{"id":3173,"date":"2014-10-16T20:53:53","date_gmt":"2014-10-17T03:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manytricks.com\/blog\/?p=3173"},"modified":"2015-09-06T06:32:33","modified_gmt":"2015-09-06T13:32:33","slug":"a-workaround-for-a-yosemitewitch-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manytricks.com\/blog\/?p=3173","title":{"rendered":"A workaround for a Yosemite\/Witch issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the course of the Yosemite beta, we’ve had a few reports of users not being able to make Witch<\/a> work properly. If you’ve got this problem, you’ll know, because you’ll see this dialog every time<\/em> you try to call up the Witch switcher panel:<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

For the sake of search engines, the text reads:<\/p>\n

“witchdaemon” would like to control this computer using accessibility features<\/b><\/p>\n

Grant access to this application in Security & Privacy preferences, located in System Preferences.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You’ll see that even after you think you’ve done what it asks you to do, and then you’ll get frustrated and upset and angry and blame us and send me nasty emails. And I completely feel your pain. And I wish I could tell you that it’s a bug in our code that’s causing the problem, so that we could fix it. But it’s not.<\/p>\n

Instead, it’s an issue with Yosemite and how it handles (or rather, doesn’t handle) granting Accessibility access to helper apps that are included within another app’s bundle. So as much as I’d love to tell you we’re working on a fix, this isn’t something we can fix. (We may be able to work around the OS X issue, which is what we’re trying to do now. But that’s not fixing the problem, it’s avoiding the problem.)<\/p>\n

The good news is that you can get Witch functioning again, even before Apple fixes the issue (or we manage to work around it). Here’s how…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The problem is caused by OS X not adding Witch’s helper application—named witchdaemon—to the Privacy tab of the Security & Privacy System Preferences panel. At least, it doesn’t appear it’s being added. We believe it is<\/em> being added, but it’s invisible—which is just as bad as not adding it, because you can’t put a check mark in an invisible check box next to an invisible item.<\/p>\n

The workaround is to add the helper app to the panel yourself. This won’t solve the invisibility problem—it’s still not going to show up, even after you add it—but it will get Witch working again. That’s because when you add an app to the panel yourself, OS X adds it with the (invisible) check box already (invisibly) checked.<\/p>\n

A video walkthrough<\/h4>\n

If you prefer visual guides, watch the video below; it walks through the entire process for the App Store version of Witch<\/b>. (If you’d prefer, you can watch the 1280×800 version<\/a> instead.)<\/p>\n

Direct customers: The direct version of Witch is a System Preferences panel; it won’t be found in Applications, but in either your user’s Library > PreferencePanes folder, or the top-level Library > PreferencePanes folder. One of the two will contain a file named Witch.prefPane.
 
\nOpen the proper folder, then follow along in the video ignoring the bits about the Applications folder. Also note that you’ll only have to open the pref pane’s app bundle to find witchdaemon, unlike App Store buyers who have to open two app bundles. See the written instructions below for more help if needed.<\/div>\n
\nhere’s a link<\/a> to the movie.<\/video>\n<\/div>\n

And now, on to the written instructions…<\/p>\n

App Store customers<\/h4>\n
    \n
  1. Open System Preferences, and go to Security & Privacy, then click on the Privacy tab. Click on Accessibility in the sidebar. Leave this window open somewhere onscreen.<\/li>\n
  2. In Finder, go to the Applications folder, and right-click (or Control-click) on Witch. In the contextual menu that appears, select Show Package Contents. This may or may not open in a new window.<\/li>\n
  3. In the new window (or the same window, if a new one didn’t open), double-click Contents, and then PlugIns within contents. This will reveal a Witch.prefPane entry as the only contents of that folder.<\/li>\n
  4. Right-click (or Control-click) on Witch.prefPane and choose Show Package Contents. Again, this may or may not open in a new window.<\/li>\n
  5. Double-click Contents, then Helpers, and you’ll see witchdaemon as the only item in that folder. Leave this window open.<\/li>\n
  6. Switch back to the System Preferences app, as opened in step one.<\/li>\n
  7. Click the lock icon and enter your admin password, so you can make changes.<\/li>\n
  8. Click the plus sign at the bottom of the “Allow the apps below to control your computer” area of the window. (You could also simply drag the file into the “well” area without going through the “open file dialog.)<\/li>\n
  9. This will present the standard “open file” dialog; click and drag witchdaemon from the open window in step five into the open file dialog, then click Open.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    That’s it, you’re done. <\/p>\n

    Direct customers<\/h4>\n
      \n
    1. Open System Preferences, and go to Security & Privacy, then click on the Privacy tab. Click on Accessibility in the sidebar. Leave this window open somewhere onscreen.<\/li>\n
    2. In Finder, hold down the Option key and select Go > Library. In the Library folder, double-click on PreferencePanes. If you see Witch.prefPane, you’re in the right spot—skip to step four.<\/li>\n
    3. If you don’t see Witch.prefPane here, you must have installed it for all users. Select Go > Go to Folder, and enter \/Library\/PreferencePanes. This is the system-level Library, and you should see Witch.prefPane here. (If you don’t, it means you either don’t have Witch installed, or you have the App Store version installed.<\/li>\n
    4. Right-click (or Control-click) on Witch.prefPane and choose Show Package Contents. This may or may not open in a new window.<\/li>\n
    5. Double-click Contents, then Helpers, and you’ll see witchdaemon as the only item in that folder. Leave this window open.<\/li>\n
    6. Switch back to the System Preferences app, as opened in step one.<\/li>\n
    7. Click the lock icon and enter your admin password, so you can make changes.<\/li>\n
    8. Click the plus sign at the bottom of the “Allow the apps below to control your computer” area of the window. (You could also simply drag the file into the “well” area without going through the “open file dialog.)<\/li>\n
    9. This will present the standard “open file” dialog; click and drag witchdaemon from the open window in step five into the open file dialog, then click Open.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      That’s it, you’re done.<\/p>\n

      But nothing changed!<\/h4>\n

      You may think this failed, because nothing will look different about the Privacy panel (as witchdaemon is still invisible). But because you added the app yourself, the invisible checkbox has already been checked for you. Invoke Witch now, and it should just work. (Assuming you have already added Witch.app (App Store buyers) or System Preferences (direct buyers) to that panel. This happens the first time you launch the app\/pref pane, and the entry is not<\/em> invisible.)<\/p>\n

      We are trying to put together a repeatable use case for Apple (because they pretty much require those for their bug reports), but it’s tricky—this bug is only hitting a small number of our users at present, and we’re not sure why. Hopefully we’ll be able to figure out a workaround and issue an app update to resolve the problem, but at least you can still get Witch working in the interim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Over the course of the Yosemite beta, we’ve had a few reports of users not being able to make Witch work properly. If you’ve got this problem, you’ll know, because you’ll see this dialog every time you try to call up the Witch switcher panel: For the sake of search engines, the text reads: “witchdaemon” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[21],"class_list":["post-3173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manytricks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manytricks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manytricks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manytricks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manytricks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3173"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/manytricks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3465,"href":"https:\/\/manytricks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3173\/revisions\/3465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manytricks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manytricks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manytricks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3173"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manytricks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=3173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}