LaunchAgents not working under Tahoe

I have a LaunchAgent that has been running for years under 10.13. It monitors a folder on an external hard drive and runs a perl script against files that appear that does some renaming and places them in an appropriate directory. I added and loaded the script to my new M4 Mac Mini but it does not seem to run when files are added. If I run it manually, it's fine. The other LaunchAgents I added for disk space monitoring and backups, etc. seem to run fine. Am I missing something that I have to change to Tahoe? It's been driving me crazy since the update.

Mac mini, macOS 26.0

Posted on Sep 24, 2025 8:37 AM

Reply
3 replies

Sep 24, 2025 9:50 AM in response to jasonbenze

That's going to be tricky for many reasons.


First of all, any kind of command line script or tool running from a LaunchAgent is not running in Terminal. Terminal's not involved at all.


External volumes are a separate protection category. Normally, to access those permissions, an app must request them and that triggers a system dialog box. But only a full app can trigger this. Command line tool simply fail. You'll need to manually provide Full Disk Access. I'm not 100% sure what you need to give full disk access to. You may need to give it to the Perl executable itself. If your Perl script is executable, it's possible you could give access just to the script.


In the past, the answer would have been to give Full Disk Access to the Perl executable. But I haven't tried it in Tahoe and Apple likes to change/break these things. See if you can give Full Disk Access to the script, if it's executable. If not, try the Perl executable. Also try your script in an internal folder that isn't protected. These days, that might be only /tmp.


I'm sorry I don't have more definitive information. Modern iOS simply isn't very amenable to command line tools. It's designed for stand-alone, fully sandboxed and Apple-provisioned apps. Anything else is going to be a challenge. And it could fail at any time, without notice. Apple is under intense hacking pressure from its largest competitors. People running Perl scripts in Launch Agents just don't make the news in the same way.

Sep 24, 2025 8:52 AM in response to jasonbenze

jasonbenze wrote:

I have a LaunchAgent that has been running for years under 10.13.

It monitors a folder on an external hard drive and runs a perl script against files that appear that does some renaming and places them in an appropriate directory. I added and loaded the script to my new M4 Mac Mini but it does not seem to run when files are added. If I run it manually, it's fine. The other LaunchAgents I added for disk space monitoring and backups, etc. seem to run fine. Am I missing something that I have to change to Tahoe? It's been driving me crazy since the update.



10.13 from 2017...(?)


See if it needs to be given permission in Privacy & Security


>System Settings>Privacy & Security


maybe Full Disk Access, verify Terminal.app is on, o r add it in(?)


Sep 24, 2025 9:42 AM in response to leroydouglas

Yeah, it was a file server on an old Mac Mini. It still works fine for most of what it does but a few apps I use on it are being updated so I figured it was time to upgrade. Terminal has full disk access but I can't add the script itself to Full Disk Access, it was the first thing I tried but I don't think it's that because my backup script also moves files and that runs just fine. I think it may be something with however it monitors the folder for changes.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

LaunchAgents not working under Tahoe

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.