Packaging with Composer

[mconners]

Hello Folks,

I know there are a number of people who don't use Composer. I still do and for the most part, it has been a very reliable tool for me.

Today, I attempted to package a newer version of a program we use here at the college. I haven't packaged anything from Composer in a number of weeks, perhaps a couple of months. So perhaps this has been broken for a while?

I have packaging with Composer for well over 5 years now so this isn't anything new for me.

Anyhow, I have done the first snapshot. I installed the software, set the settings, disabled autoupdates and the like. Run the second snapshot. Composer window opens.

At this point, I am trying to clean out unnecessary stuff in the snapshot, something I have done hundreds if not thousands of times before. When I find a file or folder in the Composer window I don't want, I cannot delete it. I choose to delete the items and the dialog window opens asking if I really want to delete it. I click on Delete and nothing happens.

I click on cancel, nothing happens. I try and click on quit, nothing happens. Composer is not responding to anything, yet appears to be active. The only thing I can do is force quit.

Anyone else seeing this and if you have seen it, how are you getting around this? This is crazy. I have a ticket with Jamf opened, but so far, we can't find a way for this to work for me.

I even went so far to grab a new iMac from a box, set it up, NOT plugged into the network and the same thing. Thoughts and advice would be most welcome.

[tsd25108]

There was a thread a few days ago that mentioned it started happening with the 10.2 version of JAMF pro. I didn't package anything with Composer before the 10.2.1 release came out, but I can confirm that the 10.2.1 release of Composer let me delete some files yesterday when packaging Chrome.

[scottb]

I have not had any issues either (10.0, 10.1.1, 10.2.0, 10.2.1).
I always try to match the app version to JSS, so maybe check that? I think things are far from sorted out with 10.x.x

[mm2270]

Still on 9.98 here, and I have never seen this problem. Nothing changed in regards to permissions of your root Library folder did they? The reason I ask is because the Composer sources are all stored in /Library/Application Support/JAMF/Composer/Sources/

Some more questions - does this issue persist through reboots or logouts/logins? If so, can you create a new local account on your Mac, fire up Composer and run through the same process, and see if that new account can delete items from the snapshot? You might be able to narrow it down to a permissions issue or some other problem with your account.

If worse comes to worse, try highlighting the item(s) you want to delete and right/control clicking on it and choosing Reveal <item> in Finder. It should open a Finder window that has those items in it. See if you can delete them from there (this is only the Composer source, so, copied items, not the original items) Then quit/relaunch Composer and see if the items are now gone. They should be since it reads the sources back on launch.

[mconners]

Thank you all for your ideas here. I have a call with Jamf today to web ex in and see what is happening. Strange thing is, regardless of local account or a different Mac, all of the items mentioned above still don't resolve it. I have even tried 10.2.1 Composer. Nothing solves this.

[mconners]

An update:

There is an apparent product issue with Composer. I have reverted back to 9.101 and all is well. The product issue is: PI-005356

[mm2270]

@mconners This is a product issue with the 10.2.1 version of Composer?

[mconners]

To be honest @mm2270 I am not certain of that. When working with Jamf support, they alerted me to this fact. In my case, reverting back to the older Composer version worked great. I know in both versions I was working with, 10.2 and 10.2.1, this was still an issue.

[scottb]

Odd. What OS is the Mac running that you're using Composer on?

[djdavetrouble]

I just started using the previous version of composer. but yeah another one experiencing the same behavior. I figured it was reported already.

[mm2270]

Yeah, from what I can tell, it looks like the issue was introduced in 10.2 and persists in 10.2.1. Hoping Jamf addresses it whatever the next release will be. The saving grace is because Composer is standalone and not tied to your Jamf Pro instance, it's ok to use older versions of it.