Codebook for macOS 4.5.6 Released

Codebook for macOS is available now for Direct Download customers and Mac App Store customers.

This update to Codebook for macOS is basically a bug fix release, but it also contains an important change for customers who use Google Drive as their sync service in Codebook. To ensure you are able to continue syncing with Google Drive, please update to this version of Codebook. Previous versions use a now-deprecated authentication flow, and will eventually be unable to link with Google Drive.

Changes in this version

  • The Search in Note field has moved and no longer obscures your text! To display it, select a Note Entry, then click on the Edit menu > Find in Note (keyboard shortcut: shift command F)
  • Fixes Note Entry and Note Fields updated_at not getting updated when leaving edit mode and changes had been made but were previously autosaved
  • Updates Google Drive sync and Google Drive authentication to the latest versions

Just applied the update on macOS Monterey (Intel). When I launch the app, I get a blank panel, there is some ‘chrome’ but it is greyed out and I can’t enter my password or do anything except quit the app.

Hi @mike thanks for letting us know and sorry for the trouble!

This is the first report of this, so we have a couple of questions to help us figure out what’s going on:

Note: Feel free to reply to me privately here on the forum or by sending your responses to support@zetetic.net

  • Are you using Google Drive sync by any chance?
  • Would you mind sending us a screenshot of the main window in this state? (You can use shift+command+4 to draw a screenshot to take on your Mac)

Finally, I think we ought to have a look at the system log while the application is launching to see if there’s more information for us about what is happening:

  1. If Codebook is running already, Quit the app
  2. Launch the Console app
  3. Click the Start button so that system log messages start streaming in the Console app
  4. Launch Codebook and wait for the window to come up
  5. Click the Stop button in the Console app
  6. Select All and Copy the log messages in Console and send them in an email to us at support@zetetic.net

Hi @mike, we have an update on this issue:

What’s happening here is that some users have an authentication token from Google Drive that’s older than we expected to run into and no longer honored by the updated authentication supported by Google Drive in this version of Codebook for macOS. There’s a failure to decode the token that results in the hang you are experiencing.

We are working on an update to fix this bug now. In the meantime, you can work around this problem by deleting the old keychain item, so that it no longer causes the crash in Codebook:

  1. Open the Keychain Access app on your Mac (search for the name in Spotlight or launch it from /Applications/Utilities)
  2. Use the Search field to look up a keychain item named STRIP: Google Drive
  3. Select the STRIP: Google Drive keychain item so that it is highlighted in the list
  4. Right-click on the item and select Delete "STRIP: Google Drive" from the menu

The next time you attempt to sync with Google Drive, Codebook will ask you to sign in to the service.

Hi @wgray,
Apologies for the slight delay in replying - I was travelling UK => US yesterday.

I can confirm that deleting the old keychain item fixed the problem, thank you!

mike