macOS 15.6.1: Spool 0.3.7 crashes immediately on launch (EXC_BREAKPOINT / SIGTRAP in CrBrowserMain)

[sinoon]

What happened?

Spool 0.3.7 crashes immediately on launch on macOS 15.6.1 on Apple Silicon.

I can reproduce it every time, including with:

• a fresh Electron user-data directory via SPOOL_ELECTRON_USER_DATA_DIR
• a fresh Spool data directory via SPOOL_DATA_DIR

That makes it look unlikely to be caused by existing local state under ~/.spool.

The crash reports are consistent across launches:

• exception: EXC_BREAKPOINT / SIGTRAP
• faulting thread: CrBrowserMain
• stack contains node::PromiseRejectCallback(v8::PromiseRejectMessage)
• bundled Electron Framework version: 34.5.8

So this looks more like a startup-time Electron main-process failure, potentially an unhandled promise rejection, than a corrupted local database/profile.

Expected behavior

The app should stay open and show the main window instead of exiting immediately.

Steps to reproduce

1. Install Spool 0.3.7 to /Applications/Spool.app
2. Launch it from Finder, Spotlight, or directly from the executable
3. Observe that it exits almost immediately

It still reproduces after isolating both Electron profile and Spool data:

export SPOOL_ELECTRON_USER_DATA_DIR="$(mktemp -d /tmp/spool-userdata.XXXXXX)"
export SPOOL_DATA_DIR="$(mktemp -d /tmp/spool-data.XXXXXX)"
/Applications/Spool.app/Contents/MacOS/Spool

On my machine, the command above created a new crash report:

/Users/bytedance/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Spool-2026-04-24-160017.ips

Spool version

0.3.7

macOS version

macOS 15.6.1 (24G90) on Apple Silicon (arm64, model Mac15,7)

Additional diagnostics

Crash report summary

Recent crash reports all show the same signature, for example:

• /Users/bytedance/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Spool-2026-04-23-204803.ips
• /Users/bytedance/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Spool-2026-04-24-155457.ips
• /Users/bytedance/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Spool-2026-04-24-160017.ips

Excerpt from Spool-2026-04-24-160017.ips:

app_version: 0.3.7
os_version: macOS 15.6.1 (24G90)
exception: EXC_BREAKPOINT / SIGTRAP
faultingThread: 23
thread name: CrBrowserMain
node::PromiseRejectCallback(v8::PromiseRejectMessage)
Electron Framework 34.5.8

Local state checks

sqlite3 ~/.spool/spool.db 'PRAGMA integrity_check; PRAGMA quick_check;' returns:

ok
ok

I also checked ~/.spool/connectors, and there were no installed connectors there at the time of testing.

Reproduced with clean directories

I re-ran the app with fresh temporary directories for both Electron user data and Spool data:

BEFORE_COUNT=12
AFTER_COUNT=13
SPOOL_ELECTRON_USER_DATA_DIR=/tmp/spool-userdata.Sa1qFh
SPOOL_DATA_DIR=/tmp/spool-data.G3DBJq
LATEST_CRASH=/Users/bytedance/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Spool-2026-04-24-160017.ips

That produced a brand new crash report, so this does not appear to depend on any pre-existing local state.

Packaging / signing observations

spctl -a -vv /Applications/Spool.app returns:

/Applications/Spool.app: rejected
origin=Apple Development: huisheng.chen@connect.polyu.hk (693T45323S)

codesign -d --entitlements :- /Applications/Spool.app shows only:

com.apple.security.cs.allow-jit
com.apple.security.cs.allow-unsigned-executable-memory
com.apple.security.cs.disable-library-validation

The app bundle does not include com.apple.security.automation.apple-events.

Possibly relevant packaged-source observations

While inspecting the packaged app locally:

• src/main/terminal.ts contains AppleScript-based terminal detection / automation (osascript, Terminal/iTerm integration)
• src/main/index.ts initializes DB, ACP manager, syncer, watcher, and connector loading very early in startup
• createWindow() calls win.loadURL(...) / win.loadFile(...) without wrapping those calls in a visible await/catch path in the packaged source I inspected

I could not recover the exact rejected promise message, but the crash stack strongly suggests startup is hitting a rejected promise on the Electron main process.

Notes

This looks different from #27:

• App crashes on launch: excessive disk writes (2.1GB in 28s) triggers macOS kill #27 was 0.2.1
• App crashes on launch: excessive disk writes (2.1GB in 28s) triggers macOS kill #27 described macOS killing the app for excessive disk writes
• this report is 0.3.7 crashing immediately with EXC_BREAKPOINT / SIGTRAP and node::PromiseRejectCallback in CrBrowserMain

If useful, I can provide the full .ips crash report contents as a follow-up.

[sinoon]

Additional metadata that may help:

• Launching from Finder also reproduces the same crash, not only launching the executable from a shell.
  • Example: /Users/bytedance/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Spool-2026-04-24-155457.ips
  • That report shows parentProc: launchd
• codesign -dv --verbose=4 /Applications/Spool.app on my machine reports:
  • Identifier=com.linkclaw.spool
  • Authority=Apple Development: huisheng.chen@connect.polyu.hk (693T45323S)
  • TeamIdentifier=ZRCN37RZF2
  • Timestamp=Apr 23, 2026 at 18:49:58
  • Runtime Version=15.1.0
• spctl -a -vv /Applications/Spool.app still returns:

/Applications/Spool.app: rejected
origin=Apple Development: huisheng.chen@connect.polyu.hk (693T45323S)

If you want, I can also paste the full .ips payload from one of the latest crashes.