I suspect this is due to macOS Sierra (10.12) path randomization, which cannot easily be disabled, and applies to any non-cert application. Whatever the cause, no matter what I name the /Applications/Blacksmith3D-v6.2.0.0-Mac/ directory, the app still complains about not being launched from "the proper directory".

So... anyone know of any way to work around this and get Blacksmith3D v6 working on Mac 10.12?

If there is no workaround, can Mac users on Sierra (like me) either get a version that can cope with Sierra path randomization, or a cert-signed version (to avoid path randomization altogether)? Right now, while my version 5 works, I have no working version 6 at all on Mac.

Thanks!

Hello jwiede,

Only a window user, so unable to help in this specific case, sorry. Blacksmith3D should be able to help you certainly more efficiently.

Best regards,

Yeah, I can't even login to their site, because it's not accepting my account pwd, and when I give my email and use the link they send back to try and change it I always get this odd "We've detected a security breach..." error (tried multiple times now). Very annoying. Hopefully someone from Blacksmith3D eventually sees this and replies.

Hello jwiede,

I did contact the support and it seems that moving the application from the download folder creates an issue.

There is an article on it:

https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2016/06/29/sierra-and-gatekeeper-path-randomization/

Which mentions that it creates an issue with dylib files ( mac version of DLL files ), one of which B3D depends on ( it's inside the app package )

The article says that the problem will go away if the package is moved outside of the Downloads folder, but I have not personally tested it...

"Apple may not view this as an issue, given that GPR will be disabled once the user moves the application out of the Downloads folder. However, many users run applications from the Downloads folder, never moving them. This is especially common when a user is trying out an application prior to purchasing it..."

The best is to keep Blacksmith3D running from your "download folder", for the moment, i do not get much better advice. Maybe there will be an update for this in a future update.

Hope it helps,

Best regards,

Unfortunately, as I noted, the problem occurs after unarchiving (in the download directory), as well as after moving the application dir under "/Applications" (as in "/Applications/Blacksmith3D-v6.2.0.0-Mac"). I even tried a freshly-unarchived one, executing it where it was downloaded, it made no difference.

While the error dialog is up, executing "/Applications/Blacksmith3D-v6.2.0.0-Mac/Blacksmith3D" still shows signs of GPR if I look at Activity Monitor for the open files/ports, I see the following as the first two entries:

cwd

/private/var/folders/m1/lgw6t29s41ggs5j5dp7vkh6w0000gn/T/AppTranslocation/6C4469A2-6992-4962-AC18-C5AF6711FC0B/d

txt

/private/var/folders/m1/lgw6t29s41ggs5j5dp7vkh6w0000gn/T/AppTranslocation/6C4469A2-6992-4962-AC18- C5AF6711FC0B/d/Blacksmith3D.app/Contents/MacOS/Blacksmith3D

As this suggests app translocation IS still occurring even after moving to "/Applications" I have no idea what's going on, but would appreciate assistance with it.

Is there any easy way for me to test with a version prior to 6.2.0.0 to see if it might be something that recently changed in Blacksmith3D? Anyone know where any prior versions of v6 are available here or on the Blacksmith3D site? I'm guessing my license should work regardless, and as noted, my licensed v5 version is having no such problems.

AHA! Found a workaround for this issue!

If, for whatever reason, your unarchived version still has com.apple.quarantine xattrs on the dir (or executable presumably), it will cause GPR to occur regardless of whether it is located under "/Applications" or wherever. Not sure how that's possible, as Apple says GPR shouldn't occur in those cases, but clearly it CAN occur.

WORKAROUND: The way to fix the problem (after moving the directory under "/Applications", haven't tested elsewhere) is to then issue the following cmd via terminal:

> xattr -c -r /Applications/Blacksmith3D-v6.2.0.0-Mac

After issuing that cmd, and confirming all xattrs were gone (using "ls -al"), I was able to execute and register Blacksmith3D fine, and it appears to operate normally. I can't speak to the security situation of doing what I've suggested, so use at your own risk!.

Hopefully Apple and developers can work out a better way to manage GPR than the current one, which appears to behave fairly unpredictably. I'm not holding my breath, however.

thank you for letting us know about this and your work around.