Mojave: The application “Sourcetree” can’t be opened.

Michael Rarela

Oddly,  SourceTree wasn't autoupdating wasn't working from my pervious version v2.*.

So I deleted it, downloaded a fresh copy and tried to open it.  But I received the message: "The application “Sourcetree” can’t be opened."  This keeps happening now for every version I download and unzip.

This happens for these versions (from here https://www.sourcetreeapp.com/download-archives):

• Sourcetree_3.2.1_225.zip
• Sourcetree_2.7.6a.zip
• Sourcetree_4.0_229.zip

I'm using macOS Mojave (v10.14.6)

Help!

Things I've tried:

• Starting in macOS Safe Mode -- I couldn't start SourceTree
• Various versions of SourceTree -- I couldn't start SourceTree
• Toyed around with adding SourceTree in Security & Privacy in both:
  •  Full Disk Access
  • Accessibility

 

Nothing is working so far.

 

Daniel Eads

Hi Michael,

Sorry to hear you're having problems getting an updated version of Sourcetree running. Firstly, let's get you the most recent build (232). It sounds like the archive page is still giving you a slightly older build (229), but you can tweak the URL to get the newest version. You can download that version directly from the following link:
https://product-downloads.atlassian.com/software/sourcetree/ga/Sourcetree_4.0_232.zip

One thing that can cause problems opening applications like Sourcetree is MacOS's Gatekeeper. Typically one would see an error message like "Sourcetree can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer". The fix for this is right-clicking the Sourcetree app and selecting Open from the context menu. An option to continue will be available (vs double-clicking, where it won't be available).

Given your screenshot though, I'm led to believe the error you're seeing is from the executable bit being stripped from the application. It's unclear what causes this to happen, but it's a common enough error across MacOS applications. To test for this, you'll want to open Terminal and run ls -la in the application's MacOS directory to see what bits are set on the binary. The exact path you'll want to test is:

Sourcetree.app/Contents/MacOS

By navigating your terminal to wherever the Sourcetree app is housed, you can do the check quickly by copying and pasting this command:

ls -la Sourcetree.app/Contents/MacOS

Here's an example of what you want to see:

I've pointed out the executable bit on the Sourcetree binary. If there's no 'x' here, the file doesn't have permission to run and we'll know that this is the cause of Sourcetree not starting. To solve, we'll need to add the execute bit to the binary:

chmod +x Sourcetree.app/Contents/MacOS/Sourcetree

After that, try opening Sourcetree again by right-clicking the app and selecting "Open" (just in case Gatekeeper decides to kick in).

Cheers,
Daniel