The application "Finder" does not have permission to open "(null)“ error message in macOS 15.1 when trying to open unsigned application

Is this an application that you’re creating? Or are you seeing this with apps created by other third-party developers?

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Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

It is a macOS application that we develop.

It's based on the Eclipse RCP framework and is not signed.

Well, there’s two problems here:

• The fact that the app won’t launch.

• The fact that the error includes (null).

The latter is clearly a bug in macOS, and I encourage you to file it as such. Please post your bug number, just for the record.

Having said that, there’s probably something about your built app that’s triggering this. As with any third-party tooling, you can approach this in one of two ways:

• You can escalate this via the support channel for your tooling.

• You can take on this issue yourself.

For that last point, my advice in this case is:

1 Build a simple app with Xcode.

1. Build a simple app with your tools.

2. Verify that the first doesn’t have this problem and the second does.

   Note If you see the problem with your Xcode version, I’d love to hear about it because that’s something I can help you with.

3. Compare how the bundles are assembled. It’s likely that there’s something wonky with the Info.plist the failing app.

As to what’s causing the app to fail to launch, there are a variety of potential reasons for that. I talk about a bunch of them in Resolving Trusted Execution Problems. The best first step is to run syspolicy_check against your app.

However, lemme clarify some specific points…

macOS won’t run unsigned Apple silicon code. If the code is truly unsigned, this issue is not a surprise (unless you happen to be buildding Intel code). In most cases, if someone says they have unsigned Apple silicon code, they actually have ad hoc signed code. Cross-platform tools typically rely on a process calling linker signing to generate that ad hoc signature.

macOS can run ad hoc signed (or unsigned, on Intel) code. If the code is quarantined then you need to bypass Gatekeeper, but there’s a documented process for doing that.

You can test this for yourself with Xcode. If you create a project from the macOS > App template and thes select Sign to Run Locally in Signing & Capabilities, the resulting app is ad hoc signed.

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

Our application is a pure Intel application. So I guess the following applies to our application:

"...macOS can run ad hoc signed (or unsigned, on Intel) code. If the code is quarantined then you need to bypass Gatekeeper, but there’s a documented process for doing that..."

Not sure how to interpret "...or unsigned, on Intel..." does that mean that a pure unsigned Intel application should be able to run on both Intel and Apple Sillicon Macs ? Or does it mean that it's only on Intel based Macs that a pure unsigned Intel application can be launched ?

All of the above of course using the "...documented process..." for launching the application.