unidentified developer error on macOS 11 (Big Sur)

[Not sure if this is the best sub-forum - please move or suggest where I can move to a better forum if needed!]

I am supplying some .dylibs (Universal) to a client - they were build on macOS 13 (Ventura), using Xcode 14.2. macOS deployment target was set everywhere to macOS 10.11.

The client built their own wrapper app, and are successfully running it everywhere - except on an Intel Mac running macOS 11 (Big Sur). They get the error dialog at startup:

"demoapp" cannot be opened because it is from an unidentified developer.

However, it does work correctly (no 'unidentified developer' error) in macOS 12 (Monterey) and newer OS versions, both on Intel and ARM. I do not have that old of a Mac to test on. I also explained that macOS 11 is no longer supported by Apple, but they do need to support it for a little while longer.

I'm not sure what to suggest or have them check - or is this expected, and if so, why?

This is a Gatekeeper failure. I have a bunch of info on how to investigate such issues in Resolving Trusted Execution Problems. A really common cause of this problem is discussed in Resolving Gatekeeper Problems Caused by Dangling Load Command Paths.

Share and Enjoy

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

unidentified developer error on macOS 11 (Big Sur)
 
 
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