Temporary-Exception for Apple Events stopped working in macOS Sierra

Question

community,

I need some advice about macOS sandboxed app. I've already spent couple of days fighting this issue, and so far no result. I suspect that my case will not work anymore in further macOS updates.

What my app does: My app takes a list of Evernote notes from Evernote.app directly through a Scripting Bridge, then it encrypts those notes, and then uploads them back.

The problem:

I cannot write attachment data to my app sandboxed folder since Sierra update.

Entitlement file of my app is like this:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>com.apple.security.temporary-exception.apple-events</key>
	<string>com.evernote.Evernote</string>
	<key>com.apple.security.app-sandbox</key>
	<true/>
</dict>
</plist>

I am using a scripting bridge to work with Evernote app from my sandboxed app:

EvernoteApplication *evernote  = [SBApplication applicationWithBundleIdentifier:@"com.evernote.Evernote"];

Then I take a list of notes in a local notebook:

return [evernote findNotes:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"notebook:\"%@\"",notebookName]];

Then I go through the returned array of notes saving each of them attachments to NSTemporaryDirectory() + filename.

[notes enumerateObjectsUsingBlock:^(id  _Nonnull obj, NSUInteger idx, BOOL * _Nonnull stop) {

    EvernoteNote *note = obj;

    NSArray *localURLs = [self saveLocalAttachments:note.attachments];

    [localURLs enumerateObjectsUsingBlock:^(id  _Nonnull obj, NSUInteger idx, BOOL * _Nonnull stop) {

        NSURL *localURL = obj;
        NSLog(@"URL for resource: %@", [localURL absoluteString]);

    }];

}];

Function to save files is like this:

-(NSArray *)saveLocalAttachments:(NSArray *)attachments {

NSLog(@"Started converting resources to files: Total attachments:%lu",[attachments count]);

//


NSMutableArray *resourcesURLs = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:[attachments count]];

[attachments enumerateObjectsUsingBlock:^(EvernoteAttachment * _Nonnull obj, NSUInteger idx, BOOL * _Nonnull stop) {



    EvernoteAttachment *attach = obj;

    //First we write data to local file (inside our sandbox)

    NSString *filename = [attach.filename get];



    NSURL *localURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:[NSTemporaryDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:filename]];

    NSLog(@"Local URL is:%@",[localURL absoluteString]);


    @try {

        [attach writeTo:localURL];

    } @catch (NSException *exception) {

        NSLog(@"Exception writing to local file. Exception: %@",exception);

        //[self showAlertWithTitle:@"Writing Data" andMessage:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"Exception in writing temporary data. Exception name: %@, \n description: %@",exception.name, exception.description] andStyle:NSCriticalAlertStyle];
    }


    //NSLog(@"Attachment saved to: %@",[localURL absoluteString]);
    //adding url to the array
    @try {
        [resourcesURLs addObject:localURL];
    }
    @catch (NSException *exception) {

        NSLog(@"Exception adding URL to array of resourceURLs:%@",exception);

        //[self showAlertWithTitle:@"Resource URL" andMessage:exception.description andStyle:NSCriticalAlertStyle];

    }



}];


return resourcesURLs;

}

Function [attach writeTo:(URL)] gives me an error in console log:

SandboxViolation: Evernote(20296) deny file-write-create /private/var/folders/h8/1q71ktcd6fv_rbcd9ygkv6c80000gn/T/com.test.TestEvernoteBridge/example.pdf
Violation:       deny file-write-create /private/var/folders/h8/1q71ktcd6fv_rbcd9ygkv6c80000gn/T/com.test.TestEvernoteBridge/example.pdf
Process:         Evernote [20296]

What I've tried: - tested on El Capitan - everything is fine. - tried changing the entitlement file tags from string to array and adding there an exception of com.evernote.Evernote. - tried adding scripting entitlement - Evernote sdef doesn't support it. - create new project from scratch to test any update bugs - all the same. - removed the sandbox entitlement - the issue stays. - remove security exception - I don't get a list of notes (which is correct behaviour). - tried to allow to write to Downloads folder by adding another exception - the issue stays.

I can't figure out why it is not working and how can I get Evernote note attachment data. I suppose it is related to some mechanics of protecting sandboxed app NSTemporaryDirectory. I am doing something incorrectly here, and i need some advice.

Here is the test project - Test Project

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Apple gave an answer to my bug report - literally: "Duplicate of 29717097 (Closed)".

I don't see 29717097 report (SW release with correction) but it is still not working.

---UPDATE 08.04.2017 ----

Recent macOS Sierra 10.12.4 update solved the problem.