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R not running under lldb? (osx)

Tim,

as a security precaution Apple has disabled the ability to debug notarized applications*. It means any software distributed on macOS Catalina (and they may have retro-actively enabled it for recent updates of Mojave) cannot be run in a debugger.

If you want to debug R, you have to use non-release binaries that are not notarized and install them by hand, e.g.:

curl -L http://mac.r-project.org/high-sierra/R-4.0-branch/x86_64/R-4.0-branch.tar.gz | tar fxz - -C /

Of course, this disables the Apple protections and thus is not recommended for casual users. 

Cheers,
Simon

* - more technical details: Apple requires notarization of any application that will be distributed via an Apple installer. Apple no longer allows installation of macOS applications that are not notarized. In order to obtain notarization, the application has to be fully signed, has to use hardened run-time and may not enable debugging entitlements. One part of the hardened run-time is that no debugger is allowed to attach to the application.