[Bug]: Playing any form of audio causes electron to ask for Accessibility permissions on macOS

[josh-signal]

Preflight Checklist

• I have read the Contributing Guidelines for this project.
• I agree to follow the Code of Conduct that this project adheres to.
• I have searched the issue tracker for a feature request that matches the one I want to file, without success.

Electron Version

13.5.1

What operating system are you using?

macOS

Operating System Version

Any version

What arch are you using?

x64

Last Known Working Electron version

13.5.0

Expected Behavior

I would like an option to stop asking for Accessibility entitlement if our app doesn't need it.

Actual Behavior

User is prompted for permission for application to control their computer and it's listed under Accessibility in macOS Security & Privacy section.

Testcase Gist URL

No response

Additional Information

This is the commit that introduced this behavior: 75349f5#diff-4390247d2e627f63ca771b47b71bfe35268814a3472039f1749ea424bec3359dR32

We'd love to be on 13.5.1 or later since that fixes the Let's Encrypt CA but the entitlement makes it so we can't.

[codebytere]

@josh-signal good news 😆 this just got fixed in #31492 and should be released soon!

[EvanHahn-Signal]

Thanks for the quick response! Unfortunately, I don't think this fixes our issue, as I'm still able to see the macOS Accessibility permissions popup.

I made a simple app to reproduce the problem: https://github.com/EvanHahn-Signal/electron-issue-31558

To reproduce it, I do the following:

1. Set up the app (npm install as normal)
2. Make sure that my terminal app is completely missing from my macOS Accessibility settings. I go to System Preferences → Security & Privacy → Privacy → Accessibility and fully delete my terminal app—it's not enough if it's unchecked.
3. Start the app (npm start).
4. Play the audio in the app. Note that it's just an <audio> tag; there's no JavaScript or the use of any Node APIs. When I do this, I see the accesssibility popup.

[codebytere]

@EvanHahn-Signal it looks like your sample uses 15.3.0? This fix hasn't been released in any version yet, as noted above - it will be in upcoming versions across release lines.

[EvanHahn-Signal]

My bad!! Ignore me—apologies!

[indutny-signal]

@codebytere was it fixed in 15.3.1? Judging by commit history the change should have made its way there, but we are seeing reports from internal testing that the Accessibility permissions popup is back after electron update.

[indutny-signal]

@codebytere could you reopen this, please? Looks like the issue wasn't fixed by that PR and is in fact caused by:

  // Add an event tap to intercept the system defined media key events.
  event_tap_ = CGEventTapCreate(
      kCGSessionEventTap, kCGHeadInsertEventTap, kCGEventTapOptionDefault,
      CGEventMaskBit(NX_SYSDEFINED), EventTapCallback, this);

in ui/base/accelerators/media_keys_listener_mac.mm. I'm investigating why this function (StartEventTapIfNecessary) is called at all. Commenting the line fixes the issue completely, but I'm not sure if this is what we want to do.

[indutny-signal]

Alright, I see what's going on now. kGlobalRequiresAccessibility has no effect whatsoever anymore so essentially whenever we use kGlobal it ends up requiring accessibility permissions.

[indutny-signal]

Reading full path now I realize that this enum was added in the same patch, and themedia_keys_listener_mac.mm probably never supported it?

[ArmelChesnais]

@codebytere seems this is now happening on electron 14.2.1 If we could either reopen this, or I can open a separate issue for it if needed.

[indutny-signal]

@ArmelChesnais I think #31805 just needs to be backported there.

[ArmelChesnais]

@ArmelChesnais I think #31805 just needs to be backported there.

@indutny-signal how do we initiate it? I'm not seeing any indication of backporting for 14.2.1 on that PR