Mac problems :(

Jairyanna

So I've downloaded, installed, and then uninstalled something like 4 times now. For some reason it's not creating a folder in Documents (where save games, custom portraits etc live), just some weird 'alias' file, and the game icon in the Applications folder in unselectable.

Is anyone else using a Mac having this problem, or is it something I've done? Really at a loss. I've emailed Support, but just wondered if anyone else is in the same boat.

Illydth

I don't think I've given a try to installation at this point without upgrade. i.e. blowing away my entire local game contents and trying to install.

I assume this is a fresh/brand new/never before installation of BG:EE for you?

What you're seeing in the second screen shot is actually what should be inside the BG:EE Package/Application...what you'd get if you right clicked the BG:EE application Icon and hit "show contents" (or whatever that option is).

WHich mac OS are you working off of?

Jairyanna

Illydth said:

I assume this is a fresh/brand new/never before installation of BG:EE for you?

Well, yes and no. I had both BGEE and BGEE2 installed already, but I uninstalled them and binned all associated files so that I'd have a clean install for the new game. (I used Steam keys to get on the 2.0 beta, and I created *a lot* of characters so I just wanted an easy way to start from scratch.)

Illydth said:

What you're seeing in the second screen shot is actually what should be inside the BG:EE Package/Application...what you'd get if you right clicked the BG:EE application Icon and hit "show contents" (or whatever that option is).

Yes, you're right: for some reason it's creating all the files that should be in the 'package contents' outside. I don't know why.

Illydth said:

WHich mac OS are you working off of?

I'm using El Capitan on a 2015 Macbook Pro

Illydth

Ok, i'm on El Capitan on a 2007 MBP myself, not the same hardware but the same OS. It's 3:00 am right now so I can't do it at this point, but tomorrow if you're still having the Issue, I'll dump my installation and try a download from scratch to see what I can see.

I assume this is a steam installation we're dealing with here?

Do you know exactly what you deleted and how? Did you use Steam's "Delete local content..." button?

Jairyanna

Thank you @Illydth

No, I'm using the Beamdog versions - I pre-ordered SoD (and bought all the others) from Beamdog, so I wouldn't be able to play it via Steam (that's right, isn't it?).

I uninstalled the games with Clean My Mac, but the folders in Documents and Applications were still there so I just moved them to Trash.

Illydth

Steam keys are available as far as I understand, but don't quote me on that...again, not my area of expertise, I'm just re-posting what I've heard others say.

I don't know if I have access to the Mac Beamdog download clients, let me ping @Cerevant on this one as I know he does some mac stuff as well.

Jairyanna

Thanks. Hopefully you get some sleep soon!

Cerevant

Looks to be an issue with the launcher, here's a workaround to try until we get a look at it:

• right-click on the app above (the one that has the circle with a line through it) and choose "Show Package Contents"
  
• Open Contents, MacOS
  
• Double click the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition file that's there
  

Let me know if that works

Jairyanna

I tried un/reinstalling one last time and now the game icon is there, and I can load the game. Maybe just a glitch the first times I tried. Thanks everyone for your help, even into the wee hours.

EDIT: Still no folder appearing in Documents, so can't do custom portraits or view save games.

EDIT part 2: Options (e.g. scale ui, windowed mode, character outlines etc) reset to default when the game is quit

Jairyanna

Hmm. So although I can launch the game and get through Character Creation, it crashes just before the Prologue. I'm guessing this is because of that missing folder in Documents - there's nowhere for the game to put the save file

Really don't know what the problem is, but I've reported on Redmine.

Jairyanna

@Cerevant It worked initially, but, from reading a few other Mac users' comments, there is a crash happening whenever you try to save. I'm also experiencing it when trying to accept Character Creation - presumably because that's an Autosave point.

Cerevant

Do you have any non-english characters in the path to your documents folder?

Jairyanna

@Cerevant Nope, just:

MacintoshHD/Users/Jairyanna/Documents

Cerevant

Thanks for your help I posted some things to try on the ticket
http://redmine.beamdog.com/issues/22139

Virelai

I had a similar problem on my first install where I got the "ghostbusters" icon over the BG app like the OP. When I tried to open it I got a message along the lines of "Power PC Applications No Longer Supported." (2010 MacBook Pro running El Capitan here).

I performed a second install and it all seemed to work fine. SOD didn't create a new document folder though, it seems to be reading my original BGEE document folder. I tested this by saving a game in regular 2.0 BGEE then loading the same save in SOD BGEE and it worked like a charm.

Sidenote: I'm digging the fact that I can use 2.0 BGEE "classic" for the old UI aesthetic, or fire up SOD and enjoy the new grimdark UI.

isosamep

I had a similar problem [Beamdog version on El Capitan] and it seems it was indeed related to the BG folder in Documents. The game would crash if I started a new BG campaign.

What worked for me was deleting the alias/shortcut the game creates automatically and manually creating a folder myself called "Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition". After starting the game, it populates it with the correct configuration files and folders. No problems so far after this.

Hope this helps.

Jairyanna

Thanks very much folks - manually creating a Balder's Gate folder in Documents was the thing that fixed it. Strange that the game didn't create one itself though? In any case, I'm happy it's working now ^_^

Cerevant

It does create one, but for some reason it is having trouble on certain systems. We're still looking into it.

Thanks all for the input!

Bluesplinter

isosamep said:

What worked for me was deleting the alias/shortcut the game creates automatically and manually creating a folder myself called "Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition". After starting the game, it populates it with the correct configuration files and folders. No problems so far after this.

Hope this helps.

FWIW, this fix worked for me, too. Crashed every time when I hit the "Venture Forth" button. Same circumstances (El Capitan, Beamdog version, etc). Working fine now. Thanks, isosamep!

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Jairyanna

It could be that @isosamep and I (and I think everyone else who has posted they were having trouble) are using El Capitan? That's the only thing I can think of that's different in our experience compared to yours, @subtledoctor. Who knows!

Yann1989

Oww, so I'm not the only one Mac user for who the game crashes just after character creation (technically just after moving my character in-game). But I do have a Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition folder in my Documents...

Arcater

For the icon - this was only resolved for me when I got the steam key. Steam downloaded the correct file. For the quits, restore to default this helped me running the game flawlessly:

"This is easy, just create folder "Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition" in DOCUMENTS and in this folder "save" folder. If there is already file "Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition" just rename it and creat proper "Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition". Will work just fine."

Cerevant

subtledoctor said:

I have noticed since a long time ago that, while the Steam and GOG versions of these games create a simple folder in ~/Documents where the .ini and save files go, the Beamdog version does something strange. It creates the folder in ~/Library/Containers/com.beamdog.baldursgateenhancededition/Data/Documents. And then it makes an alias to this BG folder and puts the alias in the regular ~/Documents folder.

The reason for this is OSX Sandboxing. To follow the sandboxing rules, you aren't allowed to write anything into the Documents folder unless you bring up the OSX Save / Save As dialog. The alternative is to do what we did. Those aren't links or hooks into your other data - those are empty folders that go nowhere that lets programs that think they are accessing your Documents folder see what they expect to see. This is not a Beamdog choice, but a mandatory requirement for the Mac App store. Yeah, I know.

That being said, 2.0 Mac doesn't currently doesn't do that, so...tangent

[blockquote](Really, ~/Documents is not a great place for this kind of thing anyway. It really should be in ~/Library/Application Support. But that is neither here nor there.)[/blockquote]

Our players interact frequently with their save games and Baldur.lua. We'd rather not have that in a hidden folder.

This definitely has something to do with our launcher. Unfortunately, when we test this in house, everything works as expected: If there is no BG:EE folder in Documents, it creates one. We're still looking to figure out what is different in these users' cases.

Cerevant

Yann1989 said:

Oww, so I'm not the only one Mac user for who the game crashes just after character creation (technically just after moving my character in-game). But I do have a Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition folder in my Documents...

Is it an actual folder, or an alias to the one in the sandbox? (It is an alias if there is a little arrow icon on the folder)

Fecle

Im having the same problem as Yann1989

My game crashes when I try to move my character first thing after character creation doesn't matter if its tutorial or BG.

Im playing the game trough Steam on a macbook pro 13'' late 2011 with OS X yosemite 10.10.1

thanks for any help in advance

Yann1989

@Cerevant Yes it is an actual folder.

@Cerevant @Fecle
I have found the solution! You have to deactive "Sprite outlines" in the "Graphics" options. That is what makes the game crash when moving your character.

Cerevant

@Yann1989 Are you running the same version of OSX as @Fecle?

Also:
Are you each running the latest patch version of OSX? Install any updates. (You shouldn't need to upgrade to El Capitan, just get the latest patches for Yosemite or whatever)

If you are up to date, please take a screen capture of the driver version info on the Options/Graphics screen. Cmd-Shift-4 works best for that.

StefanO

I can confirm that all my V2.0 games (BG:EE, BG2:EE, SoD) run without problem on OS X 10.11.4 (the latest version of El Capitan). In all games the option "Sprite outlines" was deactivated from the start because I find "smooth" sprites ugly.

Unfortunately (for debugging purposes of cause) enabling the option doesn't crash the game.

Kultus

Glad I finally found all this! I thought I was the only one.

I had the same problem where the game crashed every time after character creation (2012 retina Macbook Pro, El Capitan 10.11.4).

I created the "Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition" folder in Documents, and it lets me play . Haven't played much yet, so not sure yet if everything is fine

One additional problem though: The folder in Documents populated with baldur.lua and a Save folder, but there's no baldur.ini file in there (so I can't get the CLUA Console to work!). Any solutions on what to do there? There's nothing for com.beamdog... in Library/Containers, so I'm not sure where the file would be or how to get to it

AstroBryGuy

Kultus said:

Glad I finally found all this! I thought I was the only one.

I had the same problem where the game crashed every time after character creation (2012 retina Macbook Pro, El Capitan 10.11.4).

I created the "Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition" folder in Documents, and it lets me play . Haven't played much yet, so not sure yet if everything is fine

One additional problem though: The folder in Documents populated with baldur.lua and a Save folder, but there's no baldur.ini file in there (so I can't get the CLUA Console to work!). Any solutions on what to do there? There's nothing for com.beamdog... in Library/Containers, so I'm not sure where the file would be or how to get to it

Add this line to your baldur.lua file:

SetPrivateProfileString('Program Options','Debug Mode','1')