Persistent "Covenant Eyes Is Accessing Your Screen" Popup
Since updating my Mac OS to 15.2 I am receiving a very annoying popup every 20-30 seconds telling me "Covenant Eyes Is Accessing Your Screen". Just wondering if I am the only having this issue. It is similar to this thread on the Apple Support Community.
This may have more to do with Apple's latest update than Covenant Eyes.
Comments
16 comments
Hi John,
Thanks for reaching out! Other members have also reported this issue, and our developers are investigating it. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Best,
Sydney
I'm receiving the same persistent(ly annoying!) notification. Any timeline for a fix?
Me too. Same problem.
Thank you for following up with a response. I appreciate it.
Just spoke with CE support today. There is no ETA on this. It is affecting ZOOM clients as well, but it seems more widespread with CE than ZOOM. For instance, we have ZOOM on all of our office systems. We also have CE. None of them have issues with ZOOM, but they all have issues with CE.
Scientific? Nope. But there's a pattern.
For now I've resorted to using the following script. Works like a charm.
https://github.com/luckman212/screencapture-nag-remover?tab=readme-ov-file
Convenant Eyes Support, please pass this message on to the devs:
Apple updated adding a new API for screen capturing about two years ago. They want all developers to switch to the new API (as it is supposed to be more secure).
Covenant Eyes and other apps like Zoom are still using the old API. In an effort to strongly pressure devs into using the new API, they've added this irritating persistent popup message.
The solution is that Covenant Eyes needs to adopt the new API. Information about the new API can be found here:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/screencapturekit
Hi Marco,
We appreciate you taking the time to send this information and article to us. I have passed this information along to our Mac development team. They will take this suggestion into consideration as they move forward in developing our Mac client.
Thank you again for your response, and have a wonderful day.
Hi Marco,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for engaging in this discussion. I’d like to clarify a few points regarding Apple’s screen capture APIs and how they relate to Covenant Eyes.
Apple introduced ScreenCaptureKit in macOS 13, which is primarily designed for capturing screen video streams. While this API provides advanced customization options for video-based screen recording applications, it does not currently offer an efficient way to take single screenshots.
Covenant Eyes, like some other applications, continues to use the existing screenshot API because it remains the most effective method for capturing still images. ScreenCaptureKit is not inherently more secure—its main advantage is flexibility for video capture. However, since our software requires still images rather than video streaming, this new API is not a suitable replacement at this time.
Regarding the persistent popup message, this behavior is not universal and does not appear to be an intentional move by Apple to push developers toward adopting ScreenCaptureKit. If that were Apple’s goal, we would expect this issue to impact a much larger audience.
We are actively monitoring Apple’s updates and evaluating potential improvements to ensure the best experience for our members. Additionally, we have opened a bug report with Apple regarding this pop-up and are awaiting their response.
Thanks again for your feedback!
I'm having the same issue, is there a fix for it yet?
Hi Zakary,
Thanks for reaching out. We do not have any additional information at this time. The comment just above yours, from Joseph, contains the most recent information we have. If we have any updates, we will be sure to update this thread.
Thanks again for posting and have a great day!
Hi, had the same issue occur this morning when my MacBook updated. Here is a fix (unofficial and perhaps temporary) that I found on apple forums that worked:
1. Go to System Preferences > General > Date and time
2. Toggle off "Set time and date automatically" and "Set time Zone automatically"
3. Manually change year to 2040
4. Allow Permission from Covenant eyes once pop up window appears
5. Toggle back on "Set time and date automatically" and "Set time zone automatically" to set date back to current date
Pop up stopped right after that. My guess is maybe if you restart your laptop off you may need to do the fix again but thought I should share in case if anyone needs a quick fix.
Hopefully there is a permanent fix soon!
I just updated my MacBook Pro to 15.3.1. I enabled Covenant Eyes and I have not seen the pop up. Maybe it's fixed?? I will let you know.
Cesar's trick of changing the time worked for me perfectly.
Cesar's solution worked for me as well - I did get logged out of things like gmail though. Not a big deal, just logged back in - but no more popups!
Cesar's solution also worked for me...for now. I don't understand why it worked or how he figured it out, but I you can't argue with results. (When I read his guide at first, I was thinking his was trolling us, but then I saw a few people saying it worked for them. Good work Cesar!)
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