denoland/deno · error

CFBundleIdentifier is empty in {}

Error message

CFBundleIdentifier is empty in {}

What it means

The plutil extraction succeeded (exit 0) but produced an empty string, so read_bundle_identifier rejects it. The Info.plist has a CFBundleIdentifier key whose value is empty — syntactically valid plist, semantically invalid identifier. Downstream codesigning and CEF helper prefix matching need a concrete id.

Source

Thrown at cli/tools/desktop.rs:2696

  let output = std::process::Command::new("plutil")
    .arg("-extract")
    .arg("CFBundleIdentifier")
    .arg("raw")
    .arg("-o")
    .arg("-")
    .arg(&plist)
    .output()
    .context("failed to invoke plutil(1) to read CFBundleIdentifier")?;
  if !output.status.success() {
    bail!(
      "plutil could not read CFBundleIdentifier from {}: {}",
      plist.display(),
      String::from_utf8_lossy(&output.stderr).trim(),
    );
  }
  let id = String::from_utf8_lossy(&output.stdout).trim().to_string();
  if id.is_empty() {
    bail!("CFBundleIdentifier is empty in {}", plist.display());
  }
  Ok(id)
}

/// Cheap Mach-O sniff: a Mach-O file starts with one of the well-known
/// magic numbers (32-bit, 64-bit, fat — both endians). Used to skip
/// non-binaries inside `Contents/MacOS/` (shell launchers, update
/// sentinels) before passing them to `codesign(1)`, which would reject
/// them and abort the signing pass.
fn is_macho_file(path: &Path) -> bool {
  let Ok(mut f) = std::fs::File::open(path) else {
    return false;
  };
  use std::io::Read;
  let mut magic = [0u8; 4];
  if f.read_exact(&mut magic).is_err() {
    return false;
  }

View on GitHub (pinned to f7822238ca)

Solutions

1. Set a non-empty reverse-DNS value for CFBundleIdentifier in the bundle's Contents/Info.plist, e.g. com.acme.app.
2. If the plist is generated during bundling, fix the upstream config that feeds the identifier so it isn't empty.
3. Delete the staged bundle and rebuild so the plist is regenerated from valid config.

Example fix

<!-- before -->
<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
<string></string>

<!-- after -->
<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
<string>com.acme.app</string>

id=$(plutil -extract CFBundleIdentifier raw -o - "$APP/Contents/Info.plist" 2>/dev/null)
[ -n "$id" ] || { echo "CFBundleIdentifier missing/empty"; exit 1; }

When it happens

Trigger: Contents/Info.plist contains `<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key><string></string>`. plutil extracts the empty string successfully, and this explicit emptiness check fires.

Common situations: Templated Info.plist where the identifier placeholder was never substituted; manual plist editing that wiped the value; a generator writing the key with an unset variable.

Related errors

• bundle identifier {id:?} is longer than 155 characters
• bundle identifier {id:?} has an empty segment
• plutil could not read CFBundleIdentifier from {}: {}
• helper plist {} has no CFBundleIdentifier
• icon sets are not supported in --hmr mode yet

AI-assisted analysis of denoland/deno@f7822238ca (2026-08-20). Data as JSON: /api/errors/8626800e090ddc55. Report an issue: GitHub.