Application Enhancer
 

This thread is spawned by this one. Being pretty much your average end-user I have always been suspicious of third party hacks, particularly when their documentation says something like And I didn't feel the need for the usually cosmetic uses to which the APE was put. But then Rogue Amoeba (yay!) employed APE's leverage into Audio Hijack Pro, and I couldn't say no.

Would anyone care to comment more generally on the Application Enhancer module? I have no problem in temporarily disabling the module for disk/directory restoration with DiskWarrior (as the aforementioned thread concluded); but what other problems might I get into? I love AH Pro, but is it worth it? And more specifically, I note that the APE has unbidden "enhanced" the following on my machine: Dock, Finder, System Events, System Preferences, SystemUIServer, and the system's SecurityAgent. Can/should I exclude any of these? I know there are other apps with functionality similar to AH Pro, but I am really impressed with it in particular.

The trouble with APE - I suspect - is that the problems it causes are very difficult to trace back to APE or any particular haxie. My own advice is to avoid these if possible, at least those that modify a lot of running programmes. I use Clear Dock and Dock Detox (which only mod the dock) and WindowShade. I previously used Xounds and FruitMenu but have since removed both of them. And while I wouldn't be able to swear that they screwed up my system it's certainly been a lot more stable since I got rid of them.

The other thing I'd recommend is to use the built-in exclude function whenever possible. For example, WindowShade loads for a whole load of apps for which it's no use - Security Agent, ScreenSaverEngine, System Events, SystemUIServer, anything running as a menubar item, anything running as a desktop item - in short, anything that loads. Given that it messes with the memory space for running apps using the exclude function for those apps that don't require a particular haxie probably makes some sense.

selective use
 

If wanted to use APE for a specific purpose, I would write scripts that would start and stop the 'aped' daemon as needed so that it wouldn't be running all the time.

I.e., I would start it up whenever I wanted to use Audio Hijack Pro, then stop it when I was finished. That way I could be sure that my system stability wouldn't be compromised except during my "recording sessions". And I would probably write to the developers of Audio Hijack Pro to request that they build this capability into their program.

Re: selective use
 

Are we sure it's the aped daemon that causes the problems? I would have thought, in this instance, that the daemon wouldn't be doing much of anything unless an app is 'enhanced'; i.e. it's the app itself that is compromised by the particular haxie in use. Excluding all but the relevant app would be the same as stopping the daemon - wouldn't it?

Re: Re: selective use
 

No.
But I am (relatively) sure of the converse - that if the daemon is not running, then my system will be unaffected by having installed APE. If I wanted to be more sure, I would install and uninstall APE before and after running the application which needed it.

P.S. I have not installed APE, nor am I likely to install it, or any other application that has an opaque installer - i.e. one that just says "give me your admin password and I'll stick my files where I feel like it". As a minimum, I want to be able to inspect the package contents to see what gets installed before I run it. The APE installer does not appear to use the standard pkg - it has everything bundled up inside an opaque executable.

Re: Re: Re: selective use
 

But isn't that akin to saying that you're fairly sure that you also wouldn't have any problems if you left your machine turned off; i.e. all that the daemon does, as I understand it, is provide the means whereby the various haxies can infiltrate the various apps they enhance. On its own I don't think it does all that much.

Re: Re: Re: Re: selective use
 

No.
With my machine turned off, it is not too useful.
Turned on, with only Apple-supplied system-level software, it is very useful and does everything I want.

If I needed some capability that could only be obtained by running some third-party mod, I would install it. But I would do that with the realization that I was complicating my system and therefore might be introducing instabilities.

By having the APE software running at times when you don't need it, you are relying on it doing what it is supposed to do (i.e. not having bugs). I would prefer to minimize the risk - especially if I only needed the APE software occasionally, for a specific purpose.

Similarly, I don't keep the ftp or http servers running all the time on my iBook. Same for Windows file sharing. I click the buttons in Software Preferences to turn them on and off as needed since I only use these things occasionally.

Note that I would be far more comfortable with the use of the APE software if it was open source, or even better documented, so we would know *exactly* what it is doing.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: selective use
 

According to this old thread (the first post by slava):
In other words, if you have APE installed but no haxies nothing will be modified. But you're right, the aped process itself could be buggy enough to cause problems in its own right.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: selective use
 

Perhaps this would give you the info you need:

http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/ape/sdk/

By the way, I haven't looked at this as it wouldn't mean anything to me.

Re: Re: Re: selective use
 

No, it doesn't use the standard installer but each installer is quite specific about what gets installed where. The first 'page' of the Xounds installer, for example, includes:

To uninstall, either:
1) Double-click the "Xounds Installer" icon and click on "Uninstall" button (the installer will move all Xounds files to Trash - it never will delete any actual files on your system).
2) Remove the file named "Xounds.prefPane" from the Library/PreferencePanes folder in your home directory and the file "Xounds.ape" from the Library/Application Enhancers folder in your home directory.

documentation/transparency
 

I had already downloaded the SDK from Unsanity in the hope that it might include documentation explaining exactly what the APE software does. It does not include such documentation. The best indication of how all this works can only be obtained via a web search which turns up some archived discussions of th eoriginal version of this hack (presented at a Machack conference) and its evolution. Not sufficient.

The installers for the individual "enhancements" only document what they install. They don't talk about what is installed by the APE software. It is the latter that I'm interested in. I would like to know what files the APE software installs and where. I would like to know how this software is "hooked up" to the system. I.e. how is the 'aped' started - is it installed as a system startup item?
Someone who has already installed the APE software could likely tell us all this. But it ought to be documented by Unsanity and as far as I can see, it isn't.

Re: documentation/transparency
 

aped resides here:

/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationEnhancer.framework/Versions/A/Resources/aped

I can't find any other references to it elsewhere.

OK - I'll eat my words - all of them :(

I just tried to start Locator to try and find any other references to APE, and it crashed on launch. After trying it a few times I decided to log out. I got to the login screen, selected my account, entered my password, waited, then got dumped back to the login screen. This happened a few times before I gave up and rebooted. The system log reports the following (i.e. lots of references to 'aped':

Hayne, can you translate the penultimate two entries, i.e.

aped[159]: CoreProcessServer init failed: 268435459
Aug 6 01:02:55 djn1 crashdump: getpwuid("925900905") failed

error messages
 

The first of these error messages seems to come from the APE daemon (aped) which apparently was process # 159. It seems to be saying that one of its components (CoreProcessServer) failed to start up.

The second error message seems to come from the /usr/libexec/crashdump program and says that the system call that is used to find out information about a user (getpwuid) failed when called with user-id 925900905. Since that doesn't look like a likely user-id, it is likely indicative of some previous problem having screwed up the crashdump program.

You could check that "CoreProcessServer" is something referred to by the APE daemon by doing the following commands in Terminal to look at the strings contained in the 'aped' executable:
(I broke it up into a series of 'cd' commands so that each line would be shorter)

cd /Library/Frameworks
cd ApplicationEnhancer.framework
cd Versions/A/Resources
strings aped | grep CoreProcessServer

bust
 

$ strings /Library/Frameworks/ApplicationEnhancer.framework/Versions/A/Resources/aped

__dyld_mod_term_funcs
__dyld_make_delayed_module_initializer_calls
The kernel support for the dynamic linker is not present to run this program.

$

Re: error messages
 

For the time being I've ditched all that's unsane. Having spent weeks getting my system straight, and paring down the unsanity hacks to what I considered a minimum, I've decided that I've had enough of troublesome instabilities and thus have binned the lot of them. Thanks for letting me know what the errors meant though.

Re: Re: error messages
 

Good man. You don't need that extra nonsense. :)

Alas, So I have installed it so I can use iChat with my usb webcam.:( No problems (yet?) fingers crossed.

My situation is akin to Douglas Stetner's in that there is one application requiring APE that I really really want to use. The APE Manager in System Preferences lists as "Enhanced Applications" the following:
Dock, Finder, System Events, System Preferences, SystemUIServer, and the system's SecurityAgent.
Wonder which ones I can exclude prophylactically in the APE Manager without compromising AH Pro's functionality?

Re: documentation/transparency
 

aped is spawned via a prefpane installed globally.

---

more generally, i agree that the aped installer should be a standard package so you can look at it in Pacifist.

but...

in anything you install with your admin password, there must be a level of trust in the developer. even if you know where everything is going, unless you examine every line of code, you are dependent on the developer being non-malicious, and non-stupid.

i recently installed PGP, which installs a kernel extension. i let it do this, because i have a level of trust in the developer.

the same goes for APE. if you have any interest/need to run hacks that modify system calls, the APE system seems like a pretty rational way to go about it. better APE than running 2 or 3 different hacks that all have a different philosophy in how to mod the system.

and as noted many times before, seeing APE in crash logs doesn't necessarily mean anything. because APE loads into every application's space, if that app crashes, the APE threads will show up in the log.

of course there is wisdom in not messing with APE at all, but some of us want/need the hacks. and it seems reasonably stable on my machine. YMMV.

Well if you know what files are installed where, you can at least remove them if you have problems and have confidence that all the bits have gone.

Re: Re: Re: error messages
 

No, but I wanted the extra nonesense :(

Re: Re: Re: Re: error messages
 

i'm guessing the crash is non-repeatable? if so, you have a value judgment to make.

i run 7 APE modules, and my machine crashes at a rate of about 4 -6 times per year. i'm assuming at least some of those crashes relate to APE. pehaps all of them do. depends on whether a non-APE machine would never crash or not.

for me, i'd rather have APE, and that level of rare crashing, than to do without their functionality. they make me a happier computer user, and they save me more time than i lose through the crashing.

YMMV.

---

also, the scuttlebutt is that the CM portions of FruitMenu are the buggy parts. i turned off the contextual menu option in the prefs, and it works happily on my system.

and since you have a nicely appropriate log, you should send your bug report and log to slava at urgent@unsanity.com

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: error messages
 

My machine has been crashing (in one way or another) every couple of days - which isn't acceptable. I suspect that there's an interaction between the unsanity stuff I had running and various other mods and hacks I have installed. I'll see how I get on in their absence for a while and either things will improve (which will confirm my suspicions), or they wont - in which case I'll need to look elsewhere.

And thanks for the unsanity email address - I posted the log.

Writing Unsanity about APE is fruitless. I started contacting them about APE over a year ago. I couldn't understand why my machine was crashing on a regular basis daily. And other anomalies. I disabled all APE, and my system has been smooth as glass ever since (for over a year). Unsanity REFUSES toa dmit or take any responsibility for APE causing problems. For me - the results speake louder than words. NO APE FOR ME... EVER!!!

Danger will Robison Danger!
 

Danger will Robison Danger!

---------------------------------------

Only would play with this and other #$@#@! on a cloned copy of system.

Well, I've cleared my system of it (and also stripped out a few other 3rd party kernel extensions that I can probably live without) and will see how I get on. My record uptime in the last six months is seven days without a crash ... and that was an anomaly - a more usual scenario involved a reboot every couple of days or so.

slava seems like a good guy to me. he certainly claims to read his mail.

and he was willing to come and do some reasonably detailed posts in a thread on this site.

---

it's worth noting that i have the opposite experience from you with stability using APE.

i think the final word on APE is "YMMV".

When I first started to use APE with Puma, it was horrible. I had some bizarre problems, ended up removing it all and staying away from it.

Once I upgraded to Jaguar, I looked into APE again which had by that time gone through several releases.

I now run between five and seven APE hacks and they work flawlessly. I have had not one single problem.

--

That all said, I'm very careful with them. When Panther arrives for the masses, be sure I'll uninstall all of it and do research before even trying to bring it all back.

Jacques

I had to take APE in order to use the MightyMouse haxie and I haven't had any problems with it (yet). I now have many beautiful cursors at my command to replace the too small, boring, white arrow that came with this great iMac. I've been wanting to download Xounds, but, have read a number of threads where people state that Xounds caused problems and they had to uninstall it. Oh, well; I'll just keep my pulsing, red cursors and settle for the silence of the iMac.

I run fruitmenu and cleardock on an iMac, two G4 desktops, an ibook, and a G4 powerbook, and I have never had a system crash.

On my G3 ibook I do notice that the graphics card slows way down if APE is activated, but on the faster machines there is no obvious effect.

About a year ago I discovered it was incompatable with OroborOSX, which I no longer use, but checking the exclude box was enough to avoid that problem.

I still have no idea why you need to have APE to make the stupid dock background clear, and I am unconvinced that fruitmenu's basic functionality requires APE. It seems to me, if memory serves, that fruitmenu used to work without the APE.

It would be nice if they offered APE-less versions, even if they had more limited functionality. All I really need with fruitmenu is the Apple pulldown menu, and I really only need it in the finder.

Have a look at the third post from the bottom in this thread. One of Unsanity's developers explains the rationale behind developing APE rather that individual daemons to accompany each haxie.

After reading the responses from Slava and realizing they make the SDK available for inspection and use for free, I have to say I am fairly impressed with Unsanity's position and their explanation of the need for APE. They earned their $7 from me. Could you imagine Microsoft addressing any of the numerous problems with Office X with this sort of candor?

The things I use are convenient, but if problems develop, I can always delete APE or as slava points out, just

Log in while holding down the shift key


My only gripe is that they do not post this trouble-shooting information on their website in any place that I have managed to find.

I find it necessary to point out that "Safe Boot" (what you get by restarting while holding Shift) is only to be considered a troubleshooting aid - i.e. a step you can take in diagnosing troubles. It is not suggested as a normal mode of operation. See this Apple article on Safe Boot for some of the limitations: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107392

Logging in while holding down the shift key and safe-boot are not, however, quite the same thing; i.e. the latter merely disables third party items set to load as part of your user account and doesn't disable any system-wide aspects of the OS as safe-boot does. I agree though, it isn't something you should need to do all the time.

1) I think you meant "the former" instead of "the latter"
2) I hadn't read the previous post carefully enough to see that it was referring to logging in and not restarting. Did the Unsanity developer really recommend just logout & login with Shift?

I wouldn't have thought that would be sufficient to disable APE since I thought it was run system-wide (independent of user) via a system startup item.
(I haven't installed it so I don't know how 'aped' gets started up and this question has not yet been satisfactorily answered on these forums.)

If a mere re-login with Shift is sufficient to disable APE, that would seem to mean that it is started up via a Login Item. In that case, you could simply disable it via the Login Items section of System Preferences.

1) Yes, I meant the former - thanks.
2) APE (i.e. the aped process) is installed as follows:

"/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationEnhancer.framework/Versions/A/Resources/aped"

... and I've just checked this and Slava's advice was not correct. Logging in while holding down the shift key does disable the various haxies/modules but not the aped process itself.

SystemConfiguration folder
 

I think that any bundle that is in /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/ gets executed at startup.
And I've been informed (by email) that APE installs a bundle called "ApplicationEnhancer" in that folder, so I think that is how 'aped' gets started.

You could test this theory by (temporarily) moving that bundle out of the SystemConfiguration folder and restarting and checking if 'aped' is running.

- the aped process gets spawned by the PrefPane. if you look inside the package, you can see a file named "Application Enhancer Launcher".

- Shift Key while logging in generates a notice that "Application Enhancer is Disabled". did you see that notice?

- after seeing that notice, i think i remember that the aped process doesn't run. but i'm unsure of this one.

- i trust Slava is mischief free, at a minimum. this doesn't mean poor decisions weren't taken, but i trust his intentions are in the right place.

On my machine holding down the shift key at login does bring up the display you mention but it doesn't stop the aped process from loading. I did this a couple of times and aped has a different pid each time so it's clearly loading each login - despite the shift key.

Re: SystemConfiguration folder
 

I'll try this next time I restart.

Re: SystemConfiguration folder
 

Having now looked at the Darwin source code for 'configd' (which is started by the /etc/rc script), I can confirm that any bundle that is in the /System/Library/SystemConfiguration folder will get executed at system startup.

In the context of the current discussion, this confirms my earlier idea that 'aped' gets started at system startup via the ApplicationEnhancer bundle in the Library/SystemConfiguration folder.

I don't know for sure, but I don't think the applications under the /System/Library/PreferencePanes folder get executed until the System Preferences app is invoked by the user. I.e. I don't think anything in Pref Panes gets executed at system startup. It may be that the APE pref pane has an application which starts up 'aped' if it is not running just as a convenience for the user who has just installed APE - so that no restart is necessary in order to get the APE effects.