Perhaps run a kickstarter to port STO entirely to... isn't it Lua that WoW uses? And it runs on both Mac and Windows? So they'd only have to maintain one codebase that way. I'd probably drop a couple hundred for that, if it meant I was more likely to keep my beloved STO characters, instead of losing them the way I lost my EverQuest ones.
This just has "it's one of those bugs" written all over it... It's a Mac bug that also happens on some Windows boxes (according to the bug thread,) It's an "operation completed successfully" bug, which probably means that there is an error in an error handling routine which overwrites all the information that could've helped you to trace the original problem... And it may relate to some blast-from-the past code written 15 years ago, because I vaguely remember something about anything using Win2000 and early versions of XP network libraries having a very similar problem back in early 2000s... And it escaped pre-release testing, yet hits most (all?) the Mac users in production release... This isn't as bad as a bug can get, but it's very,very close.
Actually I don't think it's as bad as some of the Mac-related bugs they fixed in the client last year. The problem is in the launcher, which is a much simpler beast than the client. The "SUCCESS" error is just some library routine not setting the error cause variable on returning an error, so I don't read much into that, except it makes the devs' job a bit harder initially.
I poked around the STO app files last night, and it looks to me like the error relates to some issue with login/authentication, possibly, given the timing of the error, in getting/passing an authentication cookie to the client that's needed to connect to the server. That's all sheer speculation, based on what I understand of the security architecture MMOs tend to use. But it's the kind of error that tends to be easily fixed, once the actual problem is tracked down. Unfortunately, security stuff tends to be tricky, since you don't want to poke holes in the security perimeter, and not many programmers understand (or need to) why the protocols work the way they do.
Since it's launcher-/patcher-related, I'm not too surprised QA missed the problem. Testing that sort of stuff can be tricky -- if they start with a clean slate, it's different from what's in the field. If they start with a prior distribution, it's possible they may not see the same sort of update actions that really occur in the field. Frankly, I don't envy the QA staff for *any* MMO -- the code is incredibly complex, with far too many uncontrollable state variables in real use.
Perhaps run a kickstarter to port STO entirely to... isn't it Lua that WoW uses? And it runs on both Mac and Windows? So they'd only have to maintain one codebase that way. I'd probably drop a couple hundred for that, if it meant I was more likely to keep my beloved STO characters, instead of losing them the way I lost my EverQuest ones.
The problem with porting the game to Mac, or doing a WoW-like mostly-cross-platform client, is that the graphics code in STO is all DirectX based, which doesn't correspond directly to the graphics environment on the Mac (OpenGL, or Metal on the most recent OS releases). They'd have to write a Mac-only 3D graphics backend, as well as rewrite the 2D UI code into something cross-platform. A *lot* of work that probably wouldn't be financially justifiable, or at least come with a lot of risk.
SoE abandoned the Mac port of EverQuest partly because maintaining two codebases was just too much work, and partly because their Mac audience just wasn't big enough. Blizzard was clever enough to write WoW in a mostly cross-platform way, but you need to start that way; it's hard to retrofit that kind of thing without rewriting the whole game from scratch. I don't know if a Kickstarter could fund that much, though having a user-programmable UI like WoW's Lua stuff would be really nice. The Transgaming Windows emulator is far from ideal, but it's low-hanging fruit that makes it much easier to justify doing a Mac port of a game *at all*. I can live with that, as long as it works.
As far as I can tell, the Transgaming stuff isn't very likely to be at fault in the current problem. Looks more like either a broken distribution or a minor glitch in the server/client startup process, to me.
Perhaps run a kickstarter to port STO entirely to... isn't it Lua that WoW uses? And it runs on both Mac and Windows? So they'd only have to maintain one codebase that way. I'd probably drop a couple hundred for that, if it meant I was more likely to keep my beloved STO characters, instead of losing them the way I lost my EverQuest ones.
The problem with porting the game to Mac, or doing a WoW-like mostly-cross-platform client, is that the graphics code in STO is all DirectX based, which doesn't correspond directly to the graphics environment on the Mac (OpenGL, or Metal on the most recent OS releases). They'd have to write a Mac-only 3D graphics backend, as well as rewrite the 2D UI code into something cross-platform. A *lot* of work that probably wouldn't be financially justifiable, or at least come with a lot of risk.
SoE abandoned the Mac port of EverQuest partly because maintaining two codebases was just too much work, and partly because their Mac audience just wasn't big enough. Blizzard was clever enough to write WoW in a mostly cross-platform way, but you need to start that way; it's hard to retrofit that kind of thing without rewriting the whole game from scratch. I don't know if a Kickstarter could fund that much, though having a user-programmable UI like WoW's Lua stuff would be really nice. The Transgaming Windows emulator is far from ideal, but it's low-hanging fruit that makes it much easier to justify doing a Mac port of a game *at all*. I can live with that, as long as it works.
As far as I can tell, the Transgaming stuff isn't very likely to be at fault in the current problem. Looks more like either a broken distribution or a minor glitch in the server/client startup process, to me.
Then the least the could do is use something better than Cider and actually MAINTAIN it as much as their windows client. There are problems with the mac client of their game that they have IGNORED for 3+ years, that is unacceptable. There comes a point in games where being merely "functional" is sub par. And then to ask players to spend money to keep it running and then not even keep it up to spec and and bug free and polished as possible is abhorable.
They should not have added mac support if they didn't intend to commit to it. Because the quality of their mac support is again, TRIBBLE poor.
^^ Well I can confirm that the mac client has problems. I am having this constant issue that the game freezes and there is a popup requiring me to add my admin password. Of course the mac client will crash anyways even if I give the password. I have no idea why this happens.. also in some heavy maps like the bug ground missions.. it crashes very often and I have to restart.. I have to come accept this and otherwise the client works ok.. this is the first time for me that I have had problem logging in after a season release.. of course before I was a heavy user of the wineskin.
It used to be companies could contract with...Aspyr, I think?...to build and maintain Mac ports. Especially now that Transgaming's emulation business has, IIRC, been sold off to Nvidia, it may be that PW literally CAN'T update parts of the Mac client. I don't know that, but it seems possible. Might be necessary to look for an alternate solution.
It used to be companies could contract with...Aspyr, I think?...to build and maintain Mac ports. Especially now that Transgaming's emulation business has, IIRC, been sold off to Nvidia, it may be that PW literally CAN'T update parts of the Mac client. I don't know that, but it seems possible. Might be necessary to look for an alternate solution.
Aspyr and Feral still do that for some games, but they have their own problems, mostly delayed releases. MMOs tend to be in-house work only.
If you go inside the official mac client by right clicking the app and selecting "show package contents" and go to the folder "MacOS" and then opening the app through the executable file: "cider". After logging in and while getting the error "unable to start game: success" in client, I got a HUGE error message in the terminal this is what mine said (not sure if this directly related to the problem but most likely it is): (I am using OS X 10.11.1)
This is printed before I type in my login information:
2015-10-28 17:50:03.657 cider[12601:175280] Error loading /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/BartenderAudioPlugIn.plugin/Contents/MacOS/BartenderAudioPlugIn: dlopen(/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/BartenderAudioPlugIn.plugin/Contents/MacOS/BartenderAudioPlugIn, 262): no suitable image found. Did find:
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/BartenderAudioPlugIn.plugin/Contents/MacOS/BartenderAudioPlugIn: mach-o, but wrong architecture
2015-10-28 17:50:03.657 cider[12601:175280] Cannot find function pointer New_SHP_PlugIn for factory 834FC054-C1CC-11D6-BD01-00039315CD46 in CFBundle/CFPlugIn 0x70589d00 </Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/BartenderAudioPlugIn.plugin> (bundle, not loaded)
Redshirt is one of the test servers. Tribble is the more commonly used test server though. Whereas... Holodeck is the standard play server, containing all seasons, and expansions.
If you go inside the official mac client by right clicking the app and selecting "show package contents" and go to the folder "MacOS" and then opening the app through the executable file: "cider". After logging in and while getting the error "unable to start game: success" in client, I got a HUGE error message in the terminal this is what mine said (not sure if this directly related to the problem but most likely it is): (I am using OS X 10.11.1)
This is printed before I type in my login information:
2015-10-28 17:50:03.657 cider[12601:175280] Error loading /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/BartenderAudioPlugIn.plugin/Contents/MacOS/BartenderAudioPlugIn: dlopen(/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/BartenderAudioPlugIn.plugin/Contents/MacOS/BartenderAudioPlugIn, 262): no suitable image found. Did find:
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/BartenderAudioPlugIn.plugin/Contents/MacOS/BartenderAudioPlugIn: mach-o, but wrong architecture
2015-10-28 17:50:03.657 cider[12601:175280] Cannot find function pointer New_SHP_PlugIn for factory 834FC054-C1CC-11D6-BD01-00039315CD46 in CFBundle/CFPlugIn 0x70589d00 </Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/BartenderAudioPlugIn.plugin> (bundle, not loaded)
After looking at it definitely looks like a graphics problem.
Hmmm....may suggest that you copy and paste this post of yours to a ticket (I believe that's the word used for filling a bug or issue on the appropriate support page/s) to tech support? I'm sure they might want to look into it.
The new season was tested on Tribble trouble is no one or very few Mac users could log onto Tribble to give feedback as Tribble wouldn't load for us.
Dam annoying as this is it is to be expected with Cryptic. Bugs in content is the norm
Could we get a daily progress report of sorts that at least lets us know what progress, if any, has been made at end of the day? I don't mean to make more work for anyone, but it looks like it's the not knowing that's adding to the frustration and speculation so just a simple gesture like that could make all the difference.
After only 4 months, 19 weeks, 134 days, it's here. It's real! U.S.S. Tempest
Could we get a daily progress report of sorts that at least lets us know what progress, if any, has been made at end of the day? I don't mean to make more work for anyone, but it looks like it's the not knowing that's adding to the frustration and speculation so just a simple gesture like that could make all the difference.
Seconded — just a quick note maybe around midday and end of day would go a long way toward easing concerns.
also in some heavy maps like the bug ground missions.. it crashes very often and I have to restart.
It does the same to me, but "force quit" solves it. When it crashed press cmd+alt+esc, then the os puts you back to the desktop so you don't have to restart. That way may work for you as well.
Okay, I just read the most recent Batch of release note, for a fresh patch that goes into effect tomorrow on the 29th of OCT. NO WHERE in any of those notes was ever mentioning of our current issues with the Mac Client, nor of any issue some players are having with purchased/claimed C-store item; not in both the resolved issues and known issues lists.
What's up with that?
Are we taking bets on how many weeks/months this issue will persist? My guess is at least five weeks.
I'm going to guess at least a month, or possibly never and mac support is dropped forever lol
Notice how they haven't denied or debunked mac support being dropped, even though its been brought up by quite a few people the last couple days, even on twitter...
I can't believe they'd just drop Mac support out of nowhere. That said, I strongly doubt we'll be able to play again for at least a week, probably longer.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them." -Thomas Marrone
Are we taking bets on how many weeks/months this issue will persist? My guess is at least five weeks.
I'm going to guess at least a month, or possibly never and mac support is dropped forever lol
Notice how they haven't denied or debunked mac support being dropped, even though its been brought up by quite a few people the last couple days, even on twitter...
Uh, who exactly has "brought up" Cryptic/PWE dropping Mac support on Twitter?
Could we get a daily progress report of sorts that at least lets us know what progress, if any, has been made at end of the day? I don't mean to make more work for anyone, but it looks like it's the not knowing that's adding to the frustration and speculation so just a simple gesture like that could make all the difference.
Agreed.
We are now entering day three and the Mac Client is still broken. Some sort of time-frame for a fix would be much appreciated.
Today's patch notes make no mention of the Mac Client's status. I'm still hoping there might be some kind of unannounced fix in there. One can hope...
> @ironcaniac said: > Could we get a daily progress report of sorts that at least lets us know what progress, if any, has been made at end of the day? I don't mean to make more work for anyone, but it looks like it's the not knowing that's adding to the frustration and speculation so just a simple gesture like that could make all the difference.
It would be indeed nice if they keep us up-to-date about this bug, and of course add this one to their bug report and release notes, so nobody won't forget us, the mac-using community.
Comments
what a great idea!
I poked around the STO app files last night, and it looks to me like the error relates to some issue with login/authentication, possibly, given the timing of the error, in getting/passing an authentication cookie to the client that's needed to connect to the server. That's all sheer speculation, based on what I understand of the security architecture MMOs tend to use. But it's the kind of error that tends to be easily fixed, once the actual problem is tracked down. Unfortunately, security stuff tends to be tricky, since you don't want to poke holes in the security perimeter, and not many programmers understand (or need to) why the protocols work the way they do.
Since it's launcher-/patcher-related, I'm not too surprised QA missed the problem. Testing that sort of stuff can be tricky -- if they start with a clean slate, it's different from what's in the field. If they start with a prior distribution, it's possible they may not see the same sort of update actions that really occur in the field. Frankly, I don't envy the QA staff for *any* MMO -- the code is incredibly complex, with far too many uncontrollable state variables in real use.
The problem with porting the game to Mac, or doing a WoW-like mostly-cross-platform client, is that the graphics code in STO is all DirectX based, which doesn't correspond directly to the graphics environment on the Mac (OpenGL, or Metal on the most recent OS releases). They'd have to write a Mac-only 3D graphics backend, as well as rewrite the 2D UI code into something cross-platform. A *lot* of work that probably wouldn't be financially justifiable, or at least come with a lot of risk.
SoE abandoned the Mac port of EverQuest partly because maintaining two codebases was just too much work, and partly because their Mac audience just wasn't big enough. Blizzard was clever enough to write WoW in a mostly cross-platform way, but you need to start that way; it's hard to retrofit that kind of thing without rewriting the whole game from scratch. I don't know if a Kickstarter could fund that much, though having a user-programmable UI like WoW's Lua stuff would be really nice. The Transgaming Windows emulator is far from ideal, but it's low-hanging fruit that makes it much easier to justify doing a Mac port of a game *at all*. I can live with that, as long as it works.
As far as I can tell, the Transgaming stuff isn't very likely to be at fault in the current problem. Looks more like either a broken distribution or a minor glitch in the server/client startup process, to me.
Then the least the could do is use something better than Cider and actually MAINTAIN it as much as their windows client. There are problems with the mac client of their game that they have IGNORED for 3+ years, that is unacceptable. There comes a point in games where being merely "functional" is sub par. And then to ask players to spend money to keep it running and then not even keep it up to spec and and bug free and polished as possible is abhorable.
They should not have added mac support if they didn't intend to commit to it. Because the quality of their mac support is again, TRIBBLE poor.
Aspyr and Feral still do that for some games, but they have their own problems, mostly delayed releases. MMOs tend to be in-house work only.
This is printed before I type in my login information:
2015-10-28 17:50:03.657 cider[12601:175280] Error loading /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/BartenderAudioPlugIn.plugin/Contents/MacOS/BartenderAudioPlugIn: dlopen(/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/BartenderAudioPlugIn.plugin/Contents/MacOS/BartenderAudioPlugIn, 262): no suitable image found. Did find:
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/BartenderAudioPlugIn.plugin/Contents/MacOS/BartenderAudioPlugIn: mach-o, but wrong architecture
2015-10-28 17:50:03.657 cider[12601:175280] Cannot find function pointer New_SHP_PlugIn for factory 834FC054-C1CC-11D6-BD01-00039315CD46 in CFBundle/CFPlugIn 0x70589d00 </Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/BartenderAudioPlugIn.plugin> (bundle, not loaded)
This is printed after I login:
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: conn 0x133cb token 0x1ffffffffffe85
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: Backtrace (at 18834):
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 0 CoreGraphics 0x9d78eb91 CGSDisableUpdateToken + 228
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 1 AppKit 0x9a748a51 ___disable_updates_sync_block_invoke_2 + 19
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 2 libdispatch.dylib 0x99c647e7 _dispatch_client_callout + 50
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 3 libdispatch.dylib 0x99c660b8 _dispatch_barrier_sync_f_invoke + 61
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 4 libdispatch.dylib 0x99c66074 dispatch_barrier_sync_f + 98
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 5 libdispatch.dylib 0x99c706cb dispatch_barrier_sync + 54
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 6 AppKit 0x9a74893a NSCGSDisableUpdates + 1302
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 7 AppKit 0x9a74834f NSCGSTransactionRunPreCommitActionsForOrder_ + 159
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 8 AppKit 0x9a748295 NSCGSTransactionRunPreCommitActions_ + 17
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 9 AppKit 0x9a729467 -[_NSCGSTransaction addActionWithOrder:usingBlock:] + 236
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 10 AppKit 0x9a729361 NSCGSTransactionAddAction + 115
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 11 AppKit 0x9a729785 NSCGSWindowMark_ + 267
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 12 AppKit 0x9a7295fa -[_NSCGSWindow setFrame:] + 341
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 13 AppKit 0x9a7b451c _NXCreateWindowWithStyleMask + 165
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 14 AppKit 0x9a7b436a _NSCreateWindow + 165
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 15 AppKit 0x9a805165 -[NSWindow _commonAwake] + 1781
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 16 AppKit 0x9a5ffbf9 -[NSWindow _commonInitFrame:styleMask:backing:defer:] + 807
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 17 AppKit 0x9a5fe1c4 -[NSWindow _initContent:styleMask:backing:defer:contentView:] + 1789
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 18 AppKit 0x9a5fdabd -[NSWindow initWithContentRect:styleMask:backing:defer:] + 72
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 19 libmacdrv.dylib 0x774199b8 -[DesktopWindowController init] + 216
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 20 libmacdrv.dylib 0x77419af7 +[DesktopWindowController newController] + 55
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 21 libmacdrv.dylib 0x7742f15a -[VideoController initWithConfigOptions:] + 378
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 22 libmacdrv.dylib 0x7742ef29 +[VideoController newVideoController:] + 73
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 23 libmacdrv.dylib 0x77415757 -[CiderAppController init] + 215
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 24 libmacdrv.dylib 0x7741564e +[CiderAppController sharedController] + 110
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 25 libmacdrv.dylib 0x77416eb4 init_app_controller + 36
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 26 libmacdrv.dylib 0x7740c560 MACDRV_Init + 160
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 27 libntdll.dylib 0x70074614 PE_InitDLL + 180
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 28 libntdll.dylib 0x7005a48d MODULE_DllProcessAttach + 285
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 29 libntdll.dylib 0x7005d3f6 LoadLibraryExA + 502
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 30 libntdll.dylib 0x7005e4c7 LoadLibraryA + 39
Oct 28 17:50:18 cider[12601] <Warning>: void CGSUpdateManager::log() const: 31 libuser32.dylib 0x75c4f2a6 UserClientDllInitialize + 774
After looking at it definitely looks like a graphics problem.
Hmmm....may suggest that you copy and paste this post of yours to a ticket (I believe that's the word used for filling a bug or issue on the appropriate support page/s) to tech support? I'm sure they might want to look into it.
Dam annoying as this is it is to be expected with Cryptic. Bugs in content is the norm
U.S.S. Tempest
Seconded — just a quick note maybe around midday and end of day would go a long way toward easing concerns.
Now I'm going back to play... oh wait I'm not
NO WHERE in any of those notes was ever mentioning of our current issues with the Mac Client, nor of any issue some players are having with purchased/claimed C-store item; not in both the resolved issues and known issues lists.
What's up with that?
its only been two...
I'm going to guess at least a month, or possibly never and mac support is dropped forever lol
Notice how they haven't denied or debunked mac support being dropped, even though its been brought up by quite a few people the last couple days, even on twitter...
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
Uh, who exactly has "brought up" Cryptic/PWE dropping Mac support on Twitter?
Agreed.
We are now entering day three and the Mac Client is still broken. Some sort of time-frame for a fix would be much appreciated.
Today's patch notes make no mention of the Mac Client's status. I'm still hoping there might be some kind of unannounced fix in there. One can hope...
> Could we get a daily progress report of sorts that at least lets us know what progress, if any, has been made at end of the day? I don't mean to make more work for anyone, but it looks like it's the not knowing that's adding to the frustration and speculation so just a simple gesture like that could make all the difference.
It would be indeed nice if they keep us up-to-date about this bug, and of course add this one to their bug report and release notes, so nobody won't forget us, the mac-using community.