Installer fails on installing into /Applications on Catalina

We have an installer which installs various things - a kext, a deamon, some libraries, and a mac app into /Applications.


When I run on Catalina, I get: "This package is incompatible with thie version of macOS. The package is trying to install content to the system volume".


If I customize the install to omit the mac app, it installs everything else fine.


Installer is notarized and works fine on 10.14.


Is there some limitation in 10.15 on installing apps into /Applications? I'm not sure why it's talking about the system volume, I'm definitely not trying to install anything into /System.


Thanks,

-Patrick

Replies

10.15 beta introduces the concept of a read-only system volume. You can watch WWDC 2019 Session 710 What’s New in Apple File Systems for more background on that. In this setup

/Applications
is a firmlink to the read/write data volume. In theory your installer should follow that link and thus be able to install. If that’s not working, you should raise the issue with your installer vendor. If you’re using Apple’s Installer, please file a bug about this, and post your bug number, just for the record.

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!”
Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware

let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"

Thanks for the quick response. I'm using pkgbuild/productbuild to create the installer.


Filed a bug with Apple: FB6805779


-Patrick

Hello, I am having the same issue with my installer and am using pkgbuild/productbuild as well. Was curious if there has been any update regarding this issue? Thx

In theory your installer should follow that link and thus be able to install.

Since posting that I’ve learnt that this is definitely true for the Apple installer.

One thing to check here is that your installer is targeting directories that are appropriate for third-party content. Looking at the the bug that kalfalfa filed (FB6805779), it seems that they were trying to install some minor bit of content outside of

/Applications/
, and that specific location was not appropriate for user content and thus the installation failed.

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!”
Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware

let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"