Continuous "Do you want the application "Notify.app" to accept incoming network connections?" pop-ups on Mac
Like Alpity and ILikePudding, I had the same issue and it's been going on for a while which is SUPER annoying. But I couldn't reply to their original posts because they have been stagnant for a while so I'd like to suggest a possible solution here while the memory is still fresh. I'm not sure if this solves the problem but happy to discuss.
Refer to their original posts:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251638476?login=true
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8623675
Thanks for Alpity's post, I finally knew what the message was. Just like he said, the message pops up and disappears. I tried to capture it using screen recording. But every time I recorded my screen, it never showed up. Going back to what I did, here goes:
First, I saw this line "This setting can be changed in the Firewall pane of Security Preferences" on Alpity's post and went to security & privacy -> firewall -> firewall options and aha, my old friend "notify.app" was there and it was allowing incoming connections. I removed it from the list.
Next, I wanted to find where this thing was hidden and found this post
https://www.macworld.com/article/232793/cant-find-an-app-on-your-mac-pinpoint-it-with-system-information.html. Basically, you hold down the Option key and select the menu, and then select System Information->software->application, and try to find the app "Notify". The app list is alphabetical so it's easy to find. And then you click on it and copy the location below. Go to Finder, click on Go -> Go to folder -> paste the location. Voila, Notify is right there!
Some new questions came up along the way:
- com.apple.webkit.networking.xpc and my vpn service are allowing incoming connections, and I don't know whether it's good or not....Tired of googling so I will leave it there for now.
- I don't know what this pharos/Notify is, also most of the apps in the app list.
- Why people cannot reply to an old post? It creates so much unnecessary new information in this forum.
- What is firewall? What is "incoming connections"?
- Does ILikePudding still like pudding?
As you may figure, this is the first time I tried to solve a problem on my own (might have broken something that I'm not aware of). I also learned some:
- How to use screen recording (yep)
- Hold the option key and the menu changes when you click on the apple icon
- I have good googling skills.
I will be glad if this helps. If you find there is something wrong with this solution, please let me know!
