Re: parental control problems - Mac OS X

[Chris Sheffield]

For anyone interested in this, I'm not sure what changed between Rev 3.0 and 
Rev 4.0, but this problem seems to disappear when building our standalone with 
Rev 4.0. We first discovered that the problem only occurred when building for 
Universal Binary. An Intel-only build did not have the problem (that was with 
Rev 3.0). So we decided at that point just to try a build with Rev 4.0 
(Universal Binary) and that seemed to work just fine. Not the most ideal 
solution, as we had to do a special build to send to some customers, but at 
least we found a solution.

Just thought I'd let you all know. And thanks to all those who replied with 
suggestions.

Chris


On Jan 28, 2010, at 3:13 PM, Chris Sheffield wrote:

> Honestly, I wish that were the case, but I don't think so. This is the same 
> build of our app that has been running for nearly a year now (updated last 
> April). We've had no reports of this problem until just recently, which makes 
> me think some security update changed something in parental controls that's 
> causing this problem. Again, why it only happens on Rev-built apps, I don't 
> know.
> 
> On Jan 28, 2010, at 3:03 PM, Sarah Reichelt wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 4:47 AM, Chris Sheffield  
>> wrote:
>>> Jacque,
>>> 
>>> Here's some more info from our end. Not sure if everyone is experiencing 
>>> this same behavior or not, but in our case, the executable inside the app 
>>> bundle is actually getting damaged. We compared an app that had been 
>>> launched with parental controls enabled for it and one that hadn't, and the 
>>> one that had was about 1 MB smaller. When trying to launch the executable 
>>> directly from Terminal, we get a file read error. So in this case, it looks 
>>> like no amount of messing with permissions is going to fix the problem. The 
>>> file is toast at that point.
>> 
>> 
>> Is your app trying to write a file, being denied permission, so
>> over-writing the executable instead?
>> I encountered this with an app that was writing a preferences file
>> with the same name as the executable. When the path was set
>> incorrectly, the executable got replaced.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Sarah
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Re: parental control problems - Mac OS X

[Chris Sheffield]

Honestly, I wish that were the case, but I don't think so. This is the same 
build of our app that has been running for nearly a year now (updated last 
April). We've had no reports of this problem until just recently, which makes 
me think some security update changed something in parental controls that's 
causing this problem. Again, why it only happens on Rev-built apps, I don't 
know.

On Jan 28, 2010, at 3:03 PM, Sarah Reichelt wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 4:47 AM, Chris Sheffield  
> wrote:
>> Jacque,
>> 
>> Here's some more info from our end. Not sure if everyone is experiencing 
>> this same behavior or not, but in our case, the executable inside the app 
>> bundle is actually getting damaged. We compared an app that had been 
>> launched with parental controls enabled for it and one that hadn't, and the 
>> one that had was about 1 MB smaller. When trying to launch the executable 
>> directly from Terminal, we get a file read error. So in this case, it looks 
>> like no amount of messing with permissions is going to fix the problem. The 
>> file is toast at that point.
> 
> 
> Is your app trying to write a file, being denied permission, so
> over-writing the executable instead?
> I encountered this with an app that was writing a preferences file
> with the same name as the executable. When the path was set
> incorrectly, the executable got replaced.
> 
> Cheers,
> Sarah
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www.readnaturally.com

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Re: parental control problems - Mac OS X

[Sarah Reichelt]

On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 4:47 AM, Chris Sheffield  wrote:
> Jacque,
>
> Here's some more info from our end. Not sure if everyone is experiencing this 
> same behavior or not, but in our case, the executable inside the app bundle 
> is actually getting damaged. We compared an app that had been launched with 
> parental controls enabled for it and one that hadn't, and the one that had 
> was about 1 MB smaller. When trying to launch the executable directly from 
> Terminal, we get a file read error. So in this case, it looks like no amount 
> of messing with permissions is going to fix the problem. The file is toast at 
> that point.


Is your app trying to write a file, being denied permission, so
over-writing the executable instead?
I encountered this with an app that was writing a preferences file
with the same name as the executable. When the path was set
incorrectly, the executable got replaced.

Cheers,
Sarah
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Re: parental control problems - Mac OS X

[Chris Sheffield]

Thanks for the suggestions Scott. I think we're already doing the permissions 
part, as our installer is taking care of that. But I will verify.

As for selecting our app in Parental Controls, that part is also being done. 
What's strange is, the corruption does not occur *until* we try to run the app 
under a managed account. It's not the process of selecting the app in Parental 
Controls. As soon as you try to launch it under the managed student account, 
the launch fails and the corruption occurs. Very, very weird behavior.

Chris

On Jan 28, 2010, at 1:09 PM, Scott Rossi wrote:

> Recently, Chris Sheffield wrote:
> 
>> I'm wondering if anyone has run into this problem and, if so, what the
>> possible fix would be. We have several customers (schools) reporting a 
>> problem
>> with our Rev-built application when trying to implement parental controls on
>> managed student accounts. Here's what's happening. When installing the
>> application under an admin account (we're using a Vise X installer) 
>> everything
>> appears to work as expected. The admin can launch the app and everything 
>> works
>> fine. Then the admin grants access to our app, via parental controls, to the
>> managed student account. After logging in with the student account, 
>> attempting
>> to launch the app results in the infamous bouncing icon in the dock but then
>> the app shuts down problem. What's even stranger, though, is that after
>> attempting this and then logging back in with the admin account and 
>> attempting
>> to run the app again, it doesn't work for the admin anymore. So it's like by
>> attempting to run the app with a managed account, it is breaking something
>> system wide. The only recourse at that point is to uninstall and reinstall.
> 
> Hi Chris:
> 
> I don't know if this will work for Rev apps or not, but I have fought for
> years with Parental Controls on kids' machines and have done the following
> to get apps to launch.  Apologies if any of this is basic knowledge for you.
> 
> 1) As admin under System Preferences, look in the user's account and see if
> applications are enabled on an item-by-item basis.  If yes, the checkbox for
> your app needs to be enabled.
> 
> 2) After installing an application as admin, I would get info on the app's
> folder bundle (bundle folder?) and change the "You can:" pulldown under
> Ownership and Permissions to read/write.  I don't know if this is acceptable
> in your situation, but it solved every problem install I had with Parental
> Controls and I now do this out of habit.
> 
> I do the above on a couple of old eMac systems running (I believe) OS X 10.4
> or thereabouts.  I'm not sure if Parental Controls on more recent versions
> of the OS works better, or is more intelligent.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Scott Rossi
> Creative Director
> Tactile Media, UX Design
> 
> 
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www.readnaturally.com

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Re: parental control problems - Mac OS X

[Richmond Mathewson]

Awfully sorry, should have given you a few references at the end of my 
previous reply:


http://www.macgeekery.com/hacks/hardware/make_any_mac_a_netboot_server

sorry only one; but should suffice.


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Re: parental control problems - Mac OS X

[Richmond Mathewson]

On 28/01/2010 22:09, Scott Rossi wrote:

Recently, Chris Sheffield wrote:

   

I'm wondering if anyone has run into this problem and, if so, what the
possible fix would be. We have several customers (schools) reporting a problem
with our Rev-built application when trying to implement parental controls on
managed student accounts. Here's what's happening. When installing the
application under an admin account (we're using a Vise X installer) everything
appears to work as expected. The admin can launch the app and everything works
fine. Then the admin grants access to our app, via parental controls, to the
managed student account. After logging in with the student account, attempting
to launch the app results in the infamous bouncing icon in the dock but then
the app shuts down problem. What's even stranger, though, is that after
attempting this and then logging back in with the admin account and attempting
to run the app again, it doesn't work for the admin anymore. So it's like by
attempting to run the app with a managed account, it is breaking something
system wide. The only recourse at that point is to uninstall and reinstall.
 
   
Donkey's years ago (well, about 7) at the University of St Andrews we 
were running a
netboot from an image saved on a server with all the settings, 
limitations, etc. in place.


All the programs we wanted students to have access were on the image and 
"at bedtime"
everything got cleared away. The reason for this was that we had a lot 
of students from
the Far-East who used to covertly install various Chinese/Japanese chat 
systems so they
could post home to Mum on the sly when they were meant to be working on 
their
English Grammar - as policing them constantly was both a bother and 
rather humiliating
for both lab-techs and students, any software installed by students was 
simply flushed
away at the end of a boot-session. Of course we could have so crippled 
the netboot image

that nothing whatsoever could be installed.

At that time we were running 2 RunRev standalones (admittedly authored 
on 2.0.1 not 4.0.0)
that were wrapped up inside the netboot image, and we never had any 
problems with them at all.


The netboot image had NO admin account as it had been set up with a 
crippled account and activated

root user which, once the image was set up, was deactivated.
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Re: parental control problems - Mac OS X

[Scott Rossi]

Recently, Chris Sheffield wrote:

> I'm wondering if anyone has run into this problem and, if so, what the
> possible fix would be. We have several customers (schools) reporting a problem
> with our Rev-built application when trying to implement parental controls on
> managed student accounts. Here's what's happening. When installing the
> application under an admin account (we're using a Vise X installer) everything
> appears to work as expected. The admin can launch the app and everything works
> fine. Then the admin grants access to our app, via parental controls, to the
> managed student account. After logging in with the student account, attempting
> to launch the app results in the infamous bouncing icon in the dock but then
> the app shuts down problem. What's even stranger, though, is that after
> attempting this and then logging back in with the admin account and attempting
> to run the app again, it doesn't work for the admin anymore. So it's like by
> attempting to run the app with a managed account, it is breaking something
> system wide. The only recourse at that point is to uninstall and reinstall.

Hi Chris:

I don't know if this will work for Rev apps or not, but I have fought for
years with Parental Controls on kids' machines and have done the following
to get apps to launch.  Apologies if any of this is basic knowledge for you.

1) As admin under System Preferences, look in the user's account and see if
applications are enabled on an item-by-item basis.  If yes, the checkbox for
your app needs to be enabled.

2) After installing an application as admin, I would get info on the app's
folder bundle (bundle folder?) and change the "You can:" pulldown under
Ownership and Permissions to read/write.  I don't know if this is acceptable
in your situation, but it solved every problem install I had with Parental
Controls and I now do this out of habit.

I do the above on a couple of old eMac systems running (I believe) OS X 10.4
or thereabouts.  I'm not sure if Parental Controls on more recent versions
of the OS works better, or is more intelligent.

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, UX Design


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Re: parental control problems - Mac OS X

[J. Landman Gay]

Chris Sheffield wrote:

Jacque,

Here's some more info from our end. Not sure if everyone is
experiencing this same behavior or not, but in our case, the
executable inside the app bundle is actually getting damaged. We
compared an app that had been launched with parental controls enabled
for it and one that hadn't, and the one that had was about 1 MB
smaller. When trying to launch the executable directly from Terminal,
we get a file read error. So in this case, it looks like no amount of
messing with permissions is going to fix the problem. The file is
toast at that point.


Well that would certainly explain it.



Another interesting tidbit of information is that the damage only
seems to occur on Intel machines. On a PPC machine, we still have a
problem launching the app when parental controls are enabled, but all
we have to do to fix it is deselect the app in parental controls. On
an Intel machine, this does not work. The app is built as a universal
binary. We're going to try building only for Intel just to see if
there's any difference.


Sounds like it may be related to a comment that was posted to the web 
page I mentioned:


"With the transition to Intel-compatible software a new wrinkle has 
developed. Specifically a "universal" binary will only load on Mac OS X 
version 10.3.9 for PowerPC-based Macs and 10.4.x for Intel-based Macs.


In some cases the "universal" binary may only load on Mac OS X 10.4 and 
newer on PowerPC-based Macs. No error message will appear and no error 
entry may appear in the Console - it simply won't launch."


--
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HyperActive Software   | http://www.hyperactivesw.com
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Re: parental control problems - Mac OS X

[Chris Sheffield]

One more strange piece of information.

After allowing our app to be run through Parental Controls, a "_CodeSignature" 
folder gets created inside the app bundle in the Contents folder. Inside this 
is a CodeResources folder, which appears to be a plist-style file, except no 
.plist extension on it. It appears to list the icon files in the Resources 
folder, as well as a few other things that I'm not sure what they mean. Just 
thought I'd' mention that if it helps.

Is it time to file a bug report do you think? The bad thing is, I'm still not 
really convinced it's a Revolution problem. But if it is, this is a very 
serious issue that needs to get fixed asap if it still exists in the current 
version of Rev. I believe I used Rev 3.0 when I built this particular 
standalone. I may try a newer version just to see.

Chris


On Jan 28, 2010, at 11:47 AM, Chris Sheffield wrote:

> Jacque,
> 
> Here's some more info from our end. Not sure if everyone is experiencing this 
> same behavior or not, but in our case, the executable inside the app bundle 
> is actually getting damaged. We compared an app that had been launched with 
> parental controls enabled for it and one that hadn't, and the one that had 
> was about 1 MB smaller. When trying to launch the executable directly from 
> Terminal, we get a file read error. So in this case, it looks like no amount 
> of messing with permissions is going to fix the problem. The file is toast at 
> that point.
> 
> Another interesting tidbit of information is that the damage only seems to 
> occur on Intel machines. On a PPC machine, we still have a problem launching 
> the app when parental controls are enabled, but all we have to do to fix it 
> is deselect the app in parental controls. On an Intel machine, this does not 
> work. The app is built as a universal binary. We're going to try building 
> only for Intel just to see if there's any difference.
> 
> Again, this seems to only happen with Rev-built apps. Not sure why.
> 
> Chris
> 
> 
> On Jan 28, 2010, at 10:25 AM, J. Landman Gay wrote:
> 
>> 

--
Chris Sheffield
Read Naturally, Inc.
www.readnaturally.com

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Re: parental control problems - Mac OS X

[Chris Sheffield]

Jacque,

Here's some more info from our end. Not sure if everyone is experiencing this 
same behavior or not, but in our case, the executable inside the app bundle is 
actually getting damaged. We compared an app that had been launched with 
parental controls enabled for it and one that hadn't, and the one that had was 
about 1 MB smaller. When trying to launch the executable directly from 
Terminal, we get a file read error. So in this case, it looks like no amount of 
messing with permissions is going to fix the problem. The file is toast at that 
point.

Another interesting tidbit of information is that the damage only seems to 
occur on Intel machines. On a PPC machine, we still have a problem launching 
the app when parental controls are enabled, but all we have to do to fix it is 
deselect the app in parental controls. On an Intel machine, this does not work. 
The app is built as a universal binary. We're going to try building only for 
Intel just to see if there's any difference.

Again, this seems to only happen with Rev-built apps. Not sure why.

Chris


On Jan 28, 2010, at 10:25 AM, J. Landman Gay wrote:

> Chris Sheffield wrote:
>> After logging in with the student
>> account, attempting to launch the app results in the infamous
>> bouncing icon in the dock but then the app shuts down problem. What's
>> even stranger, though, is that after attempting this and then logging
>> back in with the admin account and attempting to run the app again,
>> it doesn't work for the admin anymore. So it's like by attempting to
>> run the app with a managed account, it is breaking something system
>> wide.
> 
> The tech queue is getting questions about this too, and I'm not sure what the 
> answer is. It isn't related to your filtering program. This works for some:
> 
> Log into Terminal and do sudo chmod 755 on the app bundle.
> 
> You could also try throwing away the OS-generated plist file in Preferences.
> 
> Also try changing the owner of the app in Get Info.
> 
> None of these has proved to be successful for everyone though, and in your 
> situation it isn't really reasonable to ask your customers to use Terminal.
> 
> The above is from a web page that has other suggestions too:
> 
> 
> 
> That page is a little old but the Terminal instructions worked in one case I 
> had. I need to find out more about this.
> 
> -- 
> Jacqueline Landman Gay | jac...@hyperactivesw.com
> HyperActive Software   | http://www.hyperactivesw.com
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Re: parental control problems - Mac OS X

[Chris Sheffield]

Thanks for the suggestions, Jacque. I'll forward this info to our support team.

Chris


On Jan 28, 2010, at 10:25 AM, J. Landman Gay wrote:

> Chris Sheffield wrote:
>> After logging in with the student
>> account, attempting to launch the app results in the infamous
>> bouncing icon in the dock but then the app shuts down problem. What's
>> even stranger, though, is that after attempting this and then logging
>> back in with the admin account and attempting to run the app again,
>> it doesn't work for the admin anymore. So it's like by attempting to
>> run the app with a managed account, it is breaking something system
>> wide.
> 
> The tech queue is getting questions about this too, and I'm not sure what the 
> answer is. It isn't related to your filtering program. This works for some:
> 
> Log into Terminal and do sudo chmod 755 on the app bundle.
> 
> You could also try throwing away the OS-generated plist file in Preferences.
> 
> Also try changing the owner of the app in Get Info.
> 
> None of these has proved to be successful for everyone though, and in your 
> situation it isn't really reasonable to ask your customers to use Terminal.
> 
> The above is from a web page that has other suggestions too:
> 
> 
> 
> That page is a little old but the Terminal instructions worked in one case I 
> had. I need to find out more about this.
> 
> -- 
> Jacqueline Landman Gay | jac...@hyperactivesw.com
> HyperActive Software   | http://www.hyperactivesw.com
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Re: parental control problems - Mac OS X

[J. Landman Gay]

Chris Sheffield wrote:

After logging in with the student
account, attempting to launch the app results in the infamous
bouncing icon in the dock but then the app shuts down problem. What's
even stranger, though, is that after attempting this and then logging
back in with the admin account and attempting to run the app again,
it doesn't work for the admin anymore. So it's like by attempting to
run the app with a managed account, it is breaking something system
wide.


The tech queue is getting questions about this too, and I'm not sure 
what the answer is. It isn't related to your filtering program. This 
works for some:


Log into Terminal and do sudo chmod 755 on the app bundle.

You could also try throwing away the OS-generated plist file in Preferences.

Also try changing the owner of the app in Get Info.

None of these has proved to be successful for everyone though, and in 
your situation it isn't really reasonable to ask your customers to use 
Terminal.


The above is from a web page that has other suggestions too:



That page is a little old but the Terminal instructions worked in one 
case I had. I need to find out more about this.


--
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HyperActive Software   | http://www.hyperactivesw.com
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