"The Application Cannot Be Opened"

Unity Engine
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21

Yeah, I experienced the issue during development while trying to deploy a test build to Mac (which was created on Windows). But when you publish a Mac build on Steam, for example, this is not relevant to the end user because their computer has already “trusted” Steam. This means when they download the application it will be installed on Steam paths with executable permissions and there will be no launch issues.

1 Like
22

THANKS!!! Worked fine!

1 Like
23

I found another thing: the default zip extractor is worse on Catalina, I don’t know what it does but it does not allow the app to be executed if extracted with the default system zip management. By extracting a zip file with a 3rd party application like The Unarchiver (free on the Mac App Store) or Keka (paid) etc, it should run fine.

  • Build the Mac app on Windows or Linux, wherever, and zip it to share on the Internet
  • Those who download, do not double click it: right click and extract using a 3rd party extractor like The Unarchiver or Keka
  • Double click the extracted app, Mac will show a message saying that it is not allowed to run
  • Go to system security settings, unlock it and click to open it
  • Now it should work!

This sucks, it is the way Apple works, they hate indie developers… Making it harder each time to run apps that do not pay them that $100 per year. Someday in the future probably they will completely block the loading, like they already do on iOS.

By the way on Catalina it still works like this. Hope that it helps!

3 Likes
24

Worked for me on a virtual machine with VirtualBox and MacOS Catalina.

25

I had this problem when sharing a Unity app with a friend using OS X 10.15.6 (Catalina) via dropbox. Both the following steps were needed before he could open it without the ‘application can’t be opened’ message:

  • Change the permissions of the executable file as others mentioned above
  • Specifically allow the app in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General > Allow “…”
26

Thanks man,

Thanks man grateful

27

So is there no way of fixing this issue using a Windows PC? I don’t have access to Linux or Mac so I can’t change the permissions using the methods described above.

28

I got it to work by building as an XCode project, clicking archive in xcode, then distribute app with developer ID. Xcode takes care of all the signing so you don’t need to do any terminal nonesense.

2 Likes
29

Thanks, this worked for me :wink:

30

Thank you, this looks like only way to handle this problem. All other solutions are for running application only for the developer’s mac. If you want to create .dmg file from windows build, export xcode project and archive it on xcode.

2 Likes
31

Hmm so it looks like the only solution is to apply this command

chmod -R a+xr "YourGame.app"

and open the app even if it’s marked as ‘unverified’…

Can’t believe there is no other solution. I’m actually building the Mac build through github runner on Linux.
Anyone has a similar experience or any work around? I’m pretty sure I won’t descibe to players that they need to bypass the ‘unverified’ app dialog…

32

This also applies with cloud build :weary:

I was hoping delivering builds from cloud build would avoid this issue but nope :confused:

Probably cause I need to remove the burst info folder.