"Installer" would like to access files in your Downloads folder

Hi,

I have a signed and notarized .pkg file. When I distribute this to my users, they're prompted if "Installer" can access files in the Downloads folder.

Most of them click "OK", so that this installer can succeed, however those that click "Don't allow" can never install the .pkg file again.

I've checked the following to no obvious resolution:

  • Quarantine flags (no obvious flags were found)
  • System Preferences, Security, Files and Folders (Installer.app is not listed)
  • spctl --list (The .pkg shows there, but nothing obvious about it being blocked)

A workaround is to copy this .pkg file to the Desktop folder. When run, the same prompt will appear again, except for the "Desktop" folder. If you click "OK", it succeeds.

Since this behavior prevents the .pkg from running from Downloads ever again, how can this be reverted/fixed?

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Posted by
tresf
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  • Did you checked in Settings / Confidentiality and Security / Files and Folders or Full disk access ?

    —
    Ptit-Xav

  • Yes, however I did not find anything related to Installer.app. I considered adding Installer.app to the listing, but no longer have access to the offending machine and I'm since unable to reproduce on the latest Ventura version. I'll see if I can find out which OS version was originally used.

    —
    tresf
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If you create a trivial installer, do you still see this problem?

By “trivial installer” I mean one that simply drops an app into the Applications directory. Specifically, it must not have pre- or post-install scripts. See Packaging Mac Software for Distribution for an example of how to create such an installer.

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Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

Posted by
eskimo
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  • @eskimo thanks for the reply.

    After reading your response, I created a test profile (non-Admin) on Macbook Pro M1 Ventura 13.4.1 and the issue is not reproducible, so testing with a trivial installer is not (yet) possible because I do not have a baseline for reproducing.

    The original issue was reported on an i7, but they've since upgraded to 13.4.1 as a troubleshooting step.

    Are you aware of any older "known" issues that may have perpetuated through the upgrade?

    —
    tresf
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We have encountered this problem as well. We found that deleting the installer, downloading it again from scratch, and running it appears to solve the problem. However, if anyone has insight into how to prevent the initial popup from showing, it would be helpful to know. This forum message seems to touch on it as well ( @eskimo you also are on that thread!). Does anyone know if this was logged as a bug?

Posted by
LSH_brooklyn
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