The application cannot be opened because its executable is missing

Question

I have an application that I have been developing for some time now. Recently launching the application via a double click presents a dialog that says "You can't open the application RepoWatch because it may be damaged or incomplete."

Launching the application via open ./RepoWatch.app gives me "The application cannot be opened because its executable is missing."

I usually launch the application via ./RepoWatch.app/Contents/MacOS/RepoWatch simply out of habit (which DOES work), so I am unsure how long this has been happening, or what change happened immediately before hand. The most likely change is that I put cp Info.plist ./RepoWatch.app/Contents/ into my make file in order to version Info.plist without versioning everything in the .app bundle.

I have looked at Info.plist many times and cannot find anything wrong with it. The file opens up with Property List Editor without any errors. Saving from Property List Editor does not make the file "work" (if it is to blame in the first place).

The permissions as far as I can tell also look sane:

$ ls -l
./RepoWatch.app/Contents/Info.plist
-rw-rw-r--@ 1 dgrace  staff  789 Feb  1 23:20 ./RepoWatch.app/Contents/Info.plist
$ ls -l
/Applications/Adium.app/Contents/Info.plist
-rw-rw-r--  1 dgrace  staff 5750 Aug 21 15:41 /Applications/Adium.app/Contents/Info.plist

I am at a loss as to what to try next.

And here are the contents of Info.plist (Even though nothing has really changed in quite a while):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion</key>
    <string>6.0</string>
    <key>CFBundleDevelopmentRegion</key>
    <string>English</string>
    <key>CFBundleExecutable</key>
    <string>RepoWatch</string>
    <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
    <string>com.doomstick.RepoWatch</string>
    <key>CFBundleName</key>
    <string>RepoWatch</string>
    <key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
    <string>1.0.0</string>
    <key>LSMinimumSystemVersion</key>
    <string>10.6</string>
    <key>CFBundleVersion</key>
    <string>Beta26</string>
    <key>NSMainNibFile</key>
    <string>MainMenu</string>
    <key>NSPrincipalClass</key>
    <string>NSApplication</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Answer 1

Building on the answer that @smokris posted:

The problem seems to be with your app's registration in the Launch Services database. There is no need to rebuild the entire database. To force-update the entry for your app (specifically), use lsregister with the -f option:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -f MyApp.app

I was having the same problem you describe, and this worked for me. Thanks, @smokris!