Prohibited Processes Are Running - Mac

[WezG27]

Discussed in https://github.com/SafeExamBrowser/seb-win-refactoring/discussions/1035

^{Originally posted by WezG27 November 25, 2024}
Hi there,

On Friday, one of our students who uses a Mac got an error - Prohibited Processes Are Running. I have shared a screenshot.

She was using version 3.3 initially so I got her to install 3.4 but the same error occurred, and then today a different learner had the same problem.

Please advise

[danschlet]

This is not an error. As the dialog states:

"The applications/processes below are running, they need to be closed before starting the exam. You can quit applications yourself or deactivate/uninstall helper processes and return to SEB to continue to the exam. You can also force quit these processes, but this may lead to loss of data."

So the student should do exactly what the dialog states. Does that work and can they start SEB/the exam afterwards? (that's actually the most relevant information for us when you report an issue like that).

SEB cannot allow specific processes to be running during an exam. There are preset default prohibited processes, others can be configured by your exam provider. This "parsecd" process is not by default prohibited by SEB, so I assume it was added to the SEB configuration used by exam.net. It seems to be a system process providing suggestions in Spotlight, Messages, Lookup and Safari.

If you want to know why exam.net blocks that process, please ask them. As we state on our support page, PLEASE ALWAYS FIRST CONTACT YOUR EXAM PROVIDER. They set up your exams, so only they know exactly their use cases and the SEB configuration settings they use. If there actually would be some SEB bug involved, your exam provider can contact us (exam.net even is an SEB Alliance contributor and gets direct consulting by us).

[WezG27]

Hi there,

Thank you for that advice.

They have tried to force quit all processes, but they are not able to get into their exam after that.

So I am not sure if you know a better way on Macs to do that.

But otherwise, I will contact our exam provider, thanks.

[danschlet]

Hi, thanks for the additional information! Now I understand the problem:

SEB 3.4 has a bug where startup doesn't continue if some applications or processes have to be terminated manually (showing this "Prohibited Processes Are Running" window). This issue will be solved in SEB 3.4.1, I will release a beta version in the next couple of days.

Exam.net could work around this issue by adding the "Force quit" flag to the "parsecd" prohibited process in their settings. Then the window to manually confirm force quitting the process won't be displayed and SEB startup in 3.4 will work correctly.

[WezG27]

Great! Thank you

[danschlet]

This issue should be fixed in the just released SEB 3.4.1 for macOS.