Access Apple Shortcuts in Indigo 2024.1.0 now broken ?

[makedrinklas]

Hi all,

I have (had) some actions set up to run Apple Shortcuts. I realized they weren't working when I tried to set up a schedule to run one to enable my VPN.

All of these actions calling Apple Shortcuts were working, however now there are no shortcuts available to Indigo in the drop down menu to select them. They run perfectly from the dock and the menu bar

This should be a no brainer! Any ideas on what I may have done and how to fix this to get them accessible and working again from Indigo? They have been working for some time!

[makedrinklas]

I noticed this in the logs on my phone...

Run-Shortcut-Error.PNG (215.64 KiB) Viewed 763 times

[norcoscia]

I'm not sure if this is related but my shell script recently quit working after an Indigo upgrade - I never could fix it but I figured out another way to get my task done. The error below is in the log every time I restart my Indigo server

Started plugin "Action Collection 2024.2.1"
Action Collection Error Failed to get the shortcuts list due to a macOS system error. Please report the following error to Support. Disabling shortcuts.
Action Collection Error Command to get the shortcuts list failed with error '-9'

This was my post about it (before I realized I was getting the error above on server restart).

viewtopic.php?t=28365

[jay (support)]

Mike, what macOS version are you using?

Norm, you never replied on the other thread, please post over there to let me know if my last suggestion worked.

[makedrinklas]

Hmm, yeah I tried running it as a script, but all of my shortcuts are in my home directory under Applications. I tried using /Users/me/Applications/SortCut_name and it failed. Maybe I need to add run and try it that way.

I'm using Server Actions->Run Apple Shortcut action but no shortcuts are showing up now for some reason. Again it was working, not sure what I did or mysteriously happened. Or when it stopped. I think it was working under 2024.1.0, it seems like I was able to run actions calling shortcuts as early as last week.

[makedrinklas]

Hey @Jay

I'm running Sonoma 14.7.5 for now.

Come to think of it, I think I did run a security update last week. Maybe this could be the culprit? Nothing else has changed. A restart did not fix it.

[makedrinklas]

More detail, I found this in the log in Indigo on the Mac shortly after startup:

Apr 16, 2025 at 11:19:31 AM
Action Collection Error Failed to get the shortcuts list due to a macOS system error. Please report the following error to Support. Disabling shortcuts.
Action Collection Error Error in plugin execution GetUiDynamicList:

File "plugin.py", line 551, in shortcut_list
File "plugin.py", line 126, in _get_shortcuts_list
type: 'Popen' object has no attribute 'last_error_message'

[jay (support)]

Sigh. Apple's shortcuts command line tool is the most unreliable piece of...

There is no actual API for dealing with shortcuts other than the command-line tool. I've hacked it over and over since we first introduced it and it continues to fail in new and different ways. It's really frustrating working on a moving target.

I'll see if I can reproduce and patch yet again.

[makedrinklas]

Oof, really sorry for the trouble, that stinks.

But thank you very much, it's a great way to do amazing things like start and stop VPNs, interact with SecuritySpy without much fuss, etc.

[jay (support)]

Ok, so I was running 14.7.3 and it was working. I just upgraded to 14.7.5, and:

Code: Select all

MightyBook:~ jay$ /usr/bin/shortcuts --list
Killed: 9
MightyBook:~ jay$ /usr/bin/shortcuts --help
Killed: 9
MightyBook:~ jay$ /usr/bin/shortcuts
Killed: 9
MightyBook:~ jay$ /usr/bin/shortcuts run "speak from shortcut"
Killed: 9

So I went searching, and yes: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/25 ... ortBy=rank

So, unfortunately, I don't think there's a workaround other than upgrading to Sequoia (which has it's own risks). Maybe they'll fix it in a new dot release? Honestly, I'm not holding my breath...

[EDIT] I just tried on Sequoia 15.3.1 and it works. FWIW

[makedrinklas]

Crap. Yeah thanks for that article, I just posted a reply there as well. I submitted a feedback report to the Apple dust bin for Automator. For some reason Shortcuts is not an app in their list.

Thanks again, I may need to bite the bullet and hit that update button, but I know upgrading to Sequoia will break my RAID for SecuritySpy. There is an unofficial firmware update that may allow it to work, but it's a gamble on unsupported hardware. One day when I have time to do a restore if needed.

Best,
Mike