Prohibited app message coming up at login

[rtrouton]

I'm running into an issue with my Casper 8.1 install, with a prohibited app message.

The setup:

We don't want to have our folks using the Mac App Store, but we don't want to kill it on startup. Instead we want it to pop-up a message saying (essentially) "Don't use the App Store. Buy your work software using our regular channels."

The problem:

We're seeing the message popping up at login when the Mac App Store isn't running. We don't want that. We've also had the message pop up a couple of times at random. We don't want that either.

Has anyone seen this (or something similar) and know what the fix is?

Thanks,
Rich

---
Rich Trouton
troutonr at janelia.hhmi.org

JFRC Help Desk
phone: x4030
email: helpdesk at janelia.hhmi.org

The best way to get in touch with me is through email.

[bentoms]

Are the users you're logging in as admins/root?

Regards,

Ben.

[Bukira]

What kinda message? How are u blocking the app store? Mcx? OD?

Criss Myers

[Bukira]

Which apps is it saying are prohibited at login?

Criss Myers

[rtrouton]

Yes, they're logging in as admins. All of our users have admin rights.

Thanks,
Rich

[bentoms]

When we were blocking app store via casper's restricted apps we found the messages popped up with local admin accounts only.

All our users were ad & they didn't get the message.. Even when admins.

Are all the users your seeing this message local?

Regards,

Ben.

[rtrouton]

Ours are AD mobile users. Right now, only our help desk is using Casper (pilot group before general rollout) and my boss is asking about the message.

Thanks,
Rich

[bentoms]

Sorry to say but I never looked into it any further as only seemed to affect local accounts.

Maybe support will know?

But does the message appear for any non-admin when loggin in? I think the app store.app must run at login for admin users. Maybe to check for updates? (really not sure).

There may be an associated launch agent/deamon you can edit to fix it.

Regards,

Ben.

[taugust04]

Hi Rich,

I don't have the App Store blocked (yet), but I would suspect that these LaunchAgents may be causing some of your problem:

/S/L/LaunchAgents/com.apple.store_helper.plist
/S/L/LaunchAgents/com.apple.storeagent.plist

These point to executables in the following private framework:

/S/L/PrivateFrameworks/CommerceKit.framwework

I suspect that periodically these agents launch apps in the background, perhaps to check for updates? Again, nothing solid, but perhaps it will lead you down the right path. It's been interesting learning where all the bits and pieces of the Mac App Store are located on the system.

Good luck,

-- Ted August