AppleScript - System Events Error : Access for assistive devices is disabled

Question

I have a problem with AppleScript and System Events.

I have check "Enable access for assistive devices" in the “Universal Access” preference pane in System Preferences.

When I try :

arch -i386 osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get the position of every window of every process'

I have this error :

System Events got an error: Access for assistive devices is disabled. (-25211)

Do you have any idea ?

Thanks a lot

fanaugen fanaugen · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-13T12:24:11

The problem is not the assistive devices. AppleScript seems to incorrectly return that error code when it tries to access windows of a process that can never have any windows (in my case it was "Google Chrome Helper").

You need to catch the errors. This works for me:

tell application "System Events"
    set procs to processes
    set windowPositions to {}
    repeat with proc in procs
        try
            if exists (window 1 of proc) then
                repeat with w in windows of proc
                    copy w's position to the end of windowPositions
                end repeat
            end if
        end try -- ignore errors
    end repeat
end tell
return windowPositions

returning a list of coordinate pairs, such as {{1067, 22}, {31, 466}, {27, 56}, {63, 22}, {987, 22}} – is that what you were trying to get?

AppleScript - System Events Error : Access for assistive devices is disabled

3 Answers