Nix-darwin: homebrew.masApps = { ... } is hanging

Help
1

Hi!

I’m working on nix-ifying macOS and have learned a lot so far. Most recently I’m stuck on installing apps from the Mac App Store via the Homebrew integration. Installation via environment.systemPackages and homebrew.casks works as expected. Only MAS installation/integration seems partially busted.

The chosen application is added to /Applications but the process appears to hang on the first application configured. Whether I have one application or n, the same thing happens. Regardless of which app I specify. If I run mas interactively from the command line, it will install the app and exit 0 as expected.

I also attempted to increase verbosity (darwin-rebuild switch --show-trace -vvv) but it didn’t appear to provide any additional information to this problem. A look in Console.app was more or less unparsable for me.

Additionally, I’m attempting to rely on pkgs.mas, instead of letting brew install it (see this). In an attempt to resolve this I did try letting brew install mas but it didn’t help and seemingly attempted to reinstall mas every time switch was ran.

I’m on macOS 15.3.1 and Apple Silicon. If I can provide any additional detail please let me know and I would be happy to.

Thanks in advanced!

Logs:

# darwin-rebuild switch
building the system configuration...
warning: Git tree '/Volumes/my-data/Developer/nix-configs' is dirty
setting up Homebrew (/Volumes/nix-homebrew/opt/homebrew)...
setting up Homebrew (/opt/homebrew)...
user defaults...
restarting Dock...
setting up user launchd services...
Homebrew bundle...
Using blockblock
...
Installing Link Unshortener
# ** here it hangs ***

The application does exist now:

❯ ls /Applications
...
drwxr-xr-x   3 root   wheel   96 Feb 24 11:37 Link Unshortener.app
...

Sample from my config:

# flake.nix
...
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-24.11-darwin";
    ...

    nix-darwin = {
      url = "github:LnL7/nix-darwin/nix-darwin-24.11";
      inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
    };
    
    ...

    # zhaofengli-wip/nix-homebrew
    nix-homebrew.url = "github:zhaofengli-wip/nix-homebrew";
    homebrew-core = {
      url = "github:homebrew/homebrew-core";
      flake = false;
    };
    homebrew-cask = {
      url = "github:homebrew/homebrew-cask";
      flake = false;
    };
    homebrew-bundle = {
      url = "github:homebrew/homebrew-bundle";
      flake = false;
    };
  };
...

----

# darwin.nix
nix-homebrew.enable = true; # https://github.com/zhaofengli/nix-homebrew
homebrew.enable     = true;

nix-homebrew = {
  #@todo don't install at default location
  mutableTaps   = false;
  enableRosetta = false;
  taps = {
    "homebrew/homebrew-bundle" = inputs.homebrew-bundle;
  };
  user = username;
  prefixes = {
    "${homebrew-prefix}" = {
      enable  = true;
      library = "${homebrew-prefix}/Library";
      taps = {
        "homebrew/homebrew-cask"   = inputs.homebrew-cask;
        "homebrew/homebrew-bundle" = inputs.homebrew-bundle;
      };
    };
  };
};

homebrew = {
  brewPrefix              = "${homebrew-prefix}/bin";
  caskArgs.appdir         = "${homebrew-volume}/Applications";
  caskArgs.no_binaries    = true;
  caskArgs.no_quarantine  = false;
  caskArgs.require_sha    = true;
  global.autoUpdate       = false;
  onActivation.autoUpdate = false;
  onActivation.cleanup    = "uninstall"; # set 'zap' global and uninstall per 'app'?
  onActivation.upgrade    = true;
  brews                   = pkgs.lib.mkForce [ ]; # https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin/pull/1329
};

environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
  ...
  pkgs.mas # https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin/pull/1329
  ...
];


homebrew.casks = [
  ...
];

homebrew.masApps = {
  ...
  "Link Unshortener" = 1506953658;
  ...
};

Unparsable (to me) Console.app:

# ui filter: "process:mas"
default	11:37:04.746299-0800	mas	[0x600002e40000] activating connection: mach=true listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.cfprefsd.daemon
default	11:37:04.750025-0800	mas	networkd_settings_read_from_file initialized networkd settings by reading plist directly
default	11:37:04.750195-0800	mas	networkd_settings_read_from_file initialized networkd settings by reading plist directly
default	11:37:04.750848-0800	mas	[0x600002e48000] activating connection: mach=true listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.coreservices.launchservicesd
default	11:37:04.751502-0800	mas	[0x600002e4c0f0] activating connection: mach=true listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.analyticsd
default	11:37:04.755347-0800	mas	Received configuration update from daemon (initial)
default	11:37:04.782527-0800	mas	[0x160006aa0] activating connection: mach=true listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.storeassetd
default	11:37:04.782599-0800	mas	[0x160006aa0] failed to do a bootstrap look-up: xpc_error=[3: No such process]
default	11:37:04.782613-0800	mas	[0x160006aa0] invalidated after a failed init
default	11:37:04.783708-0800	mas	CKSoftwareMap: Connection to com.apple.storeassetd was invalidated - removing connection from pool
default	11:37:04.783762-0800	mas	CKSoftwareMap: Error from com.apple.storeassetd - Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service named com.apple.storeassetd was invalidated: failed at lookup with error 3 - No such process." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service named com.apple.storeassetd was invalidated: failed at lookup with error 3 - No such process.}
default	11:37:04.783813-0800	mas	Entering exit handler.
default	11:37:04.783826-0800	mas	Queueing exit procedure onto XPC queue. Any further messages sent will be discarded. activeSendTransactions=0
default	11:37:04.783864-0800	mas	Cancelling XPC connection. Any further reply handler invocations will not retry messages
default	11:37:04.783871-0800	mas	[0x600002e4c0f0] invalidated because the current process cancelled the connection by calling xpc_connection_cancel()
default	11:37:04.783900-0800	mas	XPC connection invalidated (daemon unloaded/disabled)
default	11:37:04.783894-0800	mas	Exiting exit handler.
default	11:37:04.800992-0800	mas	[0x600003478000] activating connection: mach=true listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.cfprefsd.daemon
default	11:37:04.805566-0800	mas	networkd_settings_read_from_file initialized networkd settings by reading plist directly
default	11:37:04.805838-0800	mas	networkd_settings_read_from_file initialized networkd settings by reading plist directly
default	11:37:04.806687-0800	mas	[0x600003474000] activating connection: mach=true listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.coreservices.launchservicesd
default	11:37:04.807488-0800	mas	[0x6000034781e0] activating connection: mach=true listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.analyticsd
default	11:37:04.809700-0800	mas	Received configuration update from daemon (initial)
default	11:37:04.836942-0800	mas	[0x12ab052b0] activating connection: mach=true listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.storeassetd
default	11:37:04.837066-0800	mas	[0x12ab052b0] failed to do a bootstrap look-up: xpc_error=[3: No such process]
default	11:37:04.837080-0800	mas	[0x12ab052b0] invalidated after a failed init
default	11:37:04.838068-0800	mas	CKSoftwareMap: Connection to com.apple.storeassetd was invalidated - removing connection from pool
default	11:37:04.838130-0800	mas	CKSoftwareMap: Error from com.apple.storeassetd - Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service named com.apple.storeassetd was invalidated: failed at lookup with error 3 - No such process." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service named com.apple.storeassetd was invalidated: failed at lookup with error 3 - No such process.}
default	11:37:04.838485-0800	mas	[0x12a905a80] activating connection: mach=false listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.CommerceKit.TransactionService
default	11:37:06.271552-0800	mas	[0x12ab05cd0] activating connection: mach=true listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.storedownloadd
default	11:37:06.271686-0800	mas	[0x12ab05cd0] failed to do a bootstrap look-up: xpc_error=[3: No such process]
default	11:37:06.271702-0800	mas	[0x12ab05cd0] invalidated after a failed init
default	11:37:06.271759-0800	mas	CKDownloadQueue: Connection to com.apple.storedownloadd was invalidated - removing connection from pool
default	11:37:06.271853-0800	mas	CKDownloadQueue: Error from com.apple.storedownloadd - Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service named com.apple.storedownloadd was invalidated: failed at lookup with error 3 - No such process." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service named com.apple.storedownloadd was invalidated: failed at lookup with error 3 - No such process.}
2

The change you linked is not part of nix-darwin 24.11, only the unstable branch. mas in Nixpkgs 24.11 is also an older version. Whether that relates to your problem here, I’m not sure.

3

Hey emily thanks for the tip!

I added nixos-unstable to my config and installed mas with it. The remaining config is still on 24.11. It didn’t seem to resolve the issue. Unless I should move all of my config to unstable? I ran into some issues with home-manager initially when I tried this a week ago though, which is how I ended up where I am.

environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
  ...
  pkgs-unstable.mas
  ...
];

# 24.11
❯ mas version
1.8.6

# unstable
❯ mas version
1.9.0
4

You would need to use the unstable branch of nix-darwin to get the change you linked (which, yeah, would mean using unstable Nixpkgs for your whole config). But I can’t guarantee that it’ll necessarily change anything; it seems like this could just be a problem with upstream mas. Does a manual brew bundle install have the same problem?

5

Alright I switched nix-darwin over to unstable. Had to make a few minor tweaks to get it to build but it was unrelated to Homebrew.

# flake.nix
inputs = {
  nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-24.11-darwin";
  nixpkgs-unstable.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
  ...
  nix-darwin = {
    url = "github:LnL7/nix-darwin/master";
    inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs-unstable";
  };
  ...
};

That didn’t seem to resolve the issue, so I went to work on testing brew bundle install. I had to copy the Brewfile from the Nix Store to a temp directory so I could add the Link Unshortener configuration. It must be hanging before the Brewfile is updated but after it has been installed to disk.

❯ cat $random_dir/Brewfile.edited
# Created by `nix-darwin`'s `homebrew` module

# Arguments for all casks
cask_args appdir: "/Volumes/nix-homebrew/Applications", no_binaries: true, no_quarantine: false, require_sha: true
...
mas 'link unshortener', id: 1506953658 # ##> added this myself <##




❯ /Volumes/nix-homebrew/opt/homebrew/bin/brew bundle install --file ./Brewfile.edited; echo "$?"
...
Installing Link Unshortener
Homebrew Bundle complete! 43 Brewfile dependencies now installed.
0

This worked and exited properly. Now that I can’t replicate it outside of nix I’m really not sure where to possibly go with this. :confused:

Thank you for your time!