Activate Action Does Not Work for Starting Calibre 5

Questions & Suggestions
#1

I am using the ebook app calibre. Since I upgraded to version 5 the Activate action in the following macro does not work:

Keyboard Maestro Export.png944×394 31.5 KB

When I trigger the macro calibre's app icon briefly jumps and that's it. Plus after a few seconds I get the notification "Action timeout exceeded."/

Please note:

  1. Only starting the app fails. Switching to the already running app works as before.
  2. I have reselect the new calibre app in the action dropdown, but still when I trigger teh macro the app doesn't start up.
  3. Staring the app via Finder-doubleclick or via Alfred works flawless.

Activate calibre plain.kmmacros (1.9 KB)

Apart from the "Activate" Action, Is There Another Action to Launch an App via KeyboardMaestro?
#2

I had a look at it.
On macOS 10.15.7 Calibre 5.5.0 I get the same behaviour. Changing the ' Match by' in the selection of the application doesn't change a thing.

No error in the KM log.

In the macOS system log I get this error:
(com.apple.xpc.launchd.oneshot.0x1000004a.calibre[13223]): Service exited with abnormal code: 2

Perhaps this helps someone else with further troubleshooting.

#3

I downloaded calibre and made a macro to Activate calibre.

Worked fine.

Do you really have calibre installed at /Applications/Optional/calibre.app?

I would try re-selecting the calibre app in the dropdown next to the word "Activate" in the macro action, and see if that helps.

#4

I installed it using Homebrew. And it is installed at /Applications/calibre.app.

I did try this again:

  • reinstalled calibre using Homebrew
  • created a new macro using Activate action
  • ran the macro

The first time I ran the macro I got the message about calibre being downloaded from the internet. I choose open. And then.... nothing and the KM action time out message.

I'm not the OP and don't use calibre myself so this is just out of curiosity: why do you expect it in /Applications/Optional/ ? And does KM expect it there?

#5

I use calibre and so I had a quick look and I also suffer from the problem I initiate Calibre from the KM macro (posted above) and nothing happens for 20 seconds and then KM times out.

So I thought I'd initiate Calibre differently like this:

KM 2 2020-11-24_12-06-13

and when I now run the macro, Calibre runs properly!

I don't know why this makes a difference. Instead of Default Application you can also specify Finder (as per the action's help information) and that works for me too.

#6

That's where the macro from the first post points to.

I would expect it to be in /Applications/ and I would think Keyboard Maestro would too. If it was in /Applications/ and then was moved to another folder, that might explain why it wouldn't launch.

#7

Would that cause KM to throw an error if the app wasn’t where it should be, as opposed to just timing out? My installation of calibre is definitely in /Applications but I get this odd behaviour too.

#8

I don't think it would throw an error necessarily, but I haven't tested it. It might just quietly fail.

#9

I just tried it by renaming calibre.app to something else and then running the KM macro. KM shows a notification and there's an error in the log file.

KM 1 2020-11-24_16-26-06
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#10

Yes I do.

Good that Activate works for you - shame that it doesn't work for me.

#11

I have plenty of apps in /Applications/Optional and I can start them all with KM. I just have to select the app in the Activate menu while it is running, but then it can be launched via Activate even when it is not running

#12

Cool. Thanks. Open action is definitely a option I look into! :slight_smile:

Strange though that Activate doesn't play nicely just with calibre...

#13

I think it's probably worth checking with @peternlewis on this one, perhaps he can figure out what's going on.

#14

Some cross platform applications behave in strange ways, and it would not surprise me if Calibre was one of them.

#15

Ah, learned something new today :tada:: looking at the source of the macro can tell me more :slight_smile:
Thanks!

#16

Thanks for chiming in @peternlewis!

calibre is certainly cross-platform. But why can Alfred switch to and launch it. Does KM use a different mechanism?

#17

If it is not running, Keyboard Maestro uses:

[[NSWorkspace sharedWorkspace] launchApplicationAtURL:url options:0 configuration:@{} error:nil];

If it is running, Keyboard Maestro uses:

 SetFrontProcessWithOptions

based on the ProcessSerialNumber, which allows the option to reopen the windows or not.

#18

I downloaded it and give it a go – and have exactly the same problem.

I ended up using an Execute a Shell Script action with:

open -b net.kovidgoyal.calibre

-Chris

#19

That looks somewhat mysterious and clever to me :slightly_smiling_face:

What is that second argument to the open command?

#20

See, in Terminal.app

man open

PS for rather more legible (PDF) versions of command line manual pages, you can use:

e.g.

open.pdf.zip (69.8 KB)