UE5.4 MacOS Steamworks API problems with OnlineSubsystemSteam and libsteam_api.dylib

I have been wrestling for over 2 days, help!

Attempting to get the steam overlay or at least achievements working on MacOS. I have done all the things the internet says might help.

At first a log indicated that OnlineSubsystemSteam could not write its ‘steam_appid.txt,’ and that’s where it gave up and shutdown the Steam API.

First I tried chmod on the whole program, so anyone could write to the .app folder. No luck.

Thinking I could outsmart it, I copied the OnlineSubsystemSteam plugin to the project folder and modified it to not care about steam_appid.txt.

This changed the error! Getting somewhere right?

Now the Steam API call returns false. Why? It says one of the reasons here:
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/sdk/api

I have steam_appid.txt all over the place, but it’s possible the OS doesn’t let steam read that? Chmod and chgrp didn’t help.

Any ideas? Note: yes I am loading the packaged game from the steam client.

Update: It seems steam is connected in some way and knows the appid is running (can stop it from my app’s page in the library). But the overlay does not work, nor do achievements.