auto-selfcontrol: auto-selfcontrol does not run on my Macbook
I am using a MacBook Air (M1, 2020) on Mac OS 12.0.1 (21A559). I can run auto-selfcontrol activate
and it will prompt me for permissions and begin activating. However, it doesn’t start based on the given schedule (ie the next day I still have to manually activate it). Is auto-selfcontrol
not compatible with the new Mac OS version or the new M1 chips? Thanks!!
About this issue
- Original URL
- State: open
- Created 3 years ago
- Reactions: 2
- Comments: 20 (4 by maintainers)
I have the same issue: I can activate auto-selfcontrol, but after running it won’t re-activate according to schedule. I’m running it on a new MacBook Pro M1 with 12.1 (Monterey). Would be great if this could be resolved, thanks!
@nadesai Thanks for pointing that out, I’ll be able to look into it in the next few weeks hopefully. Right now, I don’t have a macOS 12 system at hand.
Yes, I’ve also noticed the selfcontrol helper tool authentication (sometimes). Any news on how to fix this? Would be nice to have auto-scheduling capabilities…
That’s actually a great idea. I got it to work and it works great! There is a very quick flicker of the prompt, but there isn’t much you can do about that.
haha im about to add ‘Mitigate hiding’ to my version aswell. Im thinking about simulating keyboard input to just input the password automatically on the helper popup
I created Hammer Control which is a soft solution to this problem. It doesn’t get rid of the authentication issue, but it makes it really annoying if you don’t authenticate SC to start. Hopefully it makes you actually start the SC session instead of just canceling when the scheduled session starts. It’s far from ideal, but it’s better than nothing.
EDIT: It now supports auto-inputting your password, so you don’t have to manually.
I had problems with python2, setup.py and the foundation module so made this- https://github.com/AlexanderDickie/auto-selfcontrol-rs , which should work on intel/apple silicon. I think its way easier to distribute via a binary instead of interpreted language. Like the comments above says, a launch agent works fine and I’ve added code to immediately relaunch the helper tool installation popup if you cancel it.
Is this still being looked at?
@nadesai Thanks for testing that. It appears that SelfControl always needs an elevated helper, even when started as root. I’ve also tried to run SelfControl’s CLI as root, but unfortunately the authentication prompt appears anyway:
I’ve looked into the issue, but I’m not sure how to solve it yet. I’ve tested this on an M1 Mac on macOS 12 Monterey, as well as on an Intel Mac on macOS 11 BigSur, both with SelfControl 4.0.2.
If Auto-SelfControl is activated by schedule, it runs the SelfControl command-line methods, but it seems they don’t have the necessary rights to install the SelfControl helper tool. That’s what I got from the logs:
The problem could be that launchd, which is used to schedule Auto-SelfControl, starts the process without access to the UI. This could lead to the failed authorization – that’s what I got from the logs.
@cstigler what’s your take on this. Do you also think this could be the problem and, if so, is there something that could be done in SelfControl or should we look into an alternative way to run schedules?
I wasn’t able to test it on an M1 Mac yet, but I will in the next months.