macOS - Continual "Control System Events" Message

[8bitgentleman]

Describe the bug

Just installed the new version (9) on Mojave for the first time. After the app opens ActivityWatch continues to spam me with messages to control "System Events" even after I have given the app permission under Security & Privacy > Automation as well as Security & Privacy > Accessibility`.
This also causes a noticeable lag/slowness for the operating system as a whole.

To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Open the app on macOS

Expected behavior

I should only need to grant the app permission once and the app should not cause my computer to stutter.

Documentation

aw-qt_2020-03-19T12-56-05.log
aw-watcher-window_2020-03-19T12-56-05.log
aw-server_2020-03-19T12-56-05.log

Environment

• ActivityWatch version: v0.9.dev+c815323
• OS: [macOS (Mojave)]

[xylix]

Thanks for the detailed report. It shouldn't be necessary but if you can try to add Full Disk Access permissions for activitywatch that might fix this problem :/. If that fixed it there should be quite a nice fix for the next release.

[8bitgentleman]

Hi thanks for the response! I adding Full Disk Access permissions and did a full restart but there was no change to the issue. I still got the pop up and the app is causing my computer to stutter. By stutter I mean that while continuously typing, moving the mouse or clicking on anything every few seconds it's like there are a few frames dropped. Everything freezes for a second then unfreezes

[ErikBjare]

@8bitgentleman Could you try disabling the server, window watcher, and afk watcher (separately) from the trayicon, and then see if you still get the messages and the stutter?

[8bitgentleman]

@ErikBjare Disabling all of those from the tray icon stops the constant messages and stutter. By process of elimination I turned on and off several combinations of those modules and it seems that the window watcher is the one causing the issue

[ErikBjare]

That's really helpful to know, thanks! We'll look into it.

[xylix]

I just tried this on a clean (latest Catalina so 10.15.3) virtual machine and can not reproduce. ActivityWatch asked me for the Automation - System events permissions and for the accessibility permissions, and after giving both it works fine.

@8bitgentleman Can you confirm you installed it from the latest .dmg on the releases page https://github.com/ActivityWatch/activitywatch/releases/tag/v0.9.0 ? If you don't mind just trying to re-download and drag it to /Applications could help. You did have the right version tag (v0.9.dev+c815323).

I will try to setup a Mojave virtual machine, but it will take a bit of time. Will also look into improving the logging and warning about invalid permissions to the user for the next release.

[8bitgentleman]

@xylix Yes I used the newest .dmg from that release. To be sure I uninstalled and did a redownload from the link you provided however the same error occurred. Would the output from the macOS console be of any use? It captured several warnings and system events related to activitywatch

[xylix]

If they are similar to these errors https://gist.github.com/xylix/5a85fde8f69f176402b524a16b9692fd they are related to ActivityWatch being self signed instead of signed with an Apple-approved developer key and/or to our signing processes weirdnesses. If it's something different it could be important though.

Thanks for your patience and fast responses :).

[xylix]

For now the only thing I think will actually completely fix this will be adding a new check for "Does the .app have all the necessary permissions?" at startup and prompting for the missing ones. Something like this https://i.stack.imgur.com/YKAyE.png . And better logging of missing permissions.

I'll be working these into the next release but that might take anywhere from a few weeks to a month.

@8bitgentleman Sorry but I can't really suggest any more workarounds for the .app. If you really want to get 0.9.0 working you could try running the newest macos .zip in the terminal, but that's kinda hard to autostart and rough around the edges.