Non-admin that owns an app in /Applications can’t update it

[markmentovai]

I’m a non-admin user (for security purposes), but I know that Atom doesn’t update itself properly when owned by another user, so I made a concession and allowed it to be owned by my non-admin user. I still stuck it in /Applications, which my non-admin user doesn’t have write access to.

Atom still can’t update itself. I get “Restart and Install Update” in the Atom menu, but when I hit it, Atom restarts without having installed an update.

~Library/Application Support/com.github.atom.ShipIt/ShipIt_stderr.log contains messages like this

2015-11-18 17:45:46.311 ShipIt[14118:552694] Beginning installation
2015-11-18 17:45:46.323 ShipIt[14118:552693] Couldn't abort install and restore owned bundle to previous location file:///Applications/Atom.app, error NSError { domain: NSPOSIXErrorDomain, code: 2, description: "No such file or directory" }
2015-11-18 17:45:48.215 ShipIt[14118:552695] Installation error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=13 "Permission denied" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Permission denied}
2015-11-18 17:45:48.215 ShipIt[14118:552695] ShipIt quitting

[joshaber]

Thanks for opening this up! We're already tracking this issue at #131.

[markmentovai]

I think that this is different from #131. I actually do own Atom.app, but I can’t write to its parent directory. It doesn’t prompt for a password (as it does in #131) but the update fails.

[joshaber]

Fair enough!

[fancyydk]

Can confirm this. If a standard user who knows the admin password installs an Electron app in /Applications (will be prompted to enter the admin credentials), then any subsequent updates will run without asking for the admin credentials again, then fail with the errors OP posted. Any solution or workaround?