PhilM

This is a CMFI-based problem, but posted here as it may have a wider relevance ... I had thought CMFI (all my titles ...) to be operating normally: they have for years (literally). Then had an issue with all titles having a (mysteriously, to me) delayed start-up after a Mac OS update (raised at the time in a separate thread): this seemed to have "gone away" after just letting the titles "rest", whilst being labelled as "not responding", until they eventually sprang into (delayed) life. Trying to start a CMFI PBEM game and save off the first turn, I got this (attached screenshot file, which will hopefully show up here) error message, which I've never had / seen before ... "Trying again" doesn't do anything ... No changes to any of the CM files made (knowingly) by me. Any ideas??

Just to clarify ... after the issue re-appeared, as in the above post, the same treatment of simply leaving the title / icon to "sit" a while worked, they now start OK again.

Just for info ... I did today a further "minor upgrade" to Catalina, still badged 10.15.4 ... and after it, I got back the same, unresponsive icons, etc, as described above after the previous upgrade. I'm assuming / hoping that the same remedy (wait until it sorts itself out!) as before will work again ... Still don't know if this is a Catalina thing or a CM thing, but whatever it is, it is repeating itself?

Glad it worked for you. And sort of relieved that it appears not to be just me doing (or not doing) something dumb ...!!

No, don't / never have used it, so not that. I do have an AV running though ... but it's never had that effect on any previous OS upgrade, or any noticeable adverse interaction with CM titles. Thanks for the continued thoughts!

Just to tidy this up, and a heads up if / when anyone else experiences the same thing ... - did the same thing with another title (left it to sit, not responding, in the task bar whilst I did something else), same thing happened: five(ish) minutes later, bingo, up pops the splash screen! - to save time doing it separately for each of all of the titles, and as an experiment, I tried to run (from launchpad, usual method) all of the remaining titles at the same time ... left with a set of bobbing, and then still, not responding, icons in the task bar ... after the same (roughly) interval, they all came to life at the same time as far as I could tell, and were then available to play ...???? - after those delayed starts, they all now re-start instantaneously, as previously, when opened for a second and subsequent times. So, something consistent appears to have been happening ... but I've no idea what!

Well, I've no idea how but RT - at least - seems to have "fixed itself" ... able to play the next turn in my battle. I had tried again to start RT; no response, an apparently "dead" icon in the dock, shown by the OS as not responding. Your suggestion a) gave no resulting error message ... Left it, to ponder what to do next before trying suggestion b) ... was using the internet ... 5 (?) minutes later, the browser suddenly vanished and a full-screen (how I use it) CMRT leapt into life and took over the screen ... slightly spooky, tbh ... but anyway, it seems to work again. None of my other CM titles do, yet, but I'm going to give them the silent treatment as well and see if they delay-start also. The game (as opposed to a specific battle) has had an almost instantaneous start up ... no idea what was happening during the approx. 5 minute pause before RT activated? And whether that's a Mac OS thing or a CMRT thing? Anyway, I'll try the other titles and see if just leaving them alone for 5 minutes results in them starting.

Ha! I was hoping not to be able to re-start CMSF2 to have a get-out clause from the drubbing you are currently giving me in our PBEM ...

Thanks for your input and suggestions ... I'll try them. I'm currently playing two PBEMs, one CMSF2 and one RT; I had played recent turns fine under 10.15.3, then having done the update neither title will launch. As nothing else has changed, I'm struggling to see that it's NOT the update which is doing it ... but exactly how / why I cannot say. If it is the copy protection thing, perhaps CM "sees" a bigger change in my machine than yours does, and it kicks in? This may well be rubbish of course!

Thanks for the link, but not sure what to make of it tbh ...? The games have worked fine with Catalina up to and including 10.15.3 ... it’s just this specific, last upgrade to .4 that seems to have caused the problem. And the problem is with already-installed games, nothing to do with running the installer ...

Updated my Mac's OS as above today ... now BF titles no longer launch??? (Icons bounce in the dock for a while, eventually stop, but "lifeless". No error messages.) Solutions, anyone?? I'm assuming that the BF titles don't like the system update, and think it's a new Mac? A bit tedious, if so ...

Drat! Darn these time zone differences! You've told me I can't say it even before I managed to say it ... As a buyer of CMFI "the hard way" as you described above, including now R2V, I'm fine with the current pricing policy: I value the long-term access and enjoyment, plus paying a little more over time, over a cheaper price for buying the whole bundle now but not having had the game to play. But ... outside the cost / pricing regime, having CM3 as a single core game engine with "families" (or similar ...) of content to use with it is exactly what I hoped CM3 would be. (FWIW, I seem to recall that you did indicate at some point in the past that you might go down that route?) It seems to me to have no (?) downsides to the user? BF would perhaps have fewer revenue-generating opportunities? But also much less work to keep one engine going, even if it did have to cope with a "universal" set of potential circumstances that would not be needed in every "family" of content? But I wouldn't want to put a crimp on the BF Maui beach-front condo retirement plans ...

"... Send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance ..."

I'll remind you of this when we finish our current CMSF2 battle ...

As you are using a Windows PC, my Mac-based methods of making CMH run for the first time won't be of much help! Perhaps a Windows-user can chime in and help us out? Once you actually have CMH running I'll be happy to chip in again with how CMH works, if necessary ... but I'm wary of just making things worse by inferring anything from my Mac version procedures to make CMH run in the first place. You are getting the windows zip files from this link? https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jvh9sx2zla2k0eq/AAA8sQCZZpvs0Emv3M5y7ZFSa

I use CMH on a Mac ... tho works well also AFAIK on a PC ... happy to try and help if I can. When you say "nothing happens ...", can you say a bit more ... If you run CMH by whatever method (Mac or PC), do you see the CMH window open? If you can see that window, you need to use the CMH menu to "Add a game", i.e. make CMH aware of a CM battle that already has a game turn in either the incoming or outgoing turn folders for the title in question ... if you haven't yet played an email battle for a first turn to be generated (either by you or your opponent), you need to have a turn to point CMH at ... You will also presumably have Dropbox (or similar ...) folder set up to swap the files with your opponent? CMH needs to be shown that folder also by browsing to it within CMH, so it can put the right game files in the right Dropbox folder And perhaps you can view the CMH Log File to ascertain if CMH has "seen" your installation(s) of whatever CM titles you have ... Let me know some more of how far you have got!

Accountant: Your water supply is running low ...

So ... does this mean that, at some point in the CM timeline, the patches will arrive at exactly the same point in time - as far as can be determined - as the bugs which necessitate them are identified ... ???

But will we have the patch by then or not??

I think it's very mean of everyone so far not to compliment you on your choice of metaphor ...

Steve, I understand and accept that this (my bold bit of your quote above, and the rest of your post) is so: my piling in was only to increase awareness of the problem and get BF customers to check their card accounts, JUST IN CASE some of the problems are related to people's BF transactions. As you also say, the cards may well have been compromised in a completely different breach ... So, apologies if it seemed like I was holding BF to account for this; nothing further from my mind. And even if it were the BF transaction (though not BF ...) at fault ... my CMSF2 big bundle upgrade is well worth the hassle of needing a new credit card!

I bought the CMSF2 Big Bundle upgrade on 4 December: my card was used fraudulently for a £1,300 attempted purchase in Germany in early January ... Fortunately the card provider declined the transaction, so the only hassle was a new card and number needed. Because of the time gap I didn't initially associate the card being compromised with the BF purchase, but it seems far too many examples to be just coincidence

OK, thanks for the quick confirmation: at least I'm not imagining things ...

With the usual apologies if this has been raised elsewhere, couldn't find anything ... As I've never played a CMSF campaign (dilatory, I know ...), I decided to remedy that by starting CMSF2 Semper Fi (upgraded): the first mission briefing says that the artillery support is provided by 1 initial and then 1 reinforcement DDG, but ... both those unit's icons on screen show as 155mm land-based artillery?? I've called one mission from the initial support, but it's not arrived yet: when it does, will the firepower represent the DDG, and it's just the screen icon which is wrong? Or is it a 155mm land-based artillery mission which will arrive? (Or, perhaps, are the two things deemed to be the same in game terms?) I'm guess I'm thinking of the differentiated "Naval Guns", icons and impact, in CMBN ...

Close CMH. Find (where depends on if you are on a PC or - like me - a Mac ...) the file AppState.txt and delete it. Run CMH again, and a new "clean" version of the .txt file will be created. This can fix glitches in the starting / running of CMH ... The file is located in the same folder as the cmh_log.txt file, the location of which is noted as the first line of the CM Helper Log; running this is one of the "Options" available for CMH. That log itself may highlight other issues, when CMH runs. Worth the effort, as CMH is indispensable IMO. Usually (!) works flawlessly ... My (Mac) location is : /Users/"myname"/Library/Application Support/GreenAsJade/CMHelper/cmh_log.txt )