When running a service (in this case the Markdown Service Tools MultiMarkdown to RTF service), I'm getting "Couldn't communicate with a helper application." However, the actual error in console is shown below, an unexpected type error. This was working fine until High Sierra.
The service:
- takes text input, generates RTF using multimarkdown->html->textutil
- Uses pbcopy -Prefer rtf to put the result in the clipboard as rich text (rtf)
- the service retrieves the content of the clipboard and that's what it returns
Here's the error, any insight would be welcome:
<NSXPCConnection: 0x60c000300240> connection to service named com.apple.automator.xpc.runner: Exception caught during decoding of received message, dropping incoming message.
Exception: Exception while decoding argument 1 (#3 of invocation):
<NSInvocation: 0x60400026cd40>
return value: {v} void
target: {@} 0x0
selector: {:} null
argument 2: {Q} 2
argument 3: {@} 0x0
Exception: value for key 'NS.objects' was of unexpected class 'NSTextList'. Allowed classes are '{(
NSFont,
NSAttributedString,
NSDictionary,
AMXPCToken,
NSNumber,
NSData,
NSAppleEventDescriptor,
NSArray,
NSMutableAttributedString,
NSParagraphStyle,
NSURL,
NSColor,
NSNull,
NSString,
NSTextTab,
NSGlyphInfo
)}'.
@apophenist @hartmms I have found a partial workaround. I'm using the Markdown-to-RTF service in Mac Mail on Mojave. Text like this
works fine. But if I include bullets like this
then I get the "Couldn't communicate with a helper application" error. So it looks like lists are off the menu for the time being.
Interestingly, if I now revert to my first example
then I get the error again! I found that this can be fixed by copying something else (any random piece of text) to the clipboard, and then trying again.