Issue running betterdisplaycli from a lauchagent

[hagak]

I have a go application that calls various betterdisplaycli and it works great running it from a cmd line. However as soon as I launch it from a launchagent whenever the betterdisplaycli is called it seems to hang on that command for 15 seconds and then error but outputing only "exit status 1". I am not able to see any error from betterdisplaycli. Note I am making all calls using full path to the command so not relying on PATH.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.hagak.mac2mqtt</string>
        <key>Program</key>
        <string>/Users/USERNAME/mac2mqtt/mac2mqtt</string>
        <key>WorkingDirectory</key>
        <string>/Users/USERNAME/mac2mqtt/</string>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
        <key>KeepAlive</key>
        <true/>
        <key>StandardOutPath</key>
        <string>/tmp/stdout.log</string>

        <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
        <string>/tmp/stderr.log</string>
    </dict>
</plist>

NOTE above USERNAME is set to my user ofcourse. This is placed in the /Library/LaunchAgents. I have also attempted it in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ as well same result.

[waydabber]

BetterDisplay must be running for betterdisplaycli to work. If it is running, it might need some time to initialize and configure itself properly.

[hagak]

BetterDisplay is running. My tests have all been via cmdline loading the agent, so user is already logged in and betterdisplay is running. Based on the cli code it looks like there is a 15s wait before throwing an error of unable to connect.

[waydabber]

Yes, 15sec is a timeout, this is how long betterdisplaycli is waiting for a response notification from BetterDisplay.

Anyway, you can try debugging what is happening by using the app binary itself instead of BetterDisplay and adding the -v parameter. If you do this both on the CLI end and the main BetterDisplay instance, you should see the back-and-forth communication contents.

[hagak]

Performed this. Notice that the "-v" on the CLI has no impact on what is displayed. However I do see it from the app itself

[2025-01-10 16:08:51.753] Received integration notification request {"uuid":"9922E17D-DA03-4E64-9059-D8BB86E8C2CF","commands":["get"],"parameters":{"v":null,"n":"DELL U3417W","mute":null}}
[2025-01-10 16:08:51.754] Sending integration response notification {"payload":"off","result":true,"uuid":"9922E17D-DA03-4E64-9059-D8BB86E8C2CF"}

The above was just a test with me manually calling the cli to see what is a positive result.

When I have the command called from inside the launchagent, nothing. Some reason within the launchagent it is unable to communicate with BetterDisplay. Notice there is a Web API maybe that will be of more luck

[waydabber]

The -v does not work with betterdisplaycli, you need to use the app binary in the app bundle itself (note: it can be used to send CLI commands, just like betterdisplaycli).

[hagak]

Converted over to using the http calls, works just as well and is only on localhost. Must be some context issue in MacOS that I do not understand.