Choose file not opening on mac desktop

[carolinebridge]

All choose file buttons do not work on mac JB2 desktop: clicking the button does nothing.

1. Open instance > Add a track
2. Main file > file > click "choose file"

(( not just this workflow, doing something like trying to open a local FASTA sequence doesn't work either ))

Expected behaviour: finder opens and you can select a local file to open in jbrowse 2 Actual behaviour: nothing happens (app does not freeze though)

JBrowse 2 Desktop v2.0.1, MacOS Big Sur 11.6.7

[rbuels]

Is this related to MacOS app permissions? Is there some permission for local file access that the app needs to be given?

[carolinebridge]

Very well might be -- JBrowse 2 doesn't ask for permission to access files and folders upon install, and when navigating to

Security & Privacy > files and folders

JB2 isn't an option for me to grant access...might be something we have to add to prompt the user for permission on macos

[carolinebridge]

Weirdly -- granting it Location Services fixes it. Almost certainly a MacOS permissions thing

[rbuels]

preliminary research suggests we might need to add entitlements to the mac build in jbdesktop package.json?

https://eclecticlight.co/2019/02/26/entitlements-how-apps-get-back-what-theyve-given-up/ https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Miscellaneous/Reference/EntitlementKeyReference/Chapters/AboutEntitlements.html

[cmdcolin]

I don't have a mac with a newer operating system that might have these types of permissions to test with. would any user with a mac with e.g. a newer version of the OS run into this?

Ideally, we should not need any "location services", but also, that seems like a weird reason that the "Open file" could not be used

possible xref https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/32606

[cmdcolin]

tried to reproduce this on big sur 11.5.2.

i turned off location services entirely, and jbrowse 2 was unchecked by default on the list (but was in the list), and but neither of these states of it being off caused choose file to not work

[cmdcolin]

@carolinebridge-oicr do you think this is reproducible or could it be closed?

[carolinebridge]

this has not happened to me in quite awhile, we could probably close it

[cmdcolin]

kk, if it does happen again we can re-open :)