Flowlight 0.5.1

What's new in 0.5.1

Flowlight recovers when the filter extension stops answering.

macOS runs whichever build of the content filter was activated last, so after an app update the app and the extension can disagree — and when they do, macOS refuses the connection between them. The result was a dead end: System Settings said Filter enabled, Flowlight said Extension connection invalidated, and it redialled every five seconds forever with the same sentence on screen. The failure and the retry were indistinguishable, so the orange dot never changed.

It now climbs out by itself:

• Redial twice, because most dropped connections really are blips — the extension restarting, the Mac waking.
• Then check the versions. If macOS is running a different build from the app, reinstalling the extension is the one fault behind "the filter is enabled but the app can't reach it" that the app can repair itself. Asked for once per session, never on a timer — it can put a System Settings prompt on screen, and once is a repair while repeatedly is nagging.
• Then give up honestly. After about a minute the nettop sampler takes over so there is still data to look at, with a yellow dot and a line saying what happened. Your chosen source is not rewritten, and Try the extension again under Network Extension starts over.

Blocking switches off while the sampler is standing in — it can't refuse connections, and the Rules screen shouldn't imply otherwise.

Three smaller faults found along the way: a refused registration dead-ended with no retry scheduled at all; a nil === nil identity check let a stale error handler be mistaken for the current connection; and a failed version lookup could overwrite a true "Filter enabled" with an error.

The interface, against Apple's guidelines. The sidebar's nine flat items are grouped into Traffic, Investigate, Control and Sources. Five screens now carry a subtitle in the title bar for state that used to need a trip to find: whether inspection is decrypting or off, whether rules are in force or paused, who answers in Ask, which device channels are on, how many alerts are left to review. The Rules screen no longer shows a picker between two empty tabs, and ⌘R refreshes the device list.

Install

Signed with Developer ID and notarized by Apple.

• brew install --cask xinbetween/tap/flowlight
• Flowlight.dmg — drag to Applications.
• Flowlight-0.5.1.pkg — installs to /Applications; offers to quit a running copy first.

macOS 15 or later, Apple silicon and Intel.

Checksums

b0f1b0ab96a5e3937bc6349cc383d18f4970f80dbaca27b0d2ddebd4353afa95  Flowlight.dmg
b0f3ecd25f061a1020c1b3cf870bb9c35ffaddac33368b65082b58c8abcab189  Flowlight-0.5.1.pkg