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Troubleshooting

Accessibility permission not sticking

Last verified: May 2026

Symptoms

FocusDragon prompts for Accessibility permission repeatedly, or the AI assistant can't force-quit drifting apps. Same shape as the Screen Recording bug — a stale TCC entry that won't refresh with a simple toggle.

What breaks without it

  • Force-quit on AI drift — Hard and Nudge modes need Accessibility to terminate the offending app.
  • Window-title reading — used as supplementary text for the classifier on native apps (Teams, Slack, VS Code).
  • Tab-closing on browser drift.

Pure website blocking via the browser extension does not need Accessibility. If you only block URLs, you can skip this permission entirely.

Step-by-step fix

  • 1. Quit FocusDragon (Cmd-Q).
  • 2. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility.
  • 3. Find FocusDragon, click the minus (−) button to remove it. Enter your password if prompted.
  • 4. Relaunch FocusDragon and start an AI-assisted block.
  • 5. When prompted, click Open System Settings and toggle FocusDragon On.
  • 6. Quit and relaunch one more time so the new permission state is read at startup.
AI-powered blocks refuse to start until Accessibility access is granted. The app surfaces a deep link to the correct System Settings pane — use it.

Still stuck? Contact support at hi@focusdragon.app.

Still stuck? Contact support