MinimWatch on MacOs

[the_bat]

Hi

I recently updated my Mac to the latest, Catalina, version of MacOs. Now when I try to run MinimWatch I get an error message saying

“MinimWatch” can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software"

and recommending I contact the software provider.

Have Apple found a new and interesting way of breaking things?

Alan.

[simoncn]

Thanks for letting me know about this.

From a quick web search, this appears to have affected a few other apps and the solution is to right-click (or Ctrl+click) the app and select Open.

I will update the relevant sections of the MinimServer user guide. For this, it would be helpful if you could let me know what message is displayed when you do Ctrl+click and Open.

[the_bat]

Thanks Simon. As you say, this seems to be hitting quite a number of Apps. Apparently all apps now need to be notarised - whatever that means :-)

Sadly, if I ctl/click then open the app icon flashes but the app doesn't start and nothing shows in Activity Monitor.

[simoncn]

I am installing Catalina on my Mac to try this. I will post back when I have more news.

[simoncn]

MinimWatch and MinimServer are running OK for me on Catalina. They were installed previously on Mojave and running there before I updated from Mojave to Catalina. Perhaps there is some exception for apps that were already installed and verified by macOS before the Catalina update.

My Security & Privacy options are set to Allow apps downloaded from App Store and identified developers. I am not currently an Apple identified developer.

I am not sure what else could be different between my system and yours.

[simoncn]

I downloaded a new copy of MinimWatch and dragged it to my Applications folder. Double-clicking it gave me the message about malicious software. I then did Ctrl+click and Open, which gave me a pop-up with the same message about malicious software but this time including an Open button. I clicked the Open button and nothing seemed to happen. I then double-clicked the MinimWatch icon in the Applications folder and it opened successfully.

[the_bat]

This is odd - I get the same right up to the point where I click the icon in the Applications folder and then the icon flashes as if something's happening but nothing does.

It sounds as if it might be something to do with the configuration of my machine. I'll do some checking and get back if I find anything.

Thanks

Alan

[simoncn]

You might have an incompatible version of Java installed. At present, MinimWatch and MinimServer on macOS require Java 8 and don't work with Java 12. See this post.

[the_bat]

Thanks - I have Java Version 8 update 231, which seems to be the current recommended version.

As you probably know already, you're far from alone in problems with this - Balena Etcher throws errors under Catalina if it isn't kicked of with supervisor privileges and the monitoring programme for some TP-Link networking kit just flashes as if starting but then dies. I'm sure there are loads of others.

[simoncn]

This version of Java should be fine.

You might be able to find more information about the MinimWatch start error in the minimwatch.log and/or minimwatch-out.log files in the ~/Library/MinimWatch folder. Another place you could look is the macOS console log. To view this, open the Applications/Untilities/Console program.