XCode 13 - No Help Book

I recently switched to Mac OS 12 and XCode 13. I did some work on my application and rebuilt it. Now there is no Help Book. I didn't change the property lists and everything looks right. When I open the Help Book the application either opens a window with a message that the content is currently unavailable or it opens a Help Book window with no content. When this second thing happens the log window shows "entering AHRegistered help Book" but it doesn't appear. Does anyone have any suggestions?

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Posted by
Tlaloc
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  • Cleaning and rebuilding the project doesn't help. Restarting XCode or my Computer doesn't help. The project doesn't log any errors but there is one error in the Console:

    error 18:29:15.933543-0600 HelpViewer volume does not support data protection, stripping SQLITE_OPEN_FILEPROTECTION_* flags

    An older version of the program shows the Help Book.

    Is this a new bug in XCode?

    —
    Tlaloc
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Hi @Tlaloc  good to read this. I am currently cleaning up my Application for the release and put a lot of effort in the Help Book. Yesterday I updated to macOS 12.0.1 and my application isn't able to get the Help Book any longer. Even the Finder doesn't show the bundle anymore. It is now a normal folder.

I spend hours try to fix my bug, and somehow it feels a bit better not to be alone. Please keep me in touch if you find any solution. I'll do the same.

Posted by
krissimon
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  • On Big Sur (11.5.2) I can open the .help package with ctrl-click in "HelpViewer". On Monterey (12.0.1) not. Same file from exactly the same git. This must me an os issue.

    —
    krissimon

  • Be sure to report this as a bug with Apple Bug Reporter. Yes, I noticed that the .help is a folder, not a bundle anymore.

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    Tlaloc
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I'm having the exact same problem. Of course the Apple Help Programming Guide was last updated in 2013. It feels as if Apple is actively discouraging help books.

Posted by
Schubert
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  • Be sure to file a bug report. A bunch of other terrible problems have surfaced with Monterey. Maybe this will get fixed in the inevitable update.

    —
    Tlaloc

  • More bad news: To try to update my Application I restored an earlier version of XCode from my Time Machine backup disk. When I launch it it says that it's incompatible with macOS 12 Monterey and to get the latest version XCode, 13.1, from the App Store. I 'm not prepared to restore an earlier version of macOS and XCode to update my application so it looks like we will have to wait for Apple to fix this. This will probably take a LONG time, like maybe never?

    —
    Tlaloc

  • Can you sacrifice a Technical Support Incident on this?

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    Schubert
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To update my application I'll have to create a separate volume on my hard drive and install earlier versions of macOS and XCode. This page:https://developer.apple.com/download/ says that I can do it. It links to another page, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208891, that tells how to create a volume and install the earlier OS but there's no link to a description of where to get XCode 12. Does anyone know how to get this?

Posted by
Tlaloc
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  • https://developer.apple.com/download/all/

    —
    Schubert
  • New Add bookmark #11

    I created a seperate volume with macOS 11 Big Sur. It took more than 24 hours to download, install move my files over and verify everything. I got the .xip of XCode 12 from the developer site. macOS 12.1 Monterey wont run the .xip because it's not signed by a developer. I have to go to the System Preferences -> Security & Privacy control panel and tell it to open it anyway but Archive Utility posts an alert: "Unable to expand "XCode_12.5.1.xip". It is in an unsupported format. Seriously? Since when did Archive utility stop supporting this?

    —
    Tlaloc
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I have the same issue. The Help Book is working just fine on a Yosemite - Xcode 7 environment. Also, some .help are recognised as helpViewer bundle, some not. I suppose it is related to new security requirements in the bundle.

Posted by
JMDelh
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Hi, In fact it is a sandbox issue. I could have the Help Book launched correctly when I run my main app outside Xcode… When I did move the app from the Xcode debug folder to my user application folder, I could call the Help Book without problem after deleting the cache ~/library/caches/com.apple.helpd and log off / log on.

Posted by
JMDelh
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I upgraded to macOS 12.1. This does not include a new version of App Store and it DOES NOT FIX THE EXIT 173 BUG.

Posted by
Tlaloc
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@JMDelh's recommendation worked for me. Tested on M1 Pro / Monterey, Xcode 13.1

Posted by
patMorita
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This is working on 12.2.

Posted by
Tlaloc
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