• Hello [name]! Thanks for joining the GMC. Before making any posts in the Tech Support forum, can we suggest you read the forum rules? These are simple guidelines that we ask you to follow so that you can get the best help possible for your issue.

Mac OSX Product Hasn't Worked for 3+ Months - Yoyo Games has Ghosted Me

J

jglag

Guest
Hello,

I've been a paying customer of Game Maker since 2007. I've always used it as a hobby, but more recently program biological simulators for research and education purposes. For 2 months, after a certain update, my copy of Game Maker Studio 2 has not worked. For some reason it has not only caused deserialization errors and made my projects unusable, but the program has actually gone in and corrupted my projects (actually deleting files) so that previous work is lost. I can no longer open the projects at all. I reached out to Yoyo Games multiple times and never heard anything back from them. One month ago I got a very brief response saying that they were looking into it. That was a month ago, and since then I have reached out again and again and gotten no response. In the meantime I reached out on Discord and here on the GMC forums. Several people tried to help me (I sent them my project files) but were unable to solve out the problem. I posted on Yoyo's facebook page asking (very nicely) if I could get some support, but it is no longer there. Several days ago I tweeted at them, but also have gotten no response. I am a long-time paying supporter of the company and feel extremely betrayed. I had an already-funded plan to develop simulator software for middle schools and a local museum. These plans had to be put on hold because my software was suddenly unusable. I don't know where else to turn, and I really can't believe that Yoyo Games has essentially "ghosted" me as a customer, and that the outcome has been harmful to a part of my career. It feels like my story is being silenced by the company because they don't know how to fix it and instead of telling me this, they refuse to even acknowledge its existence. I have always loved Game Maker and wanted to support this company. Please, if anyone can help me, I would really, really appreciate it.
 

Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
Sorry to hear you've been having these issues, and we've passed along your message to YoYo Games. The Support Team will be in touch very soon.
 
J

jglag

Guest
I'm really pleased to say that tech support has now gotten back to me. I hope we can resolve the issue so that I may use GMS2 once again. Thank you, Nocturne!
 
J

jglag

Guest
Update: Sadly I still have not gotten the support I need, and haven't heard anything from YoYo Games in 9 days. Still can't even open the file. I'm actively learning Unity in an attempt to deliver the product I am supposed to for the museum exhibit, though that will take a while as I have spent years learning GML. This is all very disappointing.
 

Jon

Member
Sorry you lost your work.

Seems unlikely you can recover deleted files from a hard drive in active use after so long a time.
You weren't perhaps bitten by the Win10 1809 update file deletion bug were you?
Again, not a helpful comment, but in the future, if you have files that are deleted for whatever reason, STOP using the hard drive and immediately use a file recovery tool.
GMS2 doesn't have the project backup feature that GMS1.4 had. That wasn't great but it was something. Source control, which you are using now, and a proper backup strategy are really critical.
 

Jon

Member
BTW, the same thing is certainly possible in Unity or Visual Studio or any other tool. Use source control and backups no matter what tool you use.
 
J

jglag

Guest
Jon,

I use a Mac, so it's not anything to do with a Windows update.

Same thing is possible with Unity, but this has happened to many of my GMS2 projects in the past couple of months, so I can't start a new project and trust that the software will work. The trust is nearly gone. I don't want to have to constantly rely on source control.

The thing that is most frustrating is that YoYo Games tech support seems to be able to open the files. They did this with some old file I had sent them of as one of several example projects 9 days ago (I sent the project file 2+ months ago), but they didn't send me the file I actually need. And now they won't respond to me, again, so I'm just waiting for help to just open the file (which they can do). They're just not responding to me. I don't understand why it's like this. Support was always very fast to get back to me in previous years whenever I had an issue.
 
J

jglag

Guest
Still waiting on being able to use GMS2. Last time support responded to me, they told me that there must be a problem with my Mac which caused GMS2 to not work. So I made an appointment to take my computer in to see if it was a problem with my computer. It's 100% fine, according to the shop. So that was a waste of time and money due to YoYoGames once again.

I asked for a refund because I haven't been able to use GMS2 in two and a half months. YoYo Games refuses to even respond to me about this, or about anything. Is this legal? No. It is completely outrageous. The problem is that they made a Mac version of GMS2, and it has a major problem, and they are pretending that it's my fault. Even though I paid for the program.

This issue has NOT been resolved. YoYo Games has not helped me recover the files I need, and they refuse to respond to me, still. I am astounded, as is everyone at my university who is involved in the project. This is the worst customer service I've ever encountered in my life, and everyone should know about this. Any help would be appreciated.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Edit: My blunt observation re: YYG probably violates forum policy.
 
J

jglag

Guest
@Nocturne Since you seem like the only person affiliated with YoYo Games who tries to help at all, I hope you are following along here and see what's become of the situation. When you intervened, YoYo Games didn't end up helping. They ignored you.

I give up on getting help from YoYo Games. I need a refund or else my university is pressing charges. This is illegal. Since I'll have actual financial backing here from the science department, I'm ready. We're ready.

The censoring of this thread is being monitored. I suggest you don't delete it, YoYo Games.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Oh fine, I might as well say it: Cut your losses and move on. Even if YYG helped you on this one issue, you should know by now that you'll get screwed again down the line. And don't bother with the legal stuff, just take the hit and go write a bad review on Steam. That'll do far more damage to YYG, and it'll get it out of your system.
 

YellowAfterlife

ᴏɴʟɪɴᴇ ᴍᴜʟᴛɪᴘʟᴀʏᴇʀ
Forum Staff
Moderator
Oh fine, I might as well say it: Cut your losses and move on. Even if YYG helped you on this one issue, you should know by now that you'll get screwed again down the line. And don't bother with the legal stuff, just take the hit and go write a bad review on Steam. That'll do far more damage to YYG, and it'll get it out of your system.
But no matter where you go, please start using source control ✨
 

YellowAfterlife

ᴏɴʟɪɴᴇ ᴍᴜʟᴛɪᴘʟᴀʏᴇʀ
Forum Staff
Moderator
You'd think as a paid contractor, you'd put your efforts towards finding a fix for the actual problem.
I'm not a paid contractor, I'm a community forum moderator. You don't get paid to do this.
People working at YoYo Games have the "YYG staff" flair.

I at one point was briefly hired to help fixing bugs, but that did not touch IDE, so I cannot make any guesses at how anything works there.

Whilst I have made various tools to work with GM formats and could take look at your files, you had stated yourself that you had different people look at it with no conclusion, so I can only assume that the files no longer have anything in them.

The new beta's IDE changelog states that it now includes series of countermeasures against project corruption, but it's no help if yours is already broken.

So I can only say that I'm surprised that you've not started making backups or using version control after the first time this happened, since for me personally it took exactly one time of loosing few days of work [power going out exactly amid a long save in Warcraft III map editor] to start using version control with remotes for everything. Should I have not, I would by now have lost maybe few years of work total in a variety of accidents involving hardware failure, software failure, and even just plain human error.
 
S

Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
Awesome, @YellowAfterlife is a paid contractor now? That means we can finally throw money at him and make him do our bidding! SkyNet shall become reality!
While he was responding to Yellow Afterlife, while I could be wrong, it doesn't like to me he was talking about him.
 
J

jglag

Guest
I'm not a paid contractor, I'm a community forum moderator. You don't get paid to do this.
People working at YoYo Games have the "YYG staff" flair.

I at one point was briefly hired to help fixing bugs, but that did not touch IDE, so I cannot make any guesses at how anything works there.

Whilst I have made various tools to work with GM formats and could take look at your files, you had stated yourself that you had different people look at it with no conclusion, so I can only assume that the files no longer have anything in them.

The new beta's IDE changelog states that it now includes series of countermeasures against project corruption, but it's no help if yours is already broken.

So I can only say that I'm surprised that you've not started making backups or using version control after the first time this happened, since for me personally it took exactly one time of loosing few days of work [power going out exactly amid a long save in Warcraft III map editor] to start using version control with remotes for everything. Should I have not, I would by now have lost maybe few years of work total in a variety of accidents involving hardware failure, software failure, and even just plain human error.
I don't know who you think you're talking to, but I am the OP, not the person you just responded to.

I have been making backups the entire time since this started. But I can't open the latest versions which had significant things added. And if this is going to happen again, I am not going to re-code it just to have it lost, again. Makes sense, right?

I am not to blame here.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Dog Slobber

Member
I think there might be a problem with expectations regarding support.

The OP encountered some kind of a technical problem resulting in lost code. Does YoYo Games has an obligation to work address those bugs? Absolutely.

But reading this topic, I'm left with the impression that the OP also believes that support also means Yoyo Games has an obligation to recover his code. It appears like they may have tried to, but weren't able to. As problematic as it can be to loose source, I can't agree with his expectation that it is YoYo Games responsibility to recover his code.
 
J

jglag

Guest
@Dog Slobber They did not try to recover the code. If they did, I should have an email that says, "We tried to recover your code but could not." This email doesn't exist.

Where are you getting "it appears like they may have tried to" from? I have no evidence of them doing this. Do you have any new information that could help me?

It is YoYo Games's responsibility to give me a working product that I paid for, or give a refund.
 

YellowAfterlife

ᴏɴʟɪɴᴇ ᴍᴜʟᴛɪᴘʟᴀʏᴇʀ
Forum Staff
Moderator
I don't know who you think you're talking to, but I am the OP, not the person you just responded to.
Oh my, sorry. It was 2AM and I would not expect anyone not involved with question to reply that to me, so I didn't check if the author was OP before replying.

And if this is going to happen again, I am not going to re-code it just to have it lost, again. Makes sense, right?
Can certainly check if the beta build addresses it (now that it specifically promises to), but I can see why you'd be willing to just take your things somewhere else by now, so good luck with either option you choose.
 
J

jglag

Guest
In response to my asking for a refund, YoYo Games eventually responded to my latest email saying that they were closing my ticket.

I asked them these two questions:
  1. Why won’t you send me back the project that I asked for help with if your team claims to have fixed the project weeks ago?
  2. Why won’t you give me a refund for a product that doesn’t work?
I'll post here if they ever respond to either of them. So far, they refuse to address what so ever these questions that I've asked multiple times.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
G

guyinboots

Guest
That sucks dude, I learned a while ago to save my stuff in source control the hard way. My game file got corrupted, but I fixed it by going into the files and copying the code from all the corrupted games object files and putting them into a new project. Hope this helps
 
J

jglag

Guest
Update: No response from YoYoGames. GMS2 still doesn't work. YoYoGames refuses to help or give me a refund.

YoYo Games has stolen $100 from me.

@Nocturne
 
Last edited by a moderator:

True Valhalla

Full-Time Developer
GMC Elder
Update: No response from YoYoGames. GMS2 still doesn't work. YoYoGames refuses to help or give me a refund.

YoYo Games has stolen $100 from me.
Issue a chargeback with your bank then. You are the customer, don't stand for bad service.
 

Juju

Member
I'd be happy to take a look at your borked project tonight, @jglag, if you're still interested in recovering it. I've had a lot of experience with in-depth project file fixing (mostly due to skewiff merge conflcts).

As for YYG's customer service here, this is bizarre and very concerning. @rmanthorp - Could you track down what's happened here?
 

rmanthorp

GameMaker Staff
Admin
GameMaker Dev.
Hey, we've checked into this and we've found the ticket. It was answered with the unfortunate news that nothing further could be done in this situation, but was re-opened and assigned to a place it should not have been. It's been re-assigned to the correct place and will get a further answer about what could be possible. Sorry for the mixup and sorry you've had these issues.
 
J

jglag

Guest
Hey, we've checked into this and we've found the ticket. It was answered with the unfortunate news that nothing further could be done in this situation, but was re-opened and assigned to a place it should not have been. It's been re-assigned to the correct place and will get a further answer about what could be possible. Sorry for the mixup and sorry you've had these issues.
The issue has not been resolved. I was sent an extremely unhelpful and snarky email by the original customer service agent, Daniel Cleaton, who hadn't responded to me in 3 months. He made many false claims in his email to me, which I responded to directly. I'll be posting all of my further communication with the company to these forums. If it is deleted, I have them all saved on my computer and am also posting everything to Facebook for further accountability.

Here are the points I made in my latest response to him:

  • The internal version your team sent me did NOT fix the problem. It happened again to other projects. It did not fix the older projects. So no, this claim you are making is false.

  • I did NOT send you the “prehistoric life” project first. I sent that afterwards to show you that another project was corrupted. Your team is the one that did not do the work to see this. Just scroll through our email exchanges and you will see your error. The first project I sent was called Evolution, over 3 months ago, and no, you did not fix that. So claiming that I should’ve sent you the project I wanted fixed first is entirely invalid.

  • Adding on to the above passage: You did not “fix” the project. Just because you were able to open the file on your computer does not mean that you fixed any file or fixed the program on my end. The program was never fixed and I was never given the help that I needed.

  • Telling me that I cannot get a refund because the product had been “fixed” is a lie. Nothing you or your team has sent me has fixed the problems. And because you have access to the history of our email exchanges over the past 3+ months, I know you can see this.
 
J

jglag

Guest
I'd like to add an important update to this case.

I took my laptop to the Apple Store for the second time in two months to resolve this issue. After two hours, it was determined by Apple that there is absolutely nothing wrong with or different about my Mac that is causing a problem for Game Maker Studio 2. Using all of the information I've acquired about this issue through the limited tech support, log files, prior visits, and Apple's own investigation into my computer, they determined that the problems I've been having with GMS2 are the fault of Game Maker not working correctly with the Mac's operating system in general and have nothing whatsoever to do with a problem with my computer. GMS2 has not been designed to work correctly with Apple's System Integrity Protection, which is a core part of the operating system and cannot be disabled. Apple says that the GMS2 software has not been properly programmed to work on macOS and that this cannot be fixed on my end.

This is a direct response to YoYoGames support claiming that GMS2 not working is because of something wrong with my computer.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Gunner

Member
I'd like to add an important update to this case.

I took my laptop to the Apple Store for the second time in two months to resolve this issue. After two hours, it was determined by Apple that there is absolutely nothing wrong with or different about my Mac that is causing a problem for Game Maker Studio 2. Using all of the information I've acquired about this issue through the limited tech support, log files, prior visits, and Apple's own investigation into my computer, they determined that the problems I've been having with GMS2 are the fault of Game Maker not working correctly with the Mac's operating system in general and have nothing whatsoever to do with a problem with my computer. GMS2 has not been designed to work correctly with Apple's System Integrity Protection, which is a core part of the operating system and cannot be disabled. Apple says that the GMS2 software has not been properly programmed to work on macOS and that this cannot be fixed on my end.

This is a direct response to YoYoGames support claiming that GMS2 not working is because of something wrong with my computer.
First off, how dare you compare our very talented developers working at GameMaker to those so called 'geniuses' at Apple?! :D
Cmon, at this point nobody takes them seriously, they just suck at what they do. It's a thing everybody knows.


Okay, may I suggest you to stop using the GM for Mac and just use parallels on Mac and run GM for windows instead?

Also, before that, have you tried to just wipe everything and do a fresh OS install? There might be something wrong with your computer, I and countless others here use GM for Mac and nothing like that ever happened, don't you think your computer would be perhaps the one to check on first?

Don't be so fast on requesting a refund, you will be missing out on a great product. This is written by someone who hates GM mind you, but just the cost (time, effort) of moving to something else far exceeds the bad things it has.
 
J

jglag

Guest
First off, how dare you compare our very talented developers working at GameMaker to those retarded so called 'geniuses' at Apple?! :D
Cmon, at this point nobody takes them seriously, they just suck at what they do. It's a thing everybody knows.


Okay, may I suggest you to stop using the GM for Mac and just use parallels on Mac and run GM for windows instead?

Also, before that, have you tried to just wipe everything and do a fresh OS install? There might be something wrong with your computer, I and countless others here use GM for Mac and nothing like that ever happened, don't you think your computer would be perhaps the one to check on first?

Don't be so fast on requesting a refund, you will be missing out on a great product. This is written by someone who hates GM mind you, but just the cost (time, effort) of moving to something else far exceeds the bad things it has.
Thanks for the reply. I've been using GM for well over a decade, so I am well aware of what the software has to offer and I had loved it for a long time. It's the only programming language I am proficient in. I'm not sure if you've read through this thread--I've done everything everyone and you suggested (I've had many private message conversations with users and some extremely talented GM developers who have tried to help me). I've spent a lot of time and effort on this and knowing this I don't think anyone would suggest that I am being too hasty. This has been an absolute nightmare for me. It directly ruined a major graduate project I had lined up and received a grant for, as others can testify to.

I don't have enough space on my computer or room elsewhere to install Windows on my Mac. It's not an option for me (yes, I've looked into it). And buying a new computer just to re-buy this software on PC and use it? That's a no.

I get that you're being light-hearted in your response (I'm assuming this with the emoji), but it's hard for me to laugh at this situation when it's caused me so many problems. I've spent a lot of time and effort on this. It's the worst customer service I've ever experienced--ever. The fact of the matter is, YoYoGames doesn't care at all about what has happened. If they showed effort in trying to fix this, even if unsuccessful, I wouldn't be very upset at all.
 

Tsa05

Member
Have you looked into something like https://datarecovery.wondershare.com/ ?
Game Maker project files contain practivally nothing at all--they are just information trees pointing to the real project data, which is generally stored in additional files. Every script, sprite, and object event code that you create should be its own file. If resources have vanished from your project, they may still be on your computer, and even if they've been deleted somehow, they may still be recoverable on your hard drive.

Nearly 3 months later, though...I assume you've finished recoding this for your deadline by now, so maybe a moot point.
 
J

jglag

Guest
Have you looked into something like https://datarecovery.wondershare.com/ ?
Game Maker project files contain practivally nothing at all--they are just information trees pointing to the real project data, which is generally stored in additional files. Every script, sprite, and object event code that you create should be its own file. If resources have vanished from your project, they may still be on your computer, and even if they've been deleted somehow, they may still be recoverable on your hard drive.

Nearly 3 months later, though...I assume you've finished recoding this for your deadline by now, so maybe a moot point.
Yes, I have lost the opportunity for this project. But I'd still like to recover the files, or at the very least have a working product that I paid for.

I have not tried that. I do know that the individual files for objects, rooms, etc. are separate. Those files get deleted by GMS2 randomly, which is the main problem. I'll try and use the link that you sent. Thanks!
 
Top