batchbuild fail on Mac OS X in SSH login

I don't know what the error is referring to, but I get that same "kCGErrorFailure" message over an ssh session as user1 when user1 is not actually logged into the desktop (e.g. Mac on OS X login screen).

I'm only trying to launch (and immediately quit) Unity:

 $ /Applications/Unity/Unity.app/Contents/MacOS/Unity -quit -batchmode
 Thu Oct 18 20:35:07 {COMPUTER} Unity[74611] <Error>: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
 _RegisterApplication(), FAILED TO establish the default connection to the WindowServer, _CGSDefaultConnection() is NULL.

It seems like:

• Executing the command as user1 and no users are logged in -> kCGErrorFailure, Unity process hangs indefinitely

• Executing the command as user1 and user2 is logged in -> kCGErrorFailure, Unity process hangs indefinitely

• Executing the command as user1 and user1 is logged in -> Unity starts and ends as expected.

What's a little odd about the headless launch is that the Unity app even pops up in the dock for a few seconds.

The problem is that the Unity editor requires access to the window server, since it insists on displaying a GUI even in batch mode. Thus, you can't run it from SSH directly.

I had a similar problem with my Jenkins build server. My hacky workaround was to use Applescript to launch a Terminal window and script it to run a secondary shell script (which in turns launches Unity, tails the log, launches xcodebuild, etc.). Obviously a user has to be logged in for this to work, so I also set my Mac to log in automatically at startup.

You can get fancy with output direction and tail -F to pass the log output back to SSH, which makes it mostly seamless, albeit conceptually ugly.

It works fine, but if anyone finds a nicer method I'd certainly be interested.

Maybe this might help you :) I've also encountered same problem and solved it. Now it works perfectly.

You have to be logged in on the Mac Mini with the same user as the one you ssh.