Unable to Open on Catalina - First Time Installing

[thr0waway89]

Hi, I downloaded novelWriter today from the website and I can't open it. I have confirmed that I wanted to open it despite the warning shown. I have right-clicked and attempted to open it, but it refuses to. I have tried a Terminal command, but it still wouldn't open.

I'm unsure what's wrong with it. I doubt it's a bug because I wouldn't class it as one. Just an issue I have, honestly. I'll try to update my Python to see if it would open then.

My MacOS version is 10.15.7 Catalina by the way (I know, very old.) and it's still compatible. Which I'm quite thankful for.

[vkbo]

I am not a Mac user and I have no way of testing or debugging the DMG files. They were contributed by @Ryex, who may be able to help I hope.

[thr0waway89]

Okay. I've updated my Python and reinstalled novelWriter but it didn't open sadly. I hope I'm able to open it soon, as I've been looking forward to using it.

[vkbo]

Everything needed should be bundled in the DMG so you don't need Python installed at all. It wouldn't use local Python. I don't know how how far back in MacOS versions images will work, but the AMD 64 image is built on this environment:

So is the AARCH 64 image.

[vkbo]

I don't know your technical skill level, but if you have Python 3.10 or higher installed, you can also install novelWriter as a Python package: https://novelwriter.io/download/install_pypi.html

Since I am the one doing most of the development, and not being a Mac user nor a Mac owner myself, I cannot support MacOS very well unfortunately. Instead, I depend on others to maintain that support. I'm hoping someone who is an active MacOS user will take on the maintenance of it and check all images, but for the time being I don't have anyone who does that.

[thr0waway89]

I've managed to install it. The sad catch is when I run the "novelwriter" command, it doesn't show up.

Here's the terminal logs, not sure what's up with it.

Users-iMac% pip install novelwriter
Collecting novelwriter
  Using cached novelwriter-2.7.2-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (2.5 kB)
Collecting pyqt6>=6.4 (from novelwriter)
  Using cached pyqt6-6.9.1-cp39-abi3-macosx_10_14_universal2.whl.metadata (2.1 kB)
Collecting pyenchant>=3.0.0 (from novelwriter)
  Using cached pyenchant-3.2.2-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (3.8 kB)
Collecting PyQt6-sip<14,>=13.8 (from pyqt6>=6.4->novelwriter)
  Downloading pyqt6_sip-13.10.2-cp313-cp313-macosx_10_13_universal2.whl.metadata (494 bytes)
Collecting PyQt6-Qt6<6.10.0,>=6.9.0 (from pyqt6>=6.4->novelwriter)
  Using cached pyqt6_qt6-6.9.1-py3-none-macosx_10_14_x86_64.whl.metadata (534 bytes)
Using cached novelwriter-2.7.2-py3-none-any.whl (5.7 MB)
Using cached pyenchant-3.2.2-py3-none-any.whl (55 kB)
Using cached pyqt6-6.9.1-cp39-abi3-macosx_10_14_universal2.whl (59.8 MB)
Using cached pyqt6_qt6-6.9.1-py3-none-macosx_10_14_x86_64.whl (66.2 MB)
Downloading pyqt6_sip-13.10.2-cp313-cp313-macosx_10_13_universal2.whl (112 kB)
Installing collected packages: PyQt6-Qt6, PyQt6-sip, pyenchant, pyqt6, novelwriter
Successfully installed PyQt6-Qt6-6.9.1 PyQt6-sip-13.10.2 novelwriter-2.7.2 pyenchant-3.2.2 pyqt6-6.9.1
Users-iMac% novelwriter
zsh: command not found: novelwriter

[vkbo]

Yeah, the Python install location is probably not in your path, so it can't find it. This is a general issue with Python tools on MacOS, and I don't know the exact fix, and a search mostly gave me garbage results. This was the best I found: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/79033515

The novelwriter start command should be in something like /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.13/bin where you must replace 3.13 with the Python version you have if it isn't 3.13.

[vkbo]

I can see from the install output that it is indeed Python 3.13. The command should then be in that folder, and the instructions in the link should work. I would expect that adding this line:

export PATH="$PATH:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.13/bin"

In the file ~/.zshrc should do the trick. It's a general solution for all Python tools.

You will need to restart your terminal window for it to take effect.

[vkbo]

Let me know if any of this works, and I'll add it to the install instructions on the PyPi help page.

[Ryex]

just to clarify, the DMG would open but the novelwriter app on the DMG would not? even after installing and trying from the terminal?
did the terminal report a specific error or problem with the binary? Is the issue with Gatekeaper (the builtin security layer)?

[thr0waway89]

just to clarify, the DMG would open but the novelwriter app on the DMG would not? even after installing and trying from the terminal? did the terminal report a specific error or problem with the binary? Is the issue with Gatekeaper (the builtin security layer)?

The DMG would open but the app itself (after I moved it to the Applications folder) would not open. I haven't heard of Gatekeeper and I'm not sure if terminal reported an error when I attempted to open the app either.

I can see from the install output that it is indeed Python 3.13. The command should then be in that folder, and the instructions in the link should work. I would expect that adding this line:

export PATH="$PATH:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.13/bin"

In the file ~/.zshrc should do the trick. It's a general solution for all Python tools.

You will need to restart your terminal window for it to take effect.

I'm not sure how to do it in the "~/.zshrc" thing.

[vkbo]

I'm not sure how to do it in the "~/.zshrc" thing.

Ok, so first confirm that there is something called novelwriter in the folder /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.13/bin. I'm not sure if that path only exists when Python is installed from Apple and looks differently when installed with Brew.

Assuming the folder exists and novelwriter is in it, just add the following line:

export PATH="$PATH:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.13/bin"

To the end of the file .zshrc in your user home folder. The file is hidden, so not sure how you do that on Mac. On Linux I can just set my file explorer to show hidden files and open it.

[vkbo]

The better option is of course to get the DMG file working. But I do think your MacOS version is too old. Although I don't really know a lot about the different versions and what is and isn't recent. 😅

[F-P123]

Having exactly the same problem on OSX Big Sur, Novelwriter 6.63 works fine. I'm sure it's a Python thing, I get this.

neil@Neils-iMac ~ % /Applications/novelWriter\ 2.app/Contents/MacOS/novelWriter
/Applications/novelWriter 2.app/Contents/MacOS/novelWriter: line 3: /Applications/novelWriter: No such file or directory
neil@Neils-iMac ~ %