You’ve just installed an update to macOS security software, then it gives you a status of ‘Unknown’ caused by [] and stops working. What’s wrong?
LaunchAgents
While macOS uses DAS-CTS to schedule hundreds of background activities, third-parties normally use launchd. Comes with a full diagram explaining DAS-CTS.
How macOS schedules tasks like making automatic Time Machine backups, from property list to transactions between DAS and CTS.
The story of how Mac OS X went from cron, to launchd, and ended up with Duet Activity Scheduler, to schedule background activities like backups.
Many apps need helpers, usually run as LaunchAgents, LaunchDaemons or LoginItems. After introductory explanation of how these work, this explains how it changes in Ventura.
Four popular and straightforward ways to set your Mac to run an app or other software when it starts up. Includes AppleScript code.
How to set your Mac to run scripts, apps and other software automatically, and at regular intervals, using launchd and a property list.
With Mojave’s release 11 days away, its privacy protection looks even more complex, particularly when an app uses a helper tool which needs Full Disk Access.
When you want software to run automatically each time you Mac starts up, there are several ways of doing that. Here’s your choice.
Sometimes you don’t know of a silent update until an app misbehaves or crashes. One day, the innocent-looking plist tucked away in a LaunchAgents folder could be malicious.
The Eclectic Light Company 