Re: iCloud directory access issue on macOS Catalina

[Perry Smith <pedz@easesoftware.com>]

> On Oct 10, 2019, at 2:06 AM, Pankaj Jangid <pankaj.jangid@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> macOS is increasingly making it difficult to access directories. Even
> its own terminal required permission for CDing into icloud directories.
> 
> I am facing the same in dired. Just wanted to know if anyone has got this
> fixed. I tried to gave "Full Disk Access" to Emacs but still getting
> this error.
> 
> ```
> Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Listing directory failed but ‘access-file’ worked")
>  signal(error ("Listing directory failed but ‘access-file’ worked"))
>  error("Listing directory failed but `access-file' worked")
>  insert-directory("/Users/pankaj/Documents/" "-al" nil t)
>  dired-insert-directory("/Users/pankaj/Documents/" "-al" nil nil t)
>  dired-readin-insert()
>  dired-readin()
>  dired-internal-noselect("~/Documents/" nil)
>  dired-noselect("/Users/pankaj/Documents/" nil)
>  dired-other-window("/Users/pankaj/Documents/" nil)
>  funcall-interactively(dired-other-window "/Users/pankaj/Documents/" nil)
>  call-interactively(dired-other-window nil nil)
>  command-execute(dired-other-window)
> ```

I can confirm this.  I’m using EmacsForMacOS latest so emacs version reports:

GNU Emacs 27.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-apple-darwin18.7.0, NS appkit-1894.00 Version 10.15 (Build 19A583)) of 2019-10-10

I have my Documents and Desktop in iCloud.  I’ve never tried this before.  The issue seems specific to these two directories.

I added Emacs to the list of “Full Disk Access” which causes it to show up in “Files and Folders” and I also added it to “Developer Tools”.

The problem can be seen (I think) easier by starting M-x shell:

> pedz@MysticSlate / % cd
> cd
> pedz@MysticSlate ~ % ls
> ls
> Desktop		Downloads	Movies		Pictures	Source		d		word-search.rb
> Documents	Library		Music		Public		bin		new-gnupg
> pedz@MysticSlate ~ % ls ~/Documents
> ls ~/Documents
> ls: Documents: Operation not permitted
> pedz@MysticSlate ~ % cd Documents/
> cd Documents/
> pedz@MysticSlate Documents % ls
> ls
> ls: .: Operation not permitted
> pedz@MysticSlate Documents % pwd
> pwd
> /Users/pedz/Documents
> pedz@MysticSlate Documents % 

I piddled around a bit but never succeeded.  I discovered that all the files and directories under /Applications/Emacs.app have the com.apple.quarantine xattr so I removed that 

sudo xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Emacs.app  

… no effect

I thought perhaps it was a lineage type deal.  This version of emacs actually starts up a small ruby shell and then does an exec so the final executable running is not the original Emacs.app that the finder spawned.  You can see this below:

This is the process tree before any changes (this is done at the shell prompt inside a “*shell*” buffer inside Emacs)

> pstree -p $$
> -+= 00001 root /sbin/launchd
>  \-+= 07613 pedz /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs-x86_64-10_14
>    \-+= 07620 pedz /bin/zsh -i
>      \-+= 07624 pedz pstree -p 7620
>        \--- 07625 root ps -axwwo user,pid,ppid,pgid,command

I modified the script to not do an exec but just do a “system” and so now the process stack looks like this:

> pstree -p $$
> -+= 00001 root /sbin/launchd
>  \-+= 07655 pedz /usr/bin/ruby /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs <<<<<<<
>    \-+- 07661 pedz /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs-x86_64-10_14
>      \-+= 07663 pedz /bin/zsh -i
>        \-+= 07665 pedz pstree -p 7663
>          \--- 07666 root ps -axwwo user,pid,ppid,pgid,command

but it still does not work.

This clearly isn’t an emacs problem.  I’m going to go beat the bushes in a few other places and see if I can find a solution.

I also opened an issue on the EmacsForMacOS GitHub repository <https://github.com/caldwell/build-emacs/issues/84>

pedz