EXC_BAD_ACCESS in AXSerializeCFType

Question

Created Jul ’24

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I have an Electron app on macOS Sonoma (arm64 arch). It has a native addon (app.node) using node-addon-api. Recently it crashed, with the stack trace (given below). What is the AXSerializeCFType function inside the AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue function, and why did it crash there?

    AXUIElementRef systemWideElement = AXUIElementCreateSystemWide();
    AXUIElementRef focusedApp = NULL;
    AXError error = AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue(systemWideElement, kAXFocusedApplicationAttribute, (CFTypeRef *)&focusedApp);

The crash appears to be occurring in the last line of the code, where I am retrieving the focused app AXUIElementRef using AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue. I have already attempted to manually set systemWideElement to NULL, but AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue is not crashing; it is just returning an error kAXErrorIllegalArgument.

OS Version: macOS 14.5 (23F79)
Report Version: 104

Crashed Thread: 344454

Application Specific Information:
Fatal Error: EXC_BAD_ACCESS / KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS / 0x102674000

Thread 344454 Crashed:
0   HIServices                      0x18cb5d970         AXSerializeCFType
1   HIServices                      0x18cb7ca24         serializeWrapper
2   HIServices                      0x18cb7cd40         _AXXMIGCopyAttributeValue
3   HIServices                      0x18cb74884         _AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue
4   HIServices                      0x18cb74a04         AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue
5   HIServices                      0x18cb747fc         _AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue
6   HIServices                      0x18cb74a04         AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue
7   app.node                  0x1027a56f4         getFocusedApplication

Boost

Answer 1

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

Jul ’24

Please post a full crash report, using the instructions in Posting a Crash Report.

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

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Answer 2

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

Jul ’24

Please reply as a reply. I’m not notified if you reply in the comments. See Quinn’s Top Ten DevForums Tips for this and more tips.

we only got this stack trace from the Sentry logging for the thread in which the crash happened.

OK. I don’t work with third-party crash reports because they can’t be trusted. See Implementing Your Own Crash Reporter for the details.

I recommend that you disable your third-party crash reporter and see if you can get an Apple crash report for this. If you’re not prepared to disable your third-party crash report, you should at least ensure that it preserves the Apple crash report. The above-mentioned post discusses that idea in some detail.

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

0