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Mac OSX "Unable to find game!!" after compiling, uploading and redownloading...

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Omlette

Guest
Hi everyone.

I'm currently trying to distribute my game for MacOSX. I'm using Sierra (10.12) and GM:S 1.99.525 EA.
I'm running the project TO Xcode, and I've made sure to disable the "Build for Mac App Store check box" as well as keep the "Signing Identity" text box empty.

When I launch the release build .app that was compiled by Xcode, the .app works.

Now, after I upload that same file to itch, redownload it through chrome, and double click it -- I get the "Unable to find game!!" error.

When I move the downloaded .app to a different directory and launch it, the .app works.
When I copy and paste the same .app into the same directory, it works.
When I launch the original "Unable to find game!!" through bash using "open -a", it works.

However, it doesn't work when I double click it regularly after downloading it through chrome.

Now, here's something else that's very interesting:
If you do make a copy of the bugged copy to "fix" it (so you have 1 bugged copy and 1 fixed copy), empty out the bugged .app (ie. Delete the "Contents" directory) and copy the Contents directory from the WORKING .app to the buggy app, I still get the same error.


Apparently Nuclear Throne had a similar issue in the past where the cause of this was the fact that there was a space character somewhere in the project but I've went through all the strings that I can access through both GM:S and Xcode and I found no space character in the path or anything...
http://steamcommunity.com/app/242680/discussions/0/540739405594642068/

Here's the game that I'm trying to fix it for: https://omrii.itch.io/shhttpsitchiojamagdg-demo-day-14

For the ADMINS, this is the most relevant article I found on the website, but it doesn't address this specific problem... https://help.yoyogames.com/hc/en-us...gest=73ddee85118d48ee99d3c14f611caa0cb309a54c

Not quite sure what to do and I'm stumped.
If you'd like me to check any of my steps, upload photos of my settings pages or WHATEVER because I left anything out, let me know.

Any help would be appreciated!
 
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Dennis Lenz

Guest
Discovered the same today. Compiled my App for OSX, tried it on an Macbook using El Capitain - works fine. Send the generated App.zip to a friend using OSX Sierra - "Unable to find game!!".
Using Steam Gamemaker Studio v1.99.548 here ...
 
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Artiph

Guest
Discovered the same today. Compiled my App for OSX, tried it on an Macbook using El Capitain - works fine. Send the generated App.zip to a friend using OSX Sierra - "Unable to find game!!".
Using Steam Gamemaker Studio v1.99.548 here ...
This is... oddly EXACTLY the same situation I'm in, except I'm using the non-Steam version of GMS2.

Anyone happen to have any idea what the deal is?
 
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Soilworker

Guest
This is... oddly EXACTLY the same situation I'm in, except I'm using the non-Steam version of GMS2.
Same. My alpha game has a single room and almost nothing going on yet, extremely clean config as I've just started using GMS2 with no prior GMS experience (but lots of programming experience including C++ and C#/Unity.) My build is working perfectly on Windows, and perfectly on my development Mac, but as soon as I take the .zip to another Mac, it gets this error.

I tried the older workaround of copying the .app to another folder, but this results in a game that crashes on launch (segmentation fault) - so the behavior _is_ changed simply by copying. In that case, it says it's unable to find playerachievementcache.dat - which to my understanding is a Steam related file. I don't have Steam enabled in my builds, though...

Any help would be appreciated. I realize most of the market is Windows (my primary platform), but it's important to me that my game work on all 3 platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux) as I have testers running all 3.
 
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joefrizzell

Guest
Sorry for pinging an old post, but I was having this issue too and apparently it has something to do with the compression that gamemaker uses to make the zip the app up. To fix this I took the working file and added it to a dmg instead of using the built in zip functionality. You can't open the game while its still in the dmg, but if you copy it out it works.
 
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Soilworker

Guest
Sorry for pinging an old post, but I was having this issue too and apparently it has something to do with the compression that gamemaker uses to make the zip the app up. To fix this I took the working file and added it to a dmg instead of using the built in zip functionality. You can't open the game while its still in the dmg, but if you copy it out it works.
Very interesting! I can't believe I didn't think to try that. Must be that the zip routine is corrupting permissions inside the bundle somewhere (my guess anyway.) Thanks!!!
 

bml

Member
It's related to the extended attributes which can cause it to be quarantined:

blomelan$ ls -l
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 blomelan 101 102 Aug 30 22:20 Dungeon-1.app (no game error)
drwxr-xr-x 3 blomelan 101 102 Aug 30 22:20 Dungeon.app (works)

blomelan$ xattr -l *
Dungeon-1.app: com.apple.quarantine: 00e2;00000000;The\x20Unarchiver;

blomelan$ xattr -d com.apple.quarantine Dungeon-1.app/ (clears extended attributes)
 
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SeanGMC

Guest
Sorry for pinging an old post, but I was having this issue too and apparently it has something to do with the compression that gamemaker uses to make the zip the app up. To fix this I took the working file and added it to a dmg instead of using the built in zip functionality. You can't open the game while its still in the dmg, but if you copy it out it works.
How do you do this?
 
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SeanGMC

Guest
It's related to the extended attributes which can cause it to be quarantined:

blomelan$ ls -l
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 blomelan 101 102 Aug 30 22:20 Dungeon-1.app (no game error)
drwxr-xr-x 3 blomelan 101 102 Aug 30 22:20 Dungeon.app (works)

blomelan$ xattr -l *
Dungeon-1.app: com.apple.quarantine: 00e2;00000000;The\x20Unarchiver;

blomelan$ xattr -d com.apple.quarantine Dungeon-1.app/ (clears extended attributes)
How are you able to fix this problem?
 
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Omlette

Guest
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mudora55

Guest
Time is 2099, same issue is still found in the newest version. Over.

ps. the (.dmg) method works here
 
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dannyjenn

Guest
Has this ever been fixed? I'm having the same problem.
IDE Version: 2.2.1.375
Current Runtime: 2.2.1.287

(The DMG method works.)

edit - Sorry, I didn't realize this thread was in the Legacy forum. I'm using the latest version. Maybe I should start a new thread in the GMS2 forum?
 
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wazawoo

Guest
Hello all. I can't believe this is actually an issue (GameMaker 2, 2020). It is incredibly stupid that it hasn't been fixed. I'm replying to all the duplicate posts with two actual solutions (rather than just saying "the dmg method" as all the posts do).

Option 1. Once you unzip the file on the mac you downloaded it on, if you then move the app to a different folder, it will open (you can also then move it back to the original folder and it will work too).
Option 2. If you take the app, and create a .dmg instead of a .zip from it, it will work. You do this by doing the following:
a. Generate the executable in GameMaker, which makes a .zip​
b. Extract the .zip to get the app​
c. Place the app in a folder by itself (unless you want to include other files/documentation)​
d. Open Disk Utility, and do File -> New Image -> New Image From Folder (or cmd+shift+N), and choose that folder​
e. Distribute the generated .dmg instead of the .zip generated by GameMaker​
And I have a solution for YoYo: If this has literally been an issue for YEARS and YEARS, why not just make the generate executable option generate a dmg instead of a zip?

Ridiculous...
 

Tony Brice

Member
I had someone report this issue with downloading one of my games and trying it just today. And the game's been on Itch.io for two years. I'd like to be able to rebuild it and upload a fixed app to prevent other people having the same problem. Heaven knows how many people actually downloaded it and just binned the game without telling me they had a problem.
 

Sinryuko

Member
I encountered this bug with my project today after having to notarize it due to Apple's new requirements. I never seen it happen before now. I had always exported it with the VM option, but YoYo's tutorial for the notarization said YYC was much easier. I wonder if it's related to the YYC export only. Also, this new notarization doesn't even export the game as a zip anymore, it just puts the .app inside of a folder. I tried just uploading the .app to my website, but downloading that alone gave a different error. For now, I put my app inside a folder named "Remove App From Folder", and then I zipped that which works when downloaded. I tried the .dmg method, but it gave the same error until you drag the app from the disk (which other .dmg don't require). Might give the VM method a try to see if it doesnt have this issue, although it's a little more complex and involves a custom shell script to notarize instead of xcode. Also, if you try to zip just the app, it still happens, and you have to move it into another folder first before it works. I'm using gamemaker 2.2.5 for anyone wondering (2.3 broke too many things for my project).

Edit: Tried to notarize the VM Mac version, but didn't have any luck. Got the script running correctly, but it just kept coming back Status: Invalid Package after trying for about 3 hours. Idk if it's because of the hardened runtime thing that gets set in xcode for YYC or what. My project doesn't use any extensions, so I thought it might work that way based on what the YoYo tutorial said. I think I'll just stick with the YYC method. If anyone does get it to work through the VM method, I'd love to hear about it.
 
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xenonii

Member
It's related to the extended attributes which can cause it to be quarantined:

blomelan$ ls -l
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 blomelan 101 102 Aug 30 22:20 Dungeon-1.app (no game error)
drwxr-xr-x 3 blomelan 101 102 Aug 30 22:20 Dungeon.app (works)

blomelan$ xattr -l *
Dungeon-1.app: com.apple.quarantine: 00e2;00000000;The\x20Unarchiver;

blomelan$ xattr -d com.apple.quarantine Dungeon-1.app/ (clears extended attributes)
This worked after compiling, notarizing and downloading on another machine via airdrop.
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
@xenonii @bml Where exactly are we supposed to put that line of code? Sorry for noob at mac!
Those are commands for the Mac Terminal shell and their associated output.
  • The part reading blomelan$ is the prompt, which the shell prints to ask for your commands.
  • The part following the prompt is the command. The ones used here are ls -l (for listing files in the current directory), xattr -l * (for listing attributes among files in the current directory), and xattr -d com.apple.quarantine Dungeon-1.app/ (for clearing the quarantine attribute in Dungeon-1.app).
  • The rest of the content between the command and the next prompt is the output of the command.
Learning to use the shell is a basic competency for any developer on Mac or Unix. Here is an example of a tutorial that teaches it.
 
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Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
Those are commands for the Mac Terminal shell and their associated output.
  • The part reading blomelan$ is the prompt, which the shell prints to ask for your commands.
  • The part following the prompt is the command. The ones used here are ls -l (for listing files in the current directory), xattr -l * (for listing attributes among files in the current directory), and xattr -d com.apple.quarantine Dungeon-1.app/ (for clearing the quarantine attribute in Dungeon-1.app).
  • The rest of the content between the command and the next prompt is the output of the command.
Learning to use the shell is a basic competency for any developer on Mac or Unix. Here is an example of a tutorial that teaches it.
Not sure if this is true cant confirm it because I dont have an M1 (I have an 2018 intel) someone I asked to run that command to test an app that wasnt code signed using that command and they claimed the M1 doesnt have that command at all. This is pretty much why I'm refusing to get an M1. Unless this can be verified as false.
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
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Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
I had a feeling about that. Idk what that guy was smoking. Maybe he just can't use a terminal for some reason.

Edit:


"Gatekeeper is an important security feature" lmao it's only there to make apple more money when they are already the most wealthy company on the planet and dont need any more cash for the next 1,000 years and still be very well off, anything else to call it would be rolling crap in glitter to make a bad thing look "pretty".

They have so much money they are already above the law internationally the worst you can do is sue them and it wont even hurt them at all financially.
 
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