OSX User Account Permission Problem Fix

[Freyberg]

I had a big problem with CMFR and I thought I'd share the fix.

After a forced restart in OSX, CMFR, which had been open in the background when I rebooted, would no longer run.

When I doubleclicked on it, there was no error message, it just bounced a few times in the Dock and then nothing happened; no amount of reinstalling, in safe mode or otherwise, forcing a rebuild of permissions; resetting P-Ram etc. worked.

So I created a new user account and reinstalled it from there. It ran perfectly and in fact my old Mac is running better than it has in years.

[Lucky_Strike]

Thanks for this Freyberg.

In your original account did you dump your user preferences files, plist files or whatever the game uses to preserve settings? Also were there any log outputs anywhere that could throw any light on what what happening, that is to say was there anything useful in the Console app?

[Freyberg]

2 hours ago, Lucky_Strike said:

Thanks for this Freyberg.

In your original account did you dump your user preferences files, plist files or whatever the game uses to preserve settings? Also were there any log outputs anywhere that could throw any light on what what happening, that is to say was there anything useful in the Console app?

I deleted the plist files, both the ones for CMRT, and the system ones that Google said were safe to delete.

I found some log files and looked at them, but I couldn't really understand them...

[Lucky_Strike]

Heheh ... log files are not the most intuitive sources of useful info.

Your original issue does sound like it was some corruption related to permissions.

I occasionally find folders that have become mysteriously locked on my Mac, I've not touched them in ages, they are just locked ... I put it down to crashes that happen when there is something using the folder or it's contents. Sometimes a restart clears this, sometimes it doesn't, then I have to resort to the black arts to get in to the folder.

I wonder, since the CM game apps are comprised of an app hidden inside a container, if the container somehow becomes off-limits during a crash so the current user has no permission to use it (no access) thus can't launch it. This info might be written back to some database at system level so preventing the user ever getting into the container (or copy/reinstall) again?!

Anyway, your solution is very welcome and handy to keep as a tip for the future ...

[Ultradave]

I have had a similar problem with Black Sea. It would suddenly no longer run - same symptoms. Deleted everything I could find related to it, fixed permissions using OnYx, reinstalled, no joy.

What worked (I have no idea why and I'm very OSX savvy), is renaming the .app file to Black Sea 1.app    Added the "1" and it runs like it always did.  

If you wanted to try this (it won't break anything to try) it's a way to save your original user account. 

Dave

[Lucky_Strike]

Another good tip to make a note of. Thanks Dave.

This makes good sense if the app container, or something inside the app, has gotten somehow corrupted. MacOS is quite forgiving with running copies of apps like you're suggesting. I have duplicates of several of the games installed so that I can run some of the larger mod sets without worrying about swapping them in and out eg early war eastern front and the North Africa mods.