Allow button not working in system preferences

Question

I am trying to install some software, (at this particular moment I want to install VirtualBox, although this issue has happened with other software), and I have to click "Allow" in System Preferences, in the Security & Privacy -> General window. When I click on it, nothing happens, and the button and message stays there.

I looked online, and all of the solutions say that there is some kind of program running that captures/forwards mouse clicks and such, and thus I am not "directly" clicking on the Allow button.

The problem is that I don't know of any programs that I'm running that do this.

I am on a Macbook Pro 13 inch 2016 with touchbar, running macOS High Sierra

I am not connected remotely
I have tried restarting my computer
I have tried running the installer through terminal, with and without the sudo command
I have tried right-clicking and clicking on "open" on the .pkg file
I have tried unlocking the system preferences page before clicking "Allow"
I tried re-downloading the .pkg file

I'm not sure what kind of element we are talking about, but the whole System Preferences window should be navigable with a keyboard: Arrow keys, Tab, Shift+Tab, Space, Enter. As far as fixing this issue goes... Try to reboot to safe mode and see if you can click the same "Allow" in that mode. — Joonas, Apr 26 '18 at 06:37
Are you able to start the program when you right-click the program and then choose "open"? — Jules, Apr 26 '18 at 06:57
Welcome to Ask Different! :) It would be really good if you could [edit](https://apple.stackexchange.com/posts/323668/edit) your question to clarify the exact `Allow` button you're referring to. It may be best to actually upload a screenshot of the window it's on. Also, it may be worth mentioning the software you're trying to install as it could be relevant to the problem. — Monomeeth, Apr 26 '18 at 08:17
I was not able to navigate the window using my keyboard, how can I do this? — Abraham, Apr 26 '18 at 14:10
It is a .pkg file, and the same thing happens when I right-click and choose open. The same thing also happens when I run the installer through terminal. — Abraham, Apr 26 '18 at 14:11
you need to click the lock to make changes in the bottom left corner of that window... then enter your administrator account's password. Otherwise the "allow" button will not do anything. — dwightk, Apr 26 '18 at 15:50
I have tried unlocking and entering my password, and it did not work. — Abraham, Apr 26 '18 at 17:15
See https://github.com/tekezo/Karabiner-Elements/issues/1017 — rogerdpack, Oct 05 '18 at 21:48

score 44 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 07 '18 at 18:41

44

This worked for me on High Sierra 10.13.4:

System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Select 'All Controls'

Then:

System Preferences > Privacy & Security > Press 'Tab' until 'Allow' is selected > Press 'Spacebar'

*Note: the Privacy & Security page may need to be unlocked before 'Tab' will work.

*Note: After open Security & Privacy and selecting General tab you should push tab key to select allow button after that push space bar key!

Hope this helps!

Credit to @dansanduleac's answer on GitHub

edited Nov 07 '18 at 18:41

masoud soroush

103
2

answered May 19 '18 at 05:04

GabeBrady

786
7
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Agreed this is the best solution because it will work in all cases. I was not using remote viewers and had no trackballs, third party keyboards, or accessibility widgets to my knowledge. This solution worked instantly. – emkman Aug 10 '18 at 16:33
2

WTAF. Dammit Apple, you're unbelievably shoddy sometimes. – mpowered Sep 05 '18 at 04:13
3

Doesn't work anymore :-/ – Oliver Dixon Sep 14 '18 at 16:44
Yep, not working for me... ugh. – Abram Oct 14 '18 at 18:23
Worked for me, version 10.13.6. – Paul Knopf Oct 16 '18 at 02:20
6

For the people that still can't, try to close system preferences after enabling "All controls" and try again. Looks like Apple did this on purpose ... – David Lopez Oct 26 '18 at 19:10
Working as well – masoud soroush Nov 07 '18 at 00:56
Still works but you might have to restart system preferences. – awiebe Nov 20 '18 at 07:07
1

Even though this worked for me, I have to say that this is ridiculous. – Dan Jan 12 '19 at 18:16
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Can anyone explain what's going on here? This worked for me – ritmatter Feb 07 '19 at 04:01
My God, Apple really are useless aren't they... still, great answer! – May 07 '20 at 08:08

score 10 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 10 '18 at 02:29

10

We can use Apple Script to click on the Allow button as follows:

Press Shift Command 4 to start screen capture (but don't actually go thru with this):
Hover over the Allow button and note the coordinates (e.g. 620, 534)

Open a Terminal window and use those coordinates in a script:

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to click at {620, 534}'

answered Sep 10 '18 at 02:29

Stephen Quan

426
5
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The fact that you may need to click this button with the command line is a crazy bad UX – David Lopez Oct 26 '18 at 21:40
1

Genius complex idea for engineering! – masoud soroush Nov 07 '18 at 01:02
Using the osascript method works great, but you cannot see the cursor position info over ARD. Solution was to drag the window to the top-left corner of the screen, and then the coordinates are: {570, 473}. – staze Jan 11 '19 at 23:21
You may need to go into Security & Privacy -> Privacy tab and under Accessibility check the box next to the terminal for this solution to work properly. – chris Apr 04 '19 at 07:03
2

No need to hunt for coordinates: https://pastebin.com/raw/TGxeccPV – gdeff Nov 07 '20 at 23:39

score 7 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 26 '18 at 20:05

7

If you are connecting to the computer remotely with software such as TeamViewer, VNC etc. it will not work, because macOS doesn’t allow you to press “Allow” button through other applications. You have to directly press that button with your trackpad.

answered Apr 26 '18 at 20:05

I am on my actual computer, and I am not connected remotely. – Abraham Apr 26 '18 at 20:18
In this case, I can’t help you, but this answer is still valid. Are you using a mouse? If so, try using the trackpad. Shouldn’t make a difference, but worth to try. – Apr 26 '18 at 20:20
1

Unfortunately I am using the trackpad. Solutions I've found online involve this answer, and many people have said they had some software like MagicPrefs, Witch, etc. that capture and forward mouse clicks and such. I might have some services running that do this that I do not know about. – Abraham Apr 26 '18 at 20:22
1

Did you try safe mode? – Apr 26 '18 at 20:23
That worked! After I got out of safe mode, and tried to install other stuff, it had the same problem. It must have been some software monitoring my mouse and keyboard events, I'll have to look into that. Thanks! – Abraham Apr 26 '18 at 21:01
Great to know you fixed your problem! By the way, I posted that as an answer. If you find it useful, you can mark it as answered. – Apr 26 '18 at 21:07

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 05 '18 at 04:18

Nothing was working for me, local clicking, keyboard selection, nothing. Turns out it was a piece of security software that hadn't been authorized correctly. This security software was the process actually "performing" the click. To find out what bit of software or hardware happens to be being blocked, you have to establish what Process ID it uses, then identify the software/hardware from its PID, and go from there, either killing or uninstalling the hardware/software, and repeating until the click succeeds. Man I hate macos.

Open Console ( Finder > Go > Applications > Utilities > Console )
Click, press, tap, space, automator the button
A message will pop onto Console (under your Device's main logs) that looks someting like this: “Dropping mouse down event because sender’s PID (1234) isn’t self or 0”
Open Activity Monitor and sort by the PID field. Find the PID, [force] quit the process, try to click/press/tap/space/automator the button again, should work. If not, repeat this process - probably another PID blocking you now.

Note, the above is NOT a workaround for being unable to use remote software - that just won't work unless you completely disable SIP.

Quick note: for me it was VLC which was blocking the click event. You might try to quit both Chrome and VLC if you're in a hurry, if that doesn't solve the problem this method works absolutely fine, thanks! — jlapoutre, Sep 23 '18 at 07:26

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 26 '18 at 21:03

3

Try safe mode. It should disable any services running at the background, letting you to click the Allow button. You can get into safe mode by rebooting and holding shift during reboot.

answered Apr 26 '18 at 21:03

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 30 '18 at 18:36

2

for me it worked after i quit VLC

answered Sep 30 '18 at 18:36

ehsan

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For me it wasn't VLC, but I quit Chrome, Skype, Terminal... EVERYTHING. And then it worked. – coolaj86 Aug 07 '19 at 05:20

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 05 '19 at 23:07

2

After looking through some of these answers, I realized that the issue was the Spectacle window manager app. Once I quit that it worked fine.

answered Jun 05 '19 at 23:07

Samuel Holland

21
2

I could reproduce this on my end. – Scorchio Sep 15 '19 at 07:44

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 17 '18 at 12:53

1

It worked for me when I quit Chrome before clicking 'Allow'.

answered Sep 17 '18 at 12:53

weigel

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score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Dec 17 '18 at 22:03

Using Micah Roth's solution I figured out that it was the fact that I was using a Wacom pad. I looked up the process and it was WacomTabletDriver. To fix this I went into System Preferences > Accessibility > Mouse & Trackpad and checked Enable Mouse Keys. You can then use the following keys to move and the center one (5/I) to click. (Image is from https://support.apple.com/kb/PH18381)

score -1 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 16 '19 at 20:45

-1

I experienced this same issue today with Little Snitch, and after reading and trying a half dozen fairly complicated "solutions" without any success, what worked for me was: close the Chrome app. Problem solved.

answered Jul 16 '19 at 20:45

jakefantom

1
1

Allow button not working in system preferences

10 Answers10