AirTags visible in “Find My”, but OpenTagViewer reports missing OwnedBeaconRecord (macOS VM)

[kafisc1]

Some AirTags are visible and working correctly in Apple “Find My”, but OpenTagViewer / AirTag Exporter cannot export them and shows an error about a missing OwnedBeaconRecord.
`Device XXXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXX had an OwnedBeacon file but no BeaconNamingRecord file could be matched for it. This device is being skipped.

Environment

• OpenTagViewer / AirTag Exporter version: 1.0.4
• macOS version: 14.1.1
• System type: macOS running inside a virtual machine (Proxmox)
• Apple ID: Logged in and active
• iCloud / Find My: Enabled

Expected Behavior

• All AirTags that are visible in Apple “Find My” should be listed and exportable in OpenTagViewer.

Actual Behavior

• AirTags are visible in Apple “Find My”
• OpenTagViewer lists the devices
• Some AirTags are skipped with the error above

• Export is incomplete

Steps to Reproduce

• Run macOS 14.1.1 inside a Proxmox virtual machine
• Sign in with Apple ID
• Confirm AirTags are visible in Apple “Find My”
• Start OpenTagViewer / AirTag Exporter
• Attempt to export AirTags
• Error appears and affected devices are skipped

Troubleshooting Already Tried

• Logged out of Apple ID
• Logged back in to Apple ID
• Rebooted macOS VM
• No improvement

Additional Notes

• Issue might be related to missing or incomplete iCloud cache files inside a virtualized macOS environment
• Possibly BeaconNamingRecord files are not generated or synced correctly on macOS VMs`

Request for Help

• I would be very grateful for any tips or ideas on how to resolve this.
• If anyone has suggestions, logs to check, or things to try, I’m happy to test and report back.

[huskyuser]

the whole app isn't working at the moment...

[parawanderer]

@kafisc1 your error is interesting and would indicate your cache files are missing some files that document the current configured names of the AirTags. I would be curious if you could use the standalone script to decrypt all the .plist cache files, and try and identify if your naming records live in a different folder or what the general folder structure is in your case?

@huskyuser so the current status should be that it should work for a lot of cases but it is likely going to be missing some datapoints. See earlier discussions like #19. If you're never getting any updates then you are likely in possession of some tags that will only be synced by the fix of #30 .

[kafisc1]

Hi parawanderer,

I ran the standalone decryptor successfully on macOS.

Important detail first: the script must be run as a module from the python/ folder, otherwise imports fail:

• cd OpenTagViewer/python
• python -m main.airtag_decryptor --rename-legacy --output <fresh_output_dir>

On my system the relevant cache base is:

• ~/Library/com.apple.icloud.searchpartyd/

The folder structure clearly separates data:

• OwnedBeacons/ → technical / cryptographic records
• BeaconNamingRecord//.record → naming records

Counts on my machine:

• OwnedBeacons: 7 .record files
• BeaconNamingRecord: 6 .record files

After decrypting, all BeaconNamingRecord plists consistently contain a name key.
Example fields include:

• name
• (optionally) emoji
• associatedBeacon
• roleId

So in my case the display names are not stored in OwnedBeacons, but exclusively in BeaconNamingRecord/.

Let me know if you want further key-level details.

Thank you in advance!

opentagviewer_report_20251222_144120_SANITIZED.txt

[kafisc1]

In summary I was able to successfully decrypt all of the .plist cache files using the standalone script. From those decrypted files, I could extract the AirTag keys without issues.

[parawanderer]

Hi, I will try to get back to this relatively soon (and probably do the main 2 pending tasks for this repository to get rid of a bunch of known issues) -- I've been busy with some personal things.

Either way: thank you already for taking the time to do this deep investigation from your side! This should be a good start for me to look into this.