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mlavine's avatar
mlavine
Helpful | Level 5
8 years ago
Solved

BUG - Dropbox unnecessarily prompting user to Allow System Extension while Whitelisted - macOS

Starting with macOS 10.13.2, Apple gave MDM administrators the ability to automatically whitelist any desired Kernel Extensions so that the user would not be prompted to allow the extension manually....
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security
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  • Walter's avatar
    Walter
    8 years ago

    Thanks for the additional information mlavine - I appreciate your elaborate explanation and clarifications on this. 

     

    I have passed all of your comments to the agent handling your case in order to get to the bottom of this in a timely fashion. Please get back to them with any information you think might help our investigation.

     

    Thank you.

Walter's avatar
Walter
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
8 years ago

Hey there mlavine - how are you today?

 

Are you by any chance using a graphics tablet or 3rd party mouse to perform these actions in the first place? 

 

Here's some additional information I was able to find about this behavior - you can always have a look in the original thread for more context and also take a look at this thread from the Apple's support forum for more information about your Mac devices' kernel extensions.

 
Apple blocks certain GUI inputs from successfully clicking the approve button in System Preferences and there is no feedback to the user about why the approval fails. The two situations that this happens are:
 
1. If the end user clicking the approve button is using remote management software like VNC or TeamViewer to access the system and perform the approval operation.
 
2. If a third party pointing device driver -- like Logitech or Wacom -- is installed. 
 

In order to resolve your issue now, all you need to do is to follow these steps: 

 
1. Restart your computer, holding down command+R to enter Recovery Mode
2. Open your Terminal app (Located at /Applications/Utilities/Terminal)
3. Copy and paste the following line into the Terminal. 
 
spctl kext-consent add G7HH3F8CAK
 
4. After this you can restart the machine, and let it load as normal. Once restarted, you can re-install Dropbox again. When Dropbox has finished installing, while it will not prompt you again to install Smart Sync, the required components will now be present on your machine.
 
I hope this helps everyone affected in the same way as you mlavine and please let us know if this worked out for you. Cheers!
mlavine's avatar
mlavine
Helpful | Level 5
8 years ago

Hi Walt3R,

 

Thanks for your reply. This issue is unrelated to using third-party drivers, although I am aware of the various security-based changes to macOS that would prompt you would to bring that up.

 

The issue is not that the user cannot approve the Dropbox Kernel Extension. The issue is that the extension is already approved via Configuration Profile and Dropbox does not notice. Because of this, Dropbox still prompts the user to manually allow the kernel extension by opening System Preferences and clicking "Allow" so that the extension so that Smart Sync can be used. This is something the user will never be able to do because the extension has already been allowed and therefore needs no approval to run, thus never shows up in System Preferences.

 

This causes a lot of confusion among users because Dropbox is prompting them to do something that cannot be done. The only way to get out of this impossible situation is to cancel out of setting up Smart Sync (thus enabling normal syncing and causing the app to start downloading everything) and then going into the Dropbox app settings and enabling Smart Sync there.

  • Walter's avatar
    Walter
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    8 years ago

    Thanks for the additional information mlavine - I appreciate your elaborate explanation and clarifications on this. 

     

    I have passed all of your comments to the agent handling your case in order to get to the bottom of this in a timely fashion. Please get back to them with any information you think might help our investigation.

     

    Thank you.

    • Alec V.1's avatar
      Alec V.1
      New member | Level 2
      7 years ago

      This is still an issue. In order to get past the dialog box to allow, I had to delete the Dropbox permissions in Accessibility.

      • amartin253's avatar
        amartin253
        New member | Level 2
        7 years ago
        I'm glad I'm not the only one. I was wondering if this was the case. Any idea on this Dropbox support?

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