Mac OS X 'LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -10810 for the file ...'

BRIEF:



LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -10810 for the file ...

can be caused by trying to open a script

that itself calls /usr/bin/open

I.e. MacOS /use/bin/open is not trivially reentrant.

DETAIL

Alvin Alexander provided some clues to this MacOS error:

Mac OS X 'LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error' | alvinalexander.com



I had a slightly different cause of

LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -10810 for the file ...



I have some shell scripts that call "open SOME-MAC-APP",

where open = /usr/bin/open

$ bash 1349 $>  open -h
Usage: open [-e] [-t] [-f] [-W] [-R] [-n] [-g] [-h] [-b <bundle identifier>] [-a <application>] [filenames] [--args arguments]
Help: Open opens files from a shell.
      By default, opens each file using the default application for that file.
      If the file is in the form of a URL, the file will be opened as a URL.
Options:
      -a                Opens with the specified application.
      -b                Opens with the specified application bundle identifier.
      -e                Opens with TextEdit.
      -t                Opens with default text editor.
      -f                Reads input from standard input and opens with TextEdit.
      -F  --fresh       Launches the app fresh, that is, without restoring windows. Saved persistent state is lost, excluding Untitled documents.
      -R, --reveal      Selects in the Finder instead of opening.
      -W, --wait-apps   Blocks until the used applications are closed (even if they were already running).
          --args        All remaining arguments are passed in argv to the application's main() function instead of opened.
      -n, --new         Open a new instance of the application even if one is already running.
      -j, --hide        Launches the app hidden.
      -g, --background  Does not bring the application to the foreground.
      -h, --header      Searches header file locations for headers matching the given filenames, and opens them.

such as "open /Applications/p4v.app".





Trying to make a shell script that calls open

into an app that can itself be called via open seems to be not supported

- i.e. open is not reentrant, and least not trivially.



It is this "open within an open" that was causing

LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -10810 for the file ...

I have two scripts, p4v (which calls "open /Applications/p4v.app), and p4v-ag (which executes the executable with that app)

$ bash 1258 $>  diff p4v p4v-ag
16c16
< P4_EXECUTABLE=/Applications/p4v.app
---
> P4_EXECUTABLE=/Applications/p4v.app/Contents/MacOS/p4v
18c18
< open "$P4_EXECUTABLE" $@
---
> "$P4_EXECUTABLE" $@

 The p4v-ag script (the other can be inferred)

$ bash 1259 $>  cat p4v-ag
#!/bin/sh
# Simple script to run Perforce (P4) commands on macos
export P4CONFIG=.p4config
P4_EXECUTABLE=/Applications/p4v.app/Contents/MacOS/p4v
"$P4_EXECUTABLE" $@

I make both of these shell scripts into MacOS apps

$ bash 1261 $>  macos-appify p4v
/Users/glew/bin/p4v.app
$ bash 1262 $>  macos-appify p4v-ag
/Users/glew/bin/p4v-ag.app

Running the open with open gives the error:

$ bash 1263 $>  open ./p4v.app
LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -10810 for the file /Users/glew/bin/p4v.app.
✗ 

Running the other does not.

$ bash 1264 $>  open ./p4v-ag.app
✓