MicroBlocks.app

Package "MicroBlocks.app":

Status: signed by a certificate trusted by Mac OS X

Certificate Chain:

1. Developer ID Application: John H Maloney (YU23V8C72W)

SHA1 fingerprint: ED ED B0 EA 5E FD EF D1 29 16 C4 07 24 F0 17 F5 2F C1 5F 70

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Developer ID Certification Authority

SHA1 fingerprint: 3B 16 6C 3B 7D C4 B7 51 C9 FE 2A FA B9 13 56 41 E3 88 E1 86

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Apple Root CA

SHA1 fingerprint: 61 1E 5B 66 2C 59 3A 08 FF 58 D1 4A E2 24 52 D1 98 DF 6C 60

To get MicroBlocks.app, I downloaded the current version, unzipped it by double-clicking on MicroBlocks.app.zip. The zip file was 7,446,728 bytes.

Here are some possible issues:

1. the download process is failing and you are getting a truncated file (check the size of the .zip file)
2. the unzip process is failing (but you’d probably get an error message in that case)
3. The pkgutil on Big Sur cannot read signed app packages (seems unlikely)
4. Some other software on your computer could be changing the file. I hope your computer doesn’t have a virus or other malware, but that’s a possibility. It’s also possible that antivirus software is modifying the file in some way.

As I’ve mentioned, I know several other people who have run MicroBlocks on Big Sur.

As an alternative, you could run MicroBlocks in the Chrome browser (https://microblocks.fun/mbrun) thanks to the recently added Web Serial API. We are about to release a new version of MicroBlocks for the browser that offers improved performance, the ability to change the block size, and more.

Good luck!

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