Allow button not working in system preferences
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
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
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}'