Not happy with new permission popups.

[romanof]

Apparently with 14.6 Apple has tightened the screws again. Suddenly any app that Apple has no reference to cannot write to an external drive without going through permission popups.

After the OS update, a script that automatically copies a weekly and favorite podcast HTML stream to external drive did not work. When I came back to the computer later, the script had not completed and the desktop had a popup requiring a click to ok the save. Thought it was a bug in my app, but when I tried a tiny perl script that just compresses a folder and saves it as a backup to an external SSD, up popped the click ok requirement. In fact, it borked all non-Apple apps that try to exit the system.

With the exception of Samba. Somehow they missed interfering with writes over that channel.

So far I have had no luck in bypassing it, although I haven't really gotten down to heavy research, but if this is now baked in, then I may make my long threatened move back to Linux. Apple seems to think that their hardware still belongs to them, and I (we) are just granted rights for use.

 

[zevrix]

Can you post a screenshot of this popup?

 

[edubfromktown]

I agree... missed a couple of those bloody popups while doing something else, and it really pisses me off.

I even go to greater lengths of daily driving with a standard user account (that is also in admin sudoer's file in /etc directory) to add an extra level of protection.

Apple needs to differentiate between the least common denominator "average" user compared to others who have more experience/skill with Unix and Linux.

 

[romanof]

Here is is. A screen shot of the screen shots, top to bottom in sequence. Interestingly, sometimes it asks once, sometimes twice.

Welcome to the new Apple Vista.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

You're using a laptop, is this correct?

Seems to me that you have to go to the "privacy & security" settings pane.
Then scroll down a bit.
Then locate the popup that grants permission automatically to mount external devices and set it to your liking.

Sorry, I don't remember the exact wording and can't take a screenshot, as I'm typing this on Mojave 10.14.6.

But "it's there"...

 

[MBAir2010]

This annoying same thing happens occasionally, but enough to be a nuisance on Monterey with anything M1
but never, never on early intels.... especially with mountain lion osx, and never on a Sunday!

 

[zevrix]

Here is is.
Welcome to the new Apple Vista.

Yes, I agree that Apple's pseudo-security mumbo-jumbo is ultra-obnoxious and unnecessary (for both users and developers.) And they keep adding more nonsense.

At the very least, Apple needs to give the user better and more obvious controls to disable this constant pestering with dumb requests.

I've never seen this particular warning yet, but I always have SIP disabled, which takes care of some annoying dialogs.

 

[romanof]

OP:

You're using a laptop, is this correct?

Seems to me that you have to go to the "privacy & security" settings pane.
Then scroll down a bit.
Then locate the popup that grants permission automatically to mount external devices and set it to your liking.

Nope. A full blown M2 Studio Max. And Sonoma is as far from Mojave as XP from OS/2. In P&S there is a Full Disk Access and a Files and Folders where you can grant access to individual apps - one by one. If I start tonight, I could probably be finished by the end of the month. Of course, the next update will reset them probably, but heck, the effort is worth it to make sure that my Raspberry Pi on a private internal network doesn't go rogue and take over my entire desktop machine. Can't be too safe these days.

 

[pipo2]

Nope. A full blown M2 Studio Max. And Sonoma is as far from Mojave as XP from OS/2. In P&S there is a Full Disk Access and a Files and Folders where you can grant access to individual apps - one by one. If I start tonight, I could probably be finished by the end of the month. Of course, the next update will reset them probably, but heck, the effort is worth it to make sure that my Raspberry Pi on a private internal network doesn't go rogue and take over my entire desktop machine. Can't be too safe these days.

No, Full Disk Access and Files and Folders is not the place to grand permission for external drives, ad/da etc. etc.
In P&S go down to Security and 'Allow accessories to connect', then make your choice:
1. Ask Every Time -- which appears to be the default
2. Ask for New Accessories
3. Autmatically When Unlocked
4. Always -- which could be what you want

 

[zevrix]

In P&S go down to Security and 'Allow accessories to connect', then make your choice:
4. Always -- which could be what you want

Oh. Thanks! I didn't know about this setting. Why haven't I checked it myself before?

Well good to see Apple has given us this choice.


P.S. Which, btw, also revealed a bug in Sequoia: menu selection (the highlight color) isn't captured on screenshots taken with Cmd-Shift-Ctrl-4:

 

[romanof]

Well, that is the interesting part. That feature is still in my other macs that haven't been updated yet, but in 14.6.1 it is gone. Strangely, spotlight will bring it up as an option, but clicking on the link just brings up the P&S options with no "Allow accessories to connect" anywhere. And just in case I was being temporarily dyslexic, which can happen on occasions when my morning coffee isn't ready, I set my MBA next to it for comparison and sho nuff, it ain't there anymore.

However, given the need for Apple to move stuff to random places for no apparent need, it might be buried in some other link now, although if so, nobody told spotlight.

Apparently this feature only exists in laptops, although not sure why. After the Cloudstrike incident, I suspect that everyone is scrambling to upgrade security and some stuff just falls through the cracks for a while.

 

[Fishrrman]

"Strangely, spotlight will bring it up as an option, but clicking on the link just brings up the P&S options with no "Allow accessories to connect" anywhere."

I believe this option appears ONLY on Mac laptops and NOT on desktops (such as the Studio).

That's why the OP can't see it, and that's why I asked the question I did in reply 5 above...

 

[ignatius345]

No, Full Disk Access and Files and Folders is not the place to grand permission for external drives, ad/da etc. etc.
In P&S go down to Security and 'Allow accessories to connect', then make your choice:
1. Ask Every Time -- which appears to be the default
2. Ask for New Accessories
3. Autmatically When Unlocked
4. Always -- which could be what you want

Thank you! This has been dogging me for a long time -- especially in earlier Sonoma versions where I was hitting a bug where I'd plug something in and the New Accessory warning would flash up briefly and then disapper before I could click on it. The only "fix" I knew about was to keep unplugging and replugging the thing until the warning managed to stay on screen long enough to click on it. I haven't seen this bug in a while, so I think either they fixed it or whatever was glitching on my Mac fixed itself.

My hunch is that "Automatically When Unlocked" would be a decent compromise between security and convenience.

 

[ignatius345]

"Strangely, spotlight will bring it up as an option, but clicking on the link just brings up the P&S options with no "Allow accessories to connect" anywhere."

I believe this option appears ONLY on Mac laptops and NOT on desktops (such as the Studio).

That's why the OP can't see it, and that's why I asked the question I did in reply 5 above...

Just confirmed this is true. Screen at left is a Mac Mini, screen at right is a MacBook Air. Both running Sonoma 14.6.1.
I guess the logic is that they consider rogue accessories more of a threat to laptops? Weird.

 

[romanof]

No, it would be the other way around. If you can't turn it off on desktops, then they consider non-laptops in more of danger. Agree with 'Weird", though.

 

[pipo2]

No, it would be the other way around. If you can't turn it off on desktops, then they consider non-laptops in more of danger. Agree with 'Weird", though.

Perhaps, emphasis on _perhaps_, the following works on desktops:
- first press the option-key
- keep it pressed and select 'System Settings...'
- keep it pressed and select P+S
- scroll down to Security and see if the 'Allow accessories to connect' item is added.

This feature/technique/tric is used on Apple laptops to reveal the screen rotation possibilities in 'System Settings.../Displays'.
This is normaly hidden on laptops, but apparently always shown on Apple computers using external displays.