PopClip no longer works on macOS 27 beta 8 — worked on beta 7

PopClip
1

PopClip no longer works on macOS 27 beta 8 — worked on beta 7

Hi Nick,

PopClip has stopped working completely for me after upgrading from macOS 27 beta 7 to beta 8.

It worked normally on beta 7. Since beta 8, selecting text in any application no longer triggers PopClip. Holding Fn while selecting does not trigger it either.

I first reproduced the issue with PopClip build 6185, then upgraded to the latest beta, build 6204 (Sep 1, 2026). The behavior is exactly the same with 6204.

A few diagnostic details:

  • Both PopClip and PopClipEventMonitor are running:

/Applications/PopClip.app/Contents/MacOS/PopClip
/Applications/PopClip.app/Contents/MacOS/Helper/PopClipEventMonitor

  • macOS TCC explicitly grants both required permissions. The logs show:

service=kTCCServiceListenEvent
auth_value=2
result=true

and:

service=kTCCServiceAccessibility
auth_value=2
result=true

  • Accessibility is also enabled for PopClip in System Settings.

  • There is another symptom: the PopClip menu bar icon no longer appears, so I can’t access PopClip Settings from the menu bar.

Interestingly, PopClip’s log shows that AppKit does create the status item:

[com.apple.AppKit:StatusBar] wake status item
[com.apple.AppKit:StatusBar] create scene
Created scene … of class NSStatusItemScene
Created scene … of class NSStatusItemVariantScene

  • I also sampled PopClipEventMonitor for 5 seconds while repeatedly selecting text. The helper remains alive and appears to be normally waiting for events:

-[NSApplication(NSEventRouting) nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:]
…
mach_msg

com.apple.NSEventThread
_NSEventThread
_CFRunLoopRunSpecificWithOptions
__CFRunLoopRun
__CFRunLoopServiceMachPort
mach_msg

There is no crash and both processes remain running.

So the regression seems very specifically tied to the macOS beta 7 → beta 8 update:

macOS 27 beta 7 + PopClip 6185 → works
macOS 27 beta 8 + PopClip 6185 → does not work
macOS 27 beta 8 + PopClip 6204 → does not work

I haven’t changed the PopClip configuration between these tests.

It looks as though something may have changed in beta 8 around event monitoring / event taps, although that’s obviously just a hypothesis.

Let me know if you’d like the complete PopClip logs or the sample output from PopClipEventMonitor. I’d be happy to run any additional diagnostic build or test.

Thanks!

2

Thanks for the report, @predictiveobjects. First of all, don’t panic — I don’t think there is any serious compatibility issue. I’m testing on 26A5425a, which I believe is beta 8, and PopClip is working fine.

Have you your exact build number of macOS for me? It’s in “About This Mac”.

It could be a whole load of things (quite possibly unrelated to the beta) stopping PopClip from working, but first of all, would you mind trying a simple Mac reboot to see if that helps?

Failing that, we can get into some more detailed debugging.

EDIT: after rebooting, could you also try fully deleting and reinstalling PopClip?

3

Confirmed: my exact macOS version is 27.0 beta (26A5425a).

I rebooted the Mac as suggested, but unfortunately PopClip is still not working.

One additional observation after the reboot: I can now see the PopClip menu bar icon when my menu bar manager is disabled, but the PopClip icon itself is completely unresponsive — neither left-click nor right-click does anything.

Selecting text still does not trigger PopClip either.

Both PopClip and PopClipEventMonitor are running.

I also confirmed that my menu bar manager is not the cause: it had a separate helper issue after the reboot, which I fixed by reinstalling its helper. PopClip remains unresponsive independently of that.

So I’m on exactly the same 26A5425a build as you, but PopClip appears not to be receiving/processing interactions even on its own menu bar item.

Happy to proceed with the detailed debugging you mentioned.

4

Regarding reinstalling PopClip: I have already replaced the application several times with freshly downloaded beta builds (6185, 6204 and 6208). Since PopClip is distributed as a ZIP containing PopClip.app, I unzip it and replace the existing app in /Applications.

So the application bundle itself has already been freshly replaced several times.

If by “delete and reinstall” you mean a clean reset including PopClip’s preferences/application data, let me know exactly what you’d like me to remove. I’d prefer not to wipe my existing configuration unnecessarily.

5

Thank you. Replacing the zip is all I meant. There should be no need to reset prefs and data.

Initial thoughts:

  • What menu bar manager app do you use?

  • If you quit/disable the menu bar manager app (so that PopClip is running unmolested with a pristine menu bar rather than a managed one) does it make any difference to PopClip?

I know you said it’s not the menu bar manager app, but can we make double sure? I know macOS 27 has made big changes for menu bars and it’s been giving menu bar manager apps a lot of trouble.

6

Yes, absolutely — I agree it’s worth double-checking.

The menu bar manager I use is Barbee (currently the TestFlight beta).

I have now tested with Barbee completely quit, so PopClip is running with the native, unmanaged macOS menu bar.

In that state:

  • the PopClip icon does appear in the menu bar;
  • however, the icon is completely unresponsive — neither left-click nor right-click does anything;
  • selecting text still does not trigger PopClip;
  • both PopClip and PopClipEventMonitor remain running.

So Barbee affects whether I can see the PopClip icon, but with Barbee completely out of the picture, PopClip itself is still unresponsive.

For clarity, I am currently back on PopClip Build 6204. I briefly tested Build 6208 when it appeared today, with the same result, but I noticed that 6208 has since been withdrawn from the beta page, so all further debugging is on 6204.

I’m on macOS 27.0 beta, build 26A5425a.

There is one potentially useful additional finding.

CleanMyMac detected PopClip as an unresponsive application and offered to force-quit it. So while PopClip was in this unresponsive state, I sampled the main PopClip process for 5 seconds.

The main thread was inside PopClip code for essentially the entire sample, calling:

+[NSThread sleepForTimeInterval:]
nanosleep
__semwait_signal

4000 of 4003 samples were in sleepForTimeInterval, and 3994 were in __semwait_signal.

Immediately adjacent in the sampled code I also see:

-[NSConcreteTask isRunning]

So it looks possible that the PopClip main thread is synchronously waiting/polling for an NSTask/Process to finish.

The PopClipEventMonitor process, by comparison, appears healthy and normally waiting in its AppKit event loop.

For Build 6204, the PopClip load address in this sample is:

0x102864000

The relevant unsymbolicated PopClip offsets immediately before the sleep are:

0x1875d0
0x187450
0x187324
0x186e34
0x1870c8

I have the complete sample output if useful.

Regarding reinstalling, I have also already replaced PopClip.app several times with freshly downloaded ZIP versions, which I understand from your reply is exactly the reinstall procedure you meant. I have not reset preferences or application data.

I’ll keep Barbee completely quit while debugging PopClip.

Happy to run whatever diagnostic you suggest next.

7

Yes, if you have the actual output log from that sample, could you email it to me? Should be useful: support@pilotmoon.com

8

Email sent

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9

Thank you. I’m looking into it. I think I know roughly what the problem is, but it will take me a little while longer to fully diagnose.

10

The sample pinpointed the hang. PopClip is waiting on a helper process (your login shell) that never finishes, and it retries on every launch, which is why it keeps happening. I’d like to find out why that process gets stuck on your system. Could you help with the following?

While PopClip is hung (any time after launching it):

  1. In Terminal, run:

    sudo spindump -o ~/Desktop/popclip-spin.txt

    and send me the popclip-spin.txt file from your Desktop.

  2. Also run these and send the output:

    echo $SHELL
time $SHELL -l -c "which cat"

    (If the second command doesn’t finish within a few seconds, press Ctrl-C and
    let me know.)

11

Sent by email as the file is quite big…

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12

New beta release (6220) fixed the issue.
Everything works fine.
Thank you for your fast and efficient support :wink:

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