How to purge "You can’t open the application “q.app” because it may be damaged or incomplete" status?

Question

I am trying to create a simple .app bundle. I made a mistake in the Info.plist and the finder shows it with a "barred" sign over the icon, and I get that message when I try to click over it. I fixed the error in the Info.plist, I am sure 100 % the bundle is now ok, but I still get the error message. It seems like Finder detects a broken app and caches it. How do I reset this cache? Even copying the bundle does nothing. I tried tarring and untarring it, and it works, but there must be some magic trick. I thought it was extended attributes, but xattr shows nothing.

Answer 1

Have a look at this tutorial: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10330759-263.html

My guess is the that the first solution will work: update the prebinding.

Answer 2

I had most probably a similar problem. The Info.plist file was broken (a wrong CFBundleExecutable value), and the Finder was showing the application icon with the barred sign. I edited by hand the Info.plist (just sudo nano Info.plist), and each time, I tested by right-clicking in Finder and then “show information” (or something like that). When I actually fixed the Info.plist file, it was still shown with a bar in the Finder, but was OK in the informations, and it run OK too.

My guess is that your Info.plist is still not OK, and I'd suggest editing it by hand (it's just a simple XML file) and deleting the keys one by one until you get no barred sign in the info window.

Answer 3

If you create the app by yourself, check if the entry "CFBundleExecutable" of yourappname.app/Contents/Info.plist coincides with the executable under yourappname.app/Contents/MacOS/ .

For example, if your app has name "Simple", and there is an executable Simple.app/Contents/MacOS/Simple. Then make sure in file Simple.app/Contents/Info.plist, there is an entry :

<key>CFBundleExecutable</key>
<string>Simple</string>