Hello again, I've got a persistent oddity. I have a drag-install application that automatically installs a couple of launch agents with configuration plists (in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/). The processes and my GUI Cocoa application all communicate using distributed objects via Mach ports. When the agents get installed the first time, I kick-start them using 'launchctl load ...'. The problem is this: The two launch agents are installed and started using launchctl load (running launchctl as the regular user). The Cocoa application then starts a helper process (using NSTask) which registers a named Mach port. Now at this point, I would think that all four processes should be running in the Auqa bootstrap (the Cocoa application, the agent, and the helper process). But the agent can't see/connect with the Mach port registered by the helper process. The application can see it, connect to it, and does its thing. But when one of the agents attempts to connect with the same helper process, they get an error. Here's the oddity: If I restart the computer things appear to work correctly. When they agents are started automatically as part of the user's login procedure, they all communicate with each other just fine. Am I loading the agents incorrectly? Is this a known problem, or do I have to try to develop a reproducible case and file a bug report?