Starting gitk on macOS gives an error application is not running

Question

When I'm loading gitk I get an error ->

Error in startup script: 58:102: execution error: System Events got an error: Application isn’t running. (-600)
    while executing
"exec osascript -e [format {
        tell application "System Events"
            set frontmost of processes whose unix id is %d to true
        end te..."
    invoked from within
"if {[tk windowingsystem] eq "aqua"} {
    exec osascript -e [format {
        tell application "System Events"
            set frontmost of processes ..."
    (file "/usr/local/bin/gitk" line 12212)

My git version is 2.17.1 and my mac os version is 10.13.6. Any ideas on how to fix this?

Make sure you have XQuartz installed (it's been a long time since I did so I have forgotten how to do it and/or check for it). — torek, Nov 01 '18 at 17:41

score 29 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 13 '18 at 21:48

29

There is relevant information about this in an older issue: Applescript fails with error (-600) when launched over ssh on Mavericks

People has reported to solved this by either restarting the machine or killing "System Events".

$ kill -9 $(pgrep "System Events")

answered Dec 13 '18 at 21:48

Baleato

849
9
19

Worked with `git 2.3.5` and `High Sierra 10.13.6`. Thanks. – Nathan Beck Nov 15 '19 at 16:48
3

i come back to this answer every month :-) – Kira Dec 03 '20 at 19:45

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 10 '23 at 18:13

The accepted solution did not work for me. The pgrep came back empty, so I got a usage error for kill. This is because System Events wasn't running at all! A great mystery!

To start System Events if it's not running:

open /System/Library/CoreServices/System\ Events.app/

Now gitk works as expected.

Starting gitk on macOS gives an error application is not running

2 Answers2