As folks using my app transition to Sierra (MacOS 10.12), the OS is suddenly asking them for permission to access their Contacts. I have no idea why it's doing this; it doesn't do it on any previous OS.
More importantly, there's nowhere the app is accessing the contacts; in fact, I'm not loading the ABAddresssBook framework at all. I've searched the source for Address and Contact with no results. Xcode shows no "Capabilities". The only third-party framework I'm using is Sparkle. (I statically link the mp4v2 library, which knows nothing of MacOS.) FYI, this app is distributed as a signed third-party, not through the App Store. It does have some embedded command-line executables (such as ffmpeg etc), again not OS X specific.
I've tried to use the debugger to see what's triggering the notification. It shows a background thread with a block executing to get [ABAddressBook sharedAddressBook] and then launching the user request, but no indication of who launched that block.
Any suggestions on where else to look?
Here's the otool -L
library listing for the app and Sparkle.
<<App>>/Contents/MacOS/app
/usr/lib/libz.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.2.8)
/usr/lib/libc++.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 307.4.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 57740.1.18)
/System/Library/Frameworks/QTKit.framework/Versions/A/QTKit (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Versions/A/Quartz (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/Versions/A/IOKit (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 275.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/SystemConfiguration.framework/Versions/A/SystemConfiguration (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 888.1.2)
/System/Library/Frameworks/ScriptingBridge.framework/Versions/A/ScriptingBridge (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/Cocoa.framework/Versions/A/Cocoa (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 22.0.0)
@rpath/Sparkle.framework/Versions/A/Sparkle (compatibility version 1.6.0, current version 1.11.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Versions/C/Foundation (compatibility version 300.0.0, current version 1349.0.0)
/usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 228.0.0)
/usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1238.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versions/C/AppKit (compatibility version 45.0.0, current version 1500.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation (compatibility version 150.0.0, current version 1348.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Versions/A/CoreGraphics (compatibility version 64.0.0, current version 1070.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/CoreServices (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 775.7.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/QuartzCore.framework/Versions/A/QuartzCore (compatibility version 1.2.0, current version 1.11.0)
<<App>>//Contents/Frameworks/sparkle.framework/Sparkle:
@rpath/Sparkle.framework/Versions/A/Sparkle (compatibility version 1.6.0, current version 1.11.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versions/C/AppKit (compatibility version 45.0.0, current version 1391.12.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Versions/C/Foundation (compatibility version 300.0.0, current version 1229.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/Versions/A/IOKit (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 275.0.0)
/usr/lib/libbz2.1.0.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.0.5)
/usr/lib/libxar.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.3.0)
/usr/lib/libz.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.2.5)
/System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 57324.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/SystemConfiguration.framework/Versions/A/SystemConfiguration (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 800.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework/Versions/A/WebKit (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 601.1.43)
/usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 228.0.0)
/usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1225.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/ApplicationServices (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 48.0.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation (compatibility version 150.0.0, current version 1229.11.0)
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/CoreServices (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 726.4.0)
````
Turned out to be the Cocoa Lumberjack logging framework. One of the method asks for all the classes to see if they have enabled logging, and does a "class_getClassMethod" on logging. If you do this with ABAddressBook, it triggers the user request for access.