Unapproved Caller

The correct way to fix the "Unapproved Caller SecurityAgent may only be invoked by Apple Software" error is to delete the contents of the

/var/folders/ directory.

Most users experience this error when trying to have the system use elevated privileges like unlocking the System Preferences to make changes. This occurs on systems that have recently been upgraded to Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks.

The upgrade process fails to complete a specific task that is meant to remove cached files from that location. There is a Launch Daemon at "

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.bsd.dirhelper.plist " that is meant to remove the files from the /var/folders location every 3 days.

Removing the contents of this folder does not affect the system as they are only cached files. This will only need to be done once, then a RESTART of the system and the Unapproved Caller error will go away.

Oh my goodness! It worked!

I went to the mac store around the corner of my office, asked to be able to lend a Thunderbolt cable for some target disk emergency thing I needed to perform. The girl that helped me was surprised and amused by this odd thing I would do.

I left the place in less than 10 minutes, after performing the above steps.

However, the path above was wrong... See the full procedure below:

- Start fresh and happy Mac

- Link sick Mac with a thunderbolt cable to the fresh Mac

- Start the sick Mac in target disk mode by pressing and holding the 'T' key right after pressing the power button

- In the fresh Mac's Finder, do a option+shift+g and write the logical path to the folder called 'folders' on the target disk

/Volumes/***/etc/var/folders/

--> replace *** with the name of the target disk

You can find the target disk's name by first filling the following in the step above:

/Volumes/

If your disk has a space in its name, rename the disk like I did to avoid a more complicated procedure

- The folder "folders" should by this time show up in Finder

- Delete all that is in that folder (these files are only temporary files, and will be recreated when your Mac restarts, as it will have nothing there)

- Empty the trash

- eject the target disk in Finder

- unlink the two computers

- shut down the hopefully not sick anymore Mac

- start this Mac again

--> if all went as in my case, you should have your Mac starting as if nothing annoying happened.

How great is that???

Sounds to me like my earlier comment was the right answer:

abstert Santa Clara, CA

The correct way to fix the "Unapproved Caller SecurityAgent may only be invoked by Apple Software" error is to delete the contents of the

/var/folders/ directory.

Most users experience this error when trying to have the system use elevated privileges like unlocking the System Preferences to make changes. This occurs on systems that have recently been upgraded to Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks.

The upgrade process fails to complete a specific task that is meant to remove cached files from that location. There is a Launch Daemon at "

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.bsd.dirhelper.plist " that is meant to remove the files from the /var/folders location every 3 days.

Removing the contents of this folder does not affect the system as they are only cached files. This will only need to be done once, then a RESTART of the system and the Unapproved Caller error will go away.

I got this message "Unapproved Caller" for the first time in April 2014 on my MacBook Pro 13" early-2011. I was using Chrome and suddenly Chrome stopped working and all other things too. I have two drives, one SSD for the OS and one HDD for other things.

I formatted my main drive (SSD) twice or maybe three times, but still after couple of times the message came back and back and back... I was, as always, stubborn and thought it was the fault of my system, not of its wiring (read: SATA-cable). So sometimes booting my Macbook became a race/game against the clock in which I deleted the /var/folders/etc like some suggested. But the message came back as usual.

****, I DJ sometimes and just before a gig my Macbook just died on me... Had to reinstall the OS and I was very nervous... But eventually the OS reinstalled. Anyways...

Then, I formatted my HDD together with the SSD and installed Mac OS X Lion (had to do Internet Recovery) on my SSD. Ta da! Mac was working good 🙂. But, you would've guess it by now; Unapproved Caller came back. And after some time, my Macbook stopped booting at all! So I took it to the Apple Store in Amsterdam (Netherlands), to one of their not-so-Genius bars. The guy there hasn't see the message ever and his superiors neither. He tested my Macbook and the test said that my SSD was the problem!!! Mind you, I have a Windows PC and the SSD is a Samsung one. I checked its health via Samsung Magician and it said it was alright. So he said he couldn't take my Macbook for reparation. F*ckers. I knew there was nothing wrong with my Mac.

After a couple of days Disk Utility couldn't recognize my SSD anymore, only my HDD in the Opti-bay. ****** even more. So, I purchased a new SATA-cable, after reading all these problems regarding the "Unapproved Caller" message. I was very skeptical, but general opinion was that in Apple's batch of MacBook Pros of early-2011, there were problems with SATA-cables.

A couple of weeks ago I installed the new SATA-cable very securely and prayed that Internet Recovery should work. It worked! Now, I'm back up and running and just punching myself for the head that I hadn't purchased the SATA-cable much, much earlier.

I believe that the only way in which you could get rid of all issues, is by simply purchasing a new SATA-cable!!! I don't know any technical details, but now my Macbook is just working like it did before my issues.

abstert's fix worked for me on 3 computers.

I imaged three MBs (Intel Core 2Duo, 2GB RAM, Model MacBook6,1, manufacture date 10/20/09) via Deploy Studio (I'm a school tech in a large school district). The image on all three nearly completed but erred, and did not finish sending out the last packages (sent the logs to our engineers already to fix). I'm not sure why it erred, since it was a good image before.

As I was tweaking the computers (binding them to Active Directory, etc) and getting them ready to give to our users, I was just about finished but decided to update the browsers, as this seems to help with sluggishness experienced after upgrading to 10.9. Firefox went just fine, but on each computer, when I did Chrome (I had to download Chrome again because it was too out of date to update itself), the Unapproved Caller message started popping up. I then couldn't do much of anything to try to fix it without the error - I couldn't send the old Chrome to the trash; I couldn't even delete the recommended files.

Here is what I had to do:

1. Hard shut down the computer (hold the power button)
2. Log in with a local user account (I could not log in with my AD account)
3. Finder>Go: /var/folders/ and delete those folders as suggested
4. Reboot computer (but just before I hit the Restart key, I noticed another folder in the Folders folder (wow - that's a mouthful!), so I deleted again for safety sake)

I was again able to log into my network account and finish all the needed tasks (like download Chrome).

After all the troubleshooting I went through, they fixed the image and I had to reimage again, and repeat all the special tweaks. But this time it finished without errors, and, I assume, without the unnecessary folders in /var/folders/. But I had to at least let others know that this fix worked for three of mine, and it sounds similar to others' issues having upgraded or done something to their disk that might have not deleted those havoc-wreaking folders.

Here are some notes for others if the above simple fix doesn't work: Regarding using a Thunderbolt cable to target-disk into - even though your computer may have a display port that fits the Thunderbolt cable, if it doesn't have the lightening symbol on it, it may not be a Thunderbolt port. This is true in the earlier unibody MBPs, and the white MBs that sold without the option of having Firewire. So that could also be a reason for not getting the Target disk symbol upon T-boot of the machine.

Also, if you try using a OS cd and can't get it to eject, holding down the mouse (or track pad) on start-up generally ejects the disk.

Thanks, abstert, for you advice.

The correct way to fix the "Unapproved Caller SecurityAgent may only be invoked by Apple Software" error is to delete the contents of the

/var/folders/ directory.

Most users experience this error when trying to have the system use elevated privileges like unlocking the System Preferences to make changes. This occurs on systems that have recently been upgraded to Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks.

This worked! I started with the Unapproved Caller error this morning on my new MBP. Everything started working oddly...couldn't access certain System Preferences, Safari started acting up, my Common Access Card (CAC) started to fail...then the "Unapproved Caller" error message began to appear. I followed this thread and figured I give this a try first, figuring a hard drive connection fail was possible but not probable. I booted the MBP into my iMac in Target Disk Mode, deleted the contents of the folder you specified, rebooted the MBP. Problem solved. Took only minutes. Username "abstert"...you saved me literally hours of frustration and lost productivity during a very busy time at work. Thank you!

I had the same problem. On the first attempt I installed a new HD, with a clean installation of Mac OS 10.9 and the problem continued. The solution was to replace the flat cable connecting the HD to logic board.

I had the same issue on my 2009 Macbook Pro

What happened:

- alerts appeared

- tried repairing disk and permissions with Disk Utility - no issues present - reboot

- alert went away for a couple of days, then came back, rebooted in Safe Mode.

- tried repairing permissions - still no issues present

- had trouble accessing login. Access was intermittent.

- When I was finally able to login, saw that I had only 180 MB of free space, cleared 2GB of space

- issue came back, and HD (somehow) refilled again with trashed items

- several times hung on gray screen, was not able to get to login screen.

- after several attempts, was finally able to boot back up in SM

- tried to reinstall Mavericks on the computer, but didn't have enough room.

- used different computer and installed Mavericks onto a 16GB USB flash drive

- used as USB flash drive as start-up drive with internal hard drive as slave drive.

- able to access the hard drive, backup 10 GB of files and then remove files off of internal hard drive

- reinstalled Mavericks onto HD and now works fine.

I must concur with the NEW HDD CABLE as the fix that DaniloMR, brewer365, dextah02, Bilalama, etc all talk about.

This unapproved caller/securityagent message was the first sign of the problem. It also included that Spotlight stopped working, loginwindow (not responding), the keys for display and keyboard lighting stopped responding.

I had tried most of the other attempted fixes mentioned in these discussions with nothing being permanent.

I also ordered the cable for my Macbook Pro (mid-2009) from ifixit and replaced it yesterday. No problems since. I was skeptical that this would be the fix, just not what I would expect.

Thanks.

BRAVO !!!!

I was fiddling about in the System folder and suddenly I was stuck with the ominous "security Agent" message. I looked around to see if any agents were lurking about then after several failed"repair permissions" from recovery partition I came here.

I knew it wasn't catastrophic hardware failure since I could use a 2.5" laptop drive connected via a SATA to USB adapter (like $10 but worth $100)

It had a working install of 10.9.4 versus my "security agent" borked one.

I was about to CCC the System folder but this page popped up in Google. I will even add a helpful bit.

To get to that var folder, copy the command from earlier in thread. Hit "Go to folder" and here is where it gets tricky.....drag your bad HD to the window, it plops the path in there, no chance of using wrong backslash or spelling errors, etc. Then paste the command after. Went right to my "var" folder where there were 2 more weird folders. One was named "zzz" and the other had a different weird name. Inside "ZZZ" were a bunch of files with long hashtag looking stuff. On most the date and time were in distant past...but, there were a bunch within the last 4 hours while I have been fighting this alleged "agent".

Deleted and BINGO !!! Booted right up like nothing had ever been wrong.

To the people who think that it was a new HD or cable you needed....imagine you go to 2 different garages because your car shifts funny. One guy says you need a modulator valve for $100 and the other one says you need whole new transmission for $2,500. Who is right? Well, if it is the modulator valve, you'll get a new one in the $2,500 transmission. (along with $2,400 in parts you didn't need)

Of course replacing the HD would fix this. But removing the var folder is a lot easier and cheaper. (and you have nothing to lose)

Thank god for Google and forums !!!

Solved!

After initial fail I had replaced my hard drive with a new one. The replaced hard drive was a hybrid drive (Seagate Laptop Thin SSHD 500GB Hard Drive ST500LM000 6Gb/s 64 MB Cache). However this maneuver did not solve my problem. As I mentioned in my previous post, after one week of testing even Apple authorized repair service could not be able to find any hardware or software issue with my MBP. As a last resort, I have decided to change my hard drive once again. This time I got a regular hard drive (Seagate Laptop Thin HDD 500GB 7200RPM Sata 2.0 32Mb 2.5" ). After two months of frustration now my MBP works flawlessly.

My conclusion:

Hybrid hard drives are not compatible with older MBPs (MBP, Late 2008).

Any other comments?

Thank you all.

**** yeah.

deleting Var/Folders using Terminal when booting from the recovery partition appears to have fixed things for me

Posting symptoms in case it helps others:

I'm also a DJ - have 120gb SSD + 750gb HDD (in optical drive bay) on an early 2011 13" macbook pro.
I've got it running as a fusion drive setup.

preparing music for set at an outdoor festival tomorrow. I usually have too many apps and tabs open at once.
Chrome stopped responding

Couldn't close it
Couldn't bring up the force quit dialog
Couldn't bring up activity monitor
Spotlight stopped responding
Couldn't shut down the computer.

Forced a shut down by holding down the power button.
on restart, it prompted me to open the applications I had open previously - I accidentally hit "Yes".
System ground to a halt, similar symptoms again

Forced shut down again, this time said "No"
Chrome wouldn't open at all - clicking the icon in the dock caused it to bounce once and then do nothing
I tried other browsers, Firefox said my "Firefox profile could not be opened"
I tried taking a screenshot of the error, but I didn't "have permission to save files in the location where screenshots are stored"

so took photos of the messages on the screen using my phone.

somewhere in there I got the Unapproved Caller message.
First thought was "Have I contracted a Virus? is it systematically locking me out of my own system?"

from memory, computer slowly ground to a halt again. Lost the ability to boot normally.

Booted to safemode - ran sluggish, tried to repair permissions and disk etc, said it required being booted to the recovery partition.
that all worked but I fell asleep - woke up and it had frozen with an apple on the screen and a 50% progress bar.

started freaking out that one of the harddrives might have died. Was worried that recovering data would be problematic because of the nature of the fusion setup. Primarily worried about short term. I'm able to use housemates computer for the gig, but I don't have all of the music on here yet.

Found this thread, didn't want to replace harddrive cable.
Housemate helped me get some important music stuff backing up on to an external firewire drive - and backing up some ableton projects on to our server.

Figured out how to delete var/folders after reading this thread and some of the things linked by it (and other random google searches)
Navigated to the folder in Terminal
used ls to see that the only folder inside it was called "zz"

then typed:

rm -rf zz

to delete it.

Computer has booted fine.

and so far seems fully functional. Chrome opens etc.

Thank you to the people in this thread 🙂

Follow up post:

recap.. 2011 13" macbook pro with a fusion drive setup (SSD in harddrive location and a HDD in the optical drive bay)

None of the software fixes suggested in this thread worked as permanent fixes for me.

I found that the computer would grind to a halt when I was accessing files via target disk mode with my housemates computer.

I also found that I could boot when my SSD was in an external enclosure (even though it's one half of the fusion setup - osx seems smart enough to figure it all out)

so this all seemed consistent with it being a faulty internal SATA cable as many people suggested

got a new sata cable at the Apple store - it's their policy that they have to install it and keep the old one
ended up being about $70 AUD after parts and labour - kind of pricey, but I'm just happy to have it fixed.

it's been about 2 weeks and things have been great 🙂

OK, i replaced the HD cable and BAM... solved all my issues and the performance is unbelievable, so i guess the cable was slowly going bad for a while. I even reinstalled the original HD that was "thought" to the issue and all is good.

The bottom line is - if you have a SLOW hard drive and/or UNAPPROVED CALLER pop ups, try the HD cable first before replacing the hard drive as its actually a lot less expensive. I have almost 2 weeks of messing with this stuff and spent a few hundred dollars before buying a new cable for $45.

Hope this helps others as this issue was a tuff one to troubleshoot and fix.

Thanks to EVERYONE who offered help!

Steve

🙂

Hi All,

A few months ago I started getting the unnaproved caller thing, kept popping up all the time and eventually some keychain access stuff, sometimes my mac wouldn't even boot up sometimes it would. Some files couldnt be opened but everything was behaving very randomly, at first i thought i had a virus!

I tried everything from safe booting, resetting stuff holding down multiple keys and all that jazz but nothing would work.

So eventually I gave up and tried wiping the hard drive and installing snow leopard (because I had the disk) This worked for about an hour at a time then programmes like google chrome would randomly crash and not work. I had to restart the machine and it would work again for about half an hour and so on and so on.

I read up online about it and after reading somewhere that it might be the Sata cable/ the cable from your hard drive to the mother board. I was skeptical at first. But my mac was unusable so I took the plunge, ordered the Sata Cable part from amazon, made sure that it was right for my model of mac (13inch, mid 2009, macbook pro) and after installing it I have had no issues. Its like a new machine. The only bit I would warn you about is one of the plugs that attaches the cable is very small so you must take care not to break anything when you do it. It is really easy to do though and all you need to do it is a little philips screwdriver.

Do it! If in doubt change the cable!