[OS X TeX] What is this? - ... comp.text.tex.distribution.Helper

[Richard Seguin]

I don’t know how it got there, but it was there. See my comment to Herb about all the junk that can accumulate in the root folder over the years.

Richard

> On Apr 6, 2017, at 3:21 PM, Richard M. Koch <koch at uoregon.edu> wrote:
> 
> Richard,
> 
> It is possible that the Pref Pane itself installed comp.text.tex.distribution.Helper.
> I know what MacTeX installed, but have no control over what the Pref Pane itself
> did once launched.
> 
> Dick
> 
> 
>> On Apr 6, 2017, at 1:09 PM, Richard M. Koch <koch at uoregon.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> Richard,
>> 
>> We removed the TeX Dist Pref Pane last year. But we didn't uninstall old Pref Panes,
>> leaving this up to users.
>> 
>> The Pref Pane became difficult to support since Apple standards kept changing.
>> First they had to have PPC code, and then 32 bit Intel code, and then 64 bit intel
>> code using Garbage Collection, and then 64 bit Intel code using Automatic Reference
>> Counting.
>> 
>> I have never heard of comp.text.tex.distribution.Helper.plist This is the sort of
>> "reverse html" used by Apple to identify programs and distributions, but MacTeX
>> has never used this particular string "comp.text.,,tex.distribution"
>> 
>> Dick Koch
>> 
>> 
>>> On Apr 6, 2017, at 12:28 PM, Richard Seguin <riseguin at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>> When I run EtreCheck on my machine, I get this warning in red, under the “Launch Daemons” section:
>>> 
>>> [loaded]    comp.text.tex.distribution.Helper.plist (2016-08-21) [Support] - /Library/PreferencePanes/TeXDistPrefPane.prefPane/Contents/Library/LaunchServices/comp.text.tex.distribution.Helper: Executable not found!
>>> 
>>> Etre Check explains the launch daemons section this way: "These are low-level modifications to your operating system that always run in the background. It is common for software to use 3rd party launch daemons. However, this software is always running in the background."
>>> 
>>> It appears that something is looking for or pointing to an executable that isn’t there (PrefPane, I’m guessing). When I look in /Library/PreferencePanes I find no reference to TeXDistPrefPane, even with invisibles showing. Does anyone have any idea what’s going on here? What would be pointing to an executable that isn’t there? Where is the comp.text.tex.distribution.Helper.plist?
>>> 
>>> Richard Séguin
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>> 
>> 
> 
> 
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