Parental Controls Always Allow does not work

Having the same problem. Just spent about 90 minutes in the chatroom of a very nice and helpful Minecraft tech guy. We tried everything. Finally, I just had to disable the parental controls on Apps (leaving all the other parental controls intact) and that worked, although I'm not happy with that. His conclusion was that it was a bug with Apple. There is a blog that deals with something similar, but in my case it did not help because my problem is with the app controls But here it is in case it helps someone else: .http://heednotsteve.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/how-to-enable-secure-connections-un der-mac-os-x-parental-controls/

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4334030?tstart=0

Why am I not authorized to see that link?

Wow, Niles! Thanks so much! Unfortunately it appears I am way below your tech skill level. Could you possibly give me idiot proof instructions on how to create a shell script?

This will only fix the issue for Mindcraft.

Hi Nils,

I (well, my son Alexander) just purchased Minecraft on the weekend and then we experienced the same problem that you originally described, i.e. it would only run on my son's account (under parental control) when we selected the "Allow One Time" option. Your solution then seemed to be exactly what we needed. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to follow the idiot-proof instructions that you provided. First, while logged into my son's account, I got to the point of creating the file with the 2 command lines in the TextEdit application but then couldn't save it in the previously created MacOS folder -- it wasn't "active", i.e. I couldn't navigate to it (the entire "MyMinecraft.app" folder wasn't accessible). I found a workaround by temporarily removing the "app" extension, storing the "MyMinecraft" command file in the MacOS folder, and then re-naming the "MyMinecraft" folder with the "app" extension. I then opened the Terminal application, pasted in the code you provided (Note : there's a mistake, it should be "Contents" rather than "Contenst") and pressed the Enter key. This led to the following message :

chmod: /Users/Alexander/Applications/MyMinecraft.app/Contents/MacOS/MyMinecraft: No such file or directory

Is this a result that, on our MBP, the "Applications" and "Users" folders are at the same level? Or have I done something else wrong? I would really appreciate if you could help us out. It's a little cumbersome always having to be there to grant my son permission to use Minecraft -- however, I would rather not remove the parental controls.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

I have the same problem for my son's account on an iMac i5 2011 running Lion 10.7.5. I've tried my best to follow your directions but have not been able to solve this problem.

1 - Managed to make the new app, but when you open it it gives me a warning that "PPC applications are not compatible witht his system". No idea why it would think that this new script/app would be thought of as a Power PC app.

2 - Downloaded Platypus, but wasn't able to use it, don't know what fields to fill in.

Please help, thank you i greatly appreciate it. Sincerely, Eric

I have the same problem, tried your idea and got the same results as others:

chmod: /Users/Rhubarb/Applications/MyMinecraft.app/Contents/MacOS/MyMinecraft: No such file or directory

I would deeply appreciate your help in figuring this out.

When you use /Applications/Utilities/Console.app to watch for errors and get:

Job failed to exec(3) for weird reason: 13

...it is usually a permissions issue. The symptom is that you will click on an application and it will not launch at all. You will need to make the application binary executable for the current user.

I do this by opening /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app and running the following command:

chmod u+x <Application.app>/Contents/MacOS/<application binary>

`<Application.app>` needs to be changed to the location of the app, and `<application binary>` needs to be changed to the name of the binary.

For Minecraft, if it is located in the root `/Applications` folder, the command would be:

chmod u+x /Applications/Minecraft.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub

If it is located in `/Users/jsmith/Applications`, where `jsmith` would be your username on your Mac, the command would be:

chmod u+x /Users/jsmith/Applications/Minecraft.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub

`chmod` is the command to change file modes or Access Control Lists. You can read the manual for `chmod` by running the command: `man chmod` In this case, we are allowing the file to be executed by the current user. So `u+x` means "user add executable permission." If you would like to make the file executable for all users, then you would change `u+x` in the above commands to be `a+x`.

I hope this helps.

If you are an Apple StackExchange user, I also posted this answer here:

http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/82982/39809

Hi there Nils.

Thank you for the work you did above. i can get minecraft to run on my parental controlled account using the:

java -jar -Xms512m -Xmx1024m /Applications/Minecraft.app/Contents/Resources/Java/MinecraftLauncher.jar

command in terminal.

i also set up the MyMinecraft app, unfortunately when i tried to run it I was informed by finder:

You can't open the application "MyMinecraft" because PowerPC applications are no longer supported

I note you are also on OSX Mountain lion, do you have any ideas?

Thank you

Jonathan

Hello all!

I may have found a way to use this workaround without the PowerPC error coming up. It worked for me with a new iMac running Mtn Lion with Parental Controls enabled. Here is what I did:

1. Login to the account that has the Parental Controls enabled (ie the standard user not the admin user)

2. Open the Automater App. Easiest way is to click on Spotlight (the magnifying glass in upper right corner) and type Automator into the search field, then select the app that comes up. You may have to enter your admin credentials if this app is restricted in Parental Controls.

3. In the initial screen that opens, select "Application" from the options listed, and then hit the "Choose" button.

4. In the top search field enter "Shell", and you should see "Run Shell Script" come up as a valid action.

5. Drag that action over to the right workflow area

6. You shoud see "cat" as the default command - highlight that and delete it. Then paste the command referenced above into the shell code area:

java -jar -Xms512m -Xmx1024m /Applications/Minecraft.app/Contents/Resources/Java/MinecraftLauncher.jar

7. Then select the "Options" button towards the bottom of the workflow object and select the "Ignore this actions input" checkbox.

8. Hit the "Run" button in the upper right of the window to test your script - if everything is working it should launch Minecraft.

9. If it was successful, select the File Menu and select "Save". Call the workflow "MyMinecraft" and save it on the desktop using the "Application" file format option.

10. Double click on the new Desktop icon called MyMinecraft to run it. When the Parental Controls message comes up, select "Always Allow" and enter your password.

11. To customize you can enen change the icon to the Minecraft icon using the "Get Info" option for both apps and copy and paste the icon image.

That's it. It worked for me and launched consistently with Parental Controls enabled. I hope it works for all of you as well.

Thanks!

--Rick

Nils -- I am seeing this problem with another "wrapper" app that has 'self modifying/updating' code ... SPORE. I have figured out that in this case the only way to get the program to work on my kids IDs with parental controls is to select "Allow Once" -- just like the original MineCraft case. I figured out this is actually because the code signature is invalid for the app due to the wrapper approach.

In an effort to try and find a more generic resolution, I was wondering if you might look at the orignal MineCraft.app and see if it shows the same problem ... if so, we may be able to get Apple to tell us how to get Parental Controls to update the signature and allow the app permanently (as a more generic fix/workaround).

In terminal -- what does the following show ?

$ codesign -dvvvv /Applications/MineCraft.app

In my failing case for SPORE I get the following:

$ codesign -dvvvv /Applications/SPORE/SPORE.app

/Applications/SPORE/SPORE.app: invalid signature (code or signature have been modified)

For a working case (as an example) I get the following:

$ codesign -dvvvv /Applications/iPhoto.app

Executable=/Applications/iPhoto.app/Contents/MacOS/iPhoto

Identifier=com.apple.iPhoto

Format=bundle with Mach-O thin (i386)

CodeDirectory v=20100 size=73825 flags=0x200(kill) hashes=3683+5 location=embedded

Hash type=sha1 size=20

CDHash=1b9534433700f71e42b8491b9cee9e4cbd34515f

Signature size=4169

Authority=Apple Mac OS Application Signing

Authority=Apple Worldwide Developer Relations Certification Authority

Authority=Apple Root CA

Info.plist entries=35

Sealed Resources rules=21 files=2617

Internal requirements count=2 size=1484

In these failing cases, the "wrapper" is signed but since the java or other code gets updated, it makes the signature invalid and parental controls will not allow this as a permanent exception.........

-- mhren