Safe Mode Client Discontinuation FAQ (READ THIS IF YOU USE SAFE MODE)

[MycroftRH]

I'm only able to operate in Safe Mode.  I'm on a Mac, running High Sierra (10.13.6), using Island Rum.  I'm not quite sure how to describe my issue other than showing it - whenever I click play in Island Rum for either 64-bit or 32-bit, what's pictured in the screenshot pops up and doesn't go away (doesn't actually ever load) until I give up and quit Wine.  Safe Mode works just fine with no issues.  (Rough description of what's in the screenshot: a window of Wine that's just a black rectangle, another window of Wine that's half an inch wide and only the close/minimize/maximize buttons plus the letter "P", and the Loading banner.)

[Takehai]

I, too, have only been able to run in Safe Mode on my Mac. My issue seems to stem from the implementation of the private Wine code. I have mentioned this before but no action was forthcoming from Manga. For some reason, my Mac just will not run the private Wine. Island Rum acts like it is launching the game, but nothing ever happens. When using Wine in the base directory it worked fine, but when Manga switched it to use it private, it quit working. I have uninstalled and reinstalled everything multiple times, but it never works.

I could get the wineskin client to work in safe mode, and that's how I was playing. I wish I had known in advance that there was going to be an option for keeping safe mode active for a bit, because since I didn't know, I went ahead and let my Mac upgrade to Catalina, so now none of the 32 bit or less will work, which means I can't try using the wineskin option as it didn't support higher than 32 bit. I guess I just screwed myself out of my favorite game.

[ILIWAPCT]

15 hours ago, Number Six said:

Can you give us any details other than "Doesn't support it". The only reference to this I could find on the forums is this:

However there doesn't seem to be much there beyond "it doesn't work, use safe mode".

 

Can you provide some details about exactly what you've tried and what happens? Doesn't show up in the controller list? Shows up but doesn't respond to input? Buttons don't map properly? Something else? We need detailed information to have a chance of solving the problem.

The Steam Controller contains your typical controller buttons plus an integrated mouse.

 

Prior to the 22 August patch, Homecoming had no issues. 

After the August patch I could tinker with the setting and either get the buttons working or the mouse working but not both.

Only Safe Mode recognized both.

 

Today I was able to adjust the settings and 64-Bit was able to recognize both again.

Good Job!

[Tock]

9 hours ago, Takehai said:

I wish I had known in advance that there was going to be an option for keeping safe mode active for a bit, because since I didn't know, I went ahead and let my Mac upgrade to Catalina, so now none of the 32 bit or less will work, which means I can't try using the wineskin option as it didn't support higher than 32 bit. I guess I just screwed myself out of my favorite game.

That was the point of developing the 64-bit client, so when MacOS dropped 32-bit support, new Mac users didn't have to refuse upgrading their Mac to keep playing.  You can still play on Safe Mode today, just add the manifest from the original post of this thread. 

 

But yes, in the coming weeks, Homecoming intends to drop support for Safe Mode.  This doesn't mean your Mac is not supported anymore necessarily (Mac's wine situation just got a little interesting, so I could be wrong on that), but it does mean at this point the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Now is the time to make a Support ticket about your Mac not working and start a dialog with the developer team so they can either diagnose why and share a fix with others, or to patch the client to get your Mac (and possibly 100's of others with the same issue) back in operation.

Edited January 5, 2020 by Tahquitz

[carroto]

As I said in the other thread, I haven't been able to get either of the new clients running under Linux.  The safe mode client runs fine.  The game just crashes immediately on launch.  I'm sure it's possible to get it working, but wine is a complicated beast and I don't know anything about it or how to troubleshoot it.  I wonder what happened to the Linux people who were at one point working on this?  I mean, didn't I see multiple Linux loader/patchers at one point?  I guess they're all gone?  The Linux instructions that I used to get the game running originally seem to have been removed.

 

I'll try to make some more time to fiddle with it and see if I can get it working but it's looking like the Linux folks are going to get left behind soon.

[Abraxus]

The Devs are asking folks to use the process, report problems, and work with them to get the issues solved, so the transition (whenever it happens) can work for as many people as possible.  None of them want to intentionally exclude anyone from playing.  But, it seems that by having the safe mode client out there, folks with problems typically just started defaulting to that, rather than working as hard as they could to solve the base problems.  They (the Devs) have made it clear that they want to help.  But, they can't do it if they are not given the chance to do so. 

 

We also have to start getting more realistic about what problems we are throwing at them.  I've seen folks say they are still using pretty old versions of their preferred OS, and expecting things to work the same as on a more modern, fully patched system.  It's a little unrealistic.  Folks do what they do for reasons of their own.  But, if they can't update, eventually support begins to fall away.  That's the way of things in all sectors of the computer industry, and it's what would have happened if CoH had not shut-down, and continued to develop.  Progress can't be held up indefinitely, and eventually, things must move on in order to provide for future development.  It's been stated that there is a lot of change that can't be pursued as long as legacy support continues.  So, please...for the sake of all.  Folks with issues, please work diligently with the Devs to help solve problems, and try to refrain from accusing them of exclusionary behavior, or just resigning yourself to not being able to play when the progression of the game client necessitates moving on from legacy versions.  We all stand to benefit from what comes next.  So, let's help them get us all there!

Edited January 5, 2020 by Abraxus

[Lydimaster]

I've been using safe mode on my 2011 Macbook Pro since late fall. With safe mode disabled, I am now unable to launch the game. When I attempt to launch from Island Rum, I receive a program error box. It reads: "The program cityofheroes.exe has encountered a serious problem and needs to close. We apologize for the inconvenience." Underneath, it says: "This may be caused by a problem in the program or a deficiency in Wine. You may want to check the application database for tips about running this application." However, the link for the Application Database is also not working well. Will I be able to run this on my Mac, or do I need to use a PC from now on?

[GM Korvin]

5 hours ago, carroto said:

As I said in the other thread, I haven't been able to get either of the new clients running under Linux.  The safe mode client runs fine.  The game just crashes immediately on launch.  I'm sure it's possible to get it working, but wine is a complicated beast and I don't know anything about it or how to troubleshoot it.  I wonder what happened to the Linux people who were at one point working on this?  I mean, didn't I see multiple Linux loader/patchers at one point?  I guess they're all gone?  The Linux instructions that I used to get the game running originally seem to have been removed.

 

I'll try to make some more time to fiddle with it and see if I can get it working but it's looking like the Linux folks are going to get left behind soon.

I'm able to run the game on Linux just fine with the new client myself (the third party launchers are still out there - here are two of them). I've also written up a Lutris script, though it's still yet to be published (Lutris link is here), which you could give a whirl of. I'd recommend submitting a bug report on the forums about your issue - we want everybody to be able to play the game.

[Takehai]

11 hours ago, Tahquitz said:

That was the point of developing the 64-bit client, so when MacOS dropped 32-bit support, new Mac users didn't have to refuse upgrading their Mac to keep playing.  You can still play on Safe Mode today, just add the manifest from the original post of this thread. 

 

But yes, in the coming weeks, Homecoming intends to drop support for Safe Mode.  This doesn't mean your Mac is not supported anymore necessarily (Mac's wine situation just got a little interesting, so I could be wrong on that), but it does mean at this point the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Now is the time to make a Support ticket about your Mac not working and start a dialog with the developer team so they can either diagnose why and share a fix with others, or to patch the client to get your Mac (and possibly 100's of others with the same issue) back in operation.

The problem, AFAICT, is not in the client for me, it's in the launcher, Island Rum. As I mentioned, the game worked fine until Manga decided to move Wine into the game folder and run it from there. For some reason, that I have no idea how to track down, Island Rum does not appear to be able to successfully run Wine when it's in the game folder. When you guys first went live with the 64 bit version, it was initially broken until I found out I had to manually download and install Wine. Once I followed those instructions, everything worked perfectly. Then Manga decided to implement a "private Wine" version in the game folder, and that's when everything quit working completely. I had to revert to using the Wineskin version of the game to get it work at all, and even then only Safe Mode, because the regular 32 bit had the error someone else already documented earlier in this thread. When Safe Mode disappeared from the launcher, I figured that I might as well try the upgrade to Catalina to see if that fixed the issue with Island Rum not loading Wine to run the game. It didn't. Now I'm stuck with only being able to run 64 bit programs, and Wineskin is max 32 bit, so unless Manga decides to revert Island Rum back to a non-private version of Wine, I'm no longer able to launch the game.

Don't get my wrong, no matter how much I'm complaining, I'm not angry at anyone (although I'm a little miffed no one thought to put something in the GMOTD about this happening to give a heads up), and I know you guys are all volunteering time and effort without compensation (Manga included), but I am a little frustrated, and mostly with myself because I didn't think to look at the forums before starting the Catalina upgrade. I had been considering getting a new computer with my tax return this year, this just might have cemented that idea.

Edited January 6, 2020 by Takehai

[Tock]

3 minutes ago, Takehai said:

Don't get my wrong, no matter how much I'm complaining, I'm not angry at anyone (although I'm a little miffed no one thought to put something in the GMOTD about this happening to give a heads up), and I know you guys are all volunteering time and effort without compensation (Manga included)... (Continues...)

Thanks for being considerate about the situation, that is really appreciated.  Absolutely. 

 

4 minutes ago, Takehai said:

Once I followed those instructions, everything worked perfectly. Then Manga decided to implement a "private Wine" version in the game folder, and that's when everything quit working completely.

I'm not a programmer, but I'm guessing this was a factor: Wine is flat unusable with Catalina at the moment.  Codeweavers, the primary developers of Wine, can't even offer their paid customers a workaround for Catalina just yet.  It's that fundamental of an issue.

[Takehai]

17 minutes ago, Tahquitz said:

I'm not a programmer, but I'm guessing this was a factor: Wine is flat unusable with Catalina at the moment.  Codeweavers, the primary developers of Wine, can't even offer their paid customers a workaround for Catalina just yet.  It's that fundamental of an issue.

That's interesting, because back when I first talked about this in the forums, Manga said he had it working just fine on a developer's copy of Catalina. Of course, he's using 4.0.1, and I'm wondering if that was part of why, since I think he mentioned at the time it was the most stable version he could get to work for him...

 

And I just realized, you may have misunderstood me. I was still on Mojave at the time. I only upgraded to Catalina yesterday after the Safe Mode disappeared out of the launcher. I had been holding off until then because I knew that Catalina wouldn't support Wineskin because of no 32 bit support, and that was only version of the game working for me.

Edited January 6, 2020 by Takehai
Re-read reply

[Number Six]

I don't think that's accurate, @Tahquitz. The 32-bit version of wine is broken, but wine64 does work on Catalina, and there are several players who successfully run the 64-bit game client using it. That was a big part of the push to modernize the code and make it 64-bit clean.

[Troo]

On 1/4/2020 at 2:48 PM, Tahquitz said:

This change hopefully gets people to speak up if they are having issues

Surely 'the change' is just referring to the in game 'notification of the safe mode retirement' not the actual safe mode removal.

You wouldn't purposely turn off the working version of the game for some folks just to get them to report why they are not using the non-working versions?

 

On 1/4/2020 at 8:06 PM, moonboy said:

Seriously considering going out and buying another Windows laptop just to deal with this. 

fyi - Folks with new computers have had issues as well.

[Troo]

oh boy..

 

you totally turned off the working version of the game for some folks.

 

reason " time consuming ".

 

-weaksauce

 

 

[Widower]

28 minutes ago, Troo said:

oh boy..

 

you totally turned off the working version of the game for some folks.

 

reason " time consuming ".

 

-weaksauce

 

 

It's still accessible if you, as is written in the first post, add http://patch.savecoh.com/safemode.xml to your manifests in Tequila/Island Rum.

[MycroftRH]

Safe Mode has now quit working on me too (a DirectInput issue, I'm told; the mouse doesn't work) so I no longer have any way of playing CoH at all.

 

I have tried Safe Mode through that manifest - it has the DirectInput issue.  I've tried 32-bit and 64-bit, they have the issue I explained in my previous post.  I've tried 32-bit beta and 64-bit beta through the Beta manifest, and they have the same issue as explained in the previous post.

Edited January 6, 2020 by MycroftRH
confusing wording

[GM Korvin]

1 minute ago, MycroftRH said:

Safe Mode has now quit working on me too (a DirectInput issue, I'm told; the mouse doesn't work) so I no longer have any way of playing CoH at all.

 

I have tried Safe Mode through that manifest - it has the DirectInput issue.  I've tried 32-bit and 64-bit, they have the issue I listed above.  I'e tried 32-bit beta and 64-bit beta through the Beta manifest, and they have the same issue as I listed above.

That's strange - the non-legacy clients don't use DirectInput, to my knowledge. But I'll defer to one of the devs on this. In the meantime, detailing out the problem you're facing would be a great help!

[Number Six]

There were a couple bad versions of wine that had input issues on all clients, but it was corrected in future updates, and it shouldn't just spontaneously revert to that version. @Mangawould know more about which versions of wine Island Rum is currently installing.

[MycroftRH]

Just now, GM Korvin said:

That's strange - the non-legacy clients don't use DirectInput, to my knowledge. But I'll defer to one of the devs on this. In the meantime, detailing out the problem you're facing would be a great help!

No, no, the DirectInput issue is just with Safe Mode - with all the other versions when I said "the issue I listed above" I was referring to my earlier post in the thread.  Sorry for the confusion.  It's the post at the top of Page 2, right up there ^^

[Number Six]

2 minutes ago, MycroftRH said:

No, no, the DirectInput issue is just with Safe Mode - with all the other versions when I said "the issue I listed above" I was referring to my earlier post in the thread.  Sorry for the confusion.  It's the post at the top of Page 2, right up there ^^

Oh, okay, the black screen. We're going to need to get console output (from running the game with -console) somehow to see how far it gets before that screen appears. I've tried a few things with one other person I'm working with on a different issue, but so far have not had any luck getting the console window to appear on Macs.

 

You'll probably need to engage one of our resident mac experts to try and figure out how to do that (@GM AmonRa) if possible.

[Troo]

2 hours ago, GM Widower said:

It's still accessible if you, as is written in the first post, add http://patch.savecoh.com/safemode.xml to your manifests in Tequila/Island Rum.

I know you are attempting to be helpful so I'll be gentle.

• A link to the instructions on how to use the manifest would be more helpful than a link to the safemode.xml which looks like code gobbledygook unless a person is familiar with xml.
• Safe Mode is not accessible (fact) without following the instructions mentioned in the bullet point above and, again, missing from your response.
• The instructions linked in the first post of this thread are for connecting to HC Beta (64-Bit) and HC-Beta (32-Bit).
• The first post of this thread indicated " When will Safe Mode disappear entirely? It’ll likely be early this year ". I guess that's the same as today.
• This implementation could have been handled much better.
• I find your quote/response condescending, inaccurate, and woefully out of touch with the average player.

I'll see if I can figure it out.

I think it might also be prudent to double check that my private version of the code is functioning.

 

-cheers

 

Edited January 6, 2020 by Troo

[boggo2300]

25 minutes ago, Troo said:

I know you are attempting to be helpful so I'll be gentle.

• A link to the instructions on how to use the manifest would be more helpful than a link to the safemode.xml which looks like code gobbledygook unless a person is familiar with xml.
• Safe Mode is not accessible (fact) without following the instructions mentioned in the bullet point above and, again, missing from your response.
• The instructions linked in the first post of this thread are for connecting to HC Beta (64-Bit) and HC-Beta (32-Bit).
• The first post of this thread indicated " When will Safe Mode disappear entirely? It’ll likely be early this year ". I guess that's the same as today.
• This implementation could have been handled much better.
• I find your quote/response condescending, inaccurate, and woefully out of touch with the average player.

I'll see if I can figure it out.

I think it might also be prudent to double check that my private version of the code is functioning.

 

-cheers

 

from the first post of this thread, a link directly to step by step instructions on how to change the manifest, AND the link to the manifest needed

 

 

Safe Mode is gone from Tequila and I can’t play!
Swap Tequila / Island Rum to the Safe Mode manifest ( http://patch.savecoh.com/safemode.xml ) in order to continue playing for now. If you need instructions on how to add a manifest to Tequila, look at this post.

 

and safe mode hasn't disappeared no matter what histrionics, there are people IN THIS THREAD still using it

[HeroReborn]

Reposting my problems when unable to use safe mode. Not these are all related to the desktop scaling update, and there are no crash log as the game doesn't crash. Originally posted in the GUI scaling annoucement thread, and in bug reports.

 

TL;DR: Lots of issues, please keep safe mode as option to return to the way it was.

 

I've posted this in a couple of places, but probably should be in bug reports forum.

 

I use a 4k monitor and am having issues since the UI change. I posted in patch notes thread.

 

Every character has had their windows scrambled to the upper left. A hassle but not big deal.

 

Simply disabling the option does not change settings back to what it was, and using my previously  saved ingame settings just send everything to the upper left.

 

Trying various windowscale options with the scaling on. This helps return to where it was somewhat in usability, and I should be able to get most back where they were.

 

Remaining issues:

 

- Screen shot key no longer seems to copy to clip board (used to be able to press screen shot and then paste into paint or other graphic program).

 

- My floating power button trays become a different size to my standard powertrays (previously they were all scaled down and the same size.) They take up a lot of screen real estate now. /windowscale power doesnt effect the floaters, only the main 1-3 powertrays.

 

- When using window scale with or without the new automatic option disabled, the handles for the floating tray are nearly invisible. See tray 4 in screen shot 1

 

- Reticles are now huge, disabling Automatic UI doesnt fix. Playername is at 100% scaling. I don't know of a windowscale command that effects the reticle. This make play very visually noisy.

 

- Macro text is much harder to read, to the point, with or without the automatic UI and even if scaled at 300%.

 

- Map slider scroll bar is about a pixel big, making it more difficult to grab

 

- Text on scaled down IOs was hard to read before, now it's impossible.

 

- Unable to scroll down at all with inbox email - as in scroll bar doesn't appear though  I have enough emails to need it.

 

- Unable to scroll all the way with account items email, I can scroll a little but stops well before the end of account items. I can click subject to reverse the order and access the bottom account items but still only able to scroll down so far.

 

- Like the text on Macros, the text for team names on team windows is really painful to read, light white and small.

 

- The scroll bar on auction house is tiny, unselectable with the mouse. I can use scroll wheel so can workaround it unlike the email.

 

- Subjective: Gives me much more eye strain and headaches after short time playing. This didn't occur before.

 

Is there any way to keep the old setup? Please. The combination, especially the eye strain has made me go from a near daily player to barely playing on HC.

 

I've found playing in safe mode seems to solve most of these issues, including eye strain, so changing my plea to please keep safe mode unaltered with GUI changes.

 

Edit:

I'll probably add to this.

 

- Enhancement have a graphical bug when clicked and dragged, making it harder to place them correctly. 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 6, 2020 by HeroReborn

[Troo]

On 1/3/2020 at 5:33 PM, The Curator said:

Why are you doing this?
Maintaining both the new (32-Bit / 64-Bit) and old (Safe Mode) clients in parallel is very time consuming severely limits our development capabilities. In order to move the game forwards we need to fully switch over to the new client.

I wonder if in the say the next 3 months this course of action doesn't consume more time than what they were trying to avoid in the first place.

Without more information I can't say for sure if it's a wash or worse.

I haven't seen the actual reason, tool or feature that is pushing this.

 

If I had to make an educated guess - folks have been using safe mode because there are more than a couple nasty tasks that now have to be tackled by volunteers. The punch list of bugs and compatibility issues could run on and on. Could be 200-300 hours of work chasing loose ends. I hope there is something awesome at the end of that joy ride.

 

Edited January 6, 2020 by Troo
toned down a bit

[Abraxus]

I have been in the IT industry for a long time, and I have never seen even the most well planned, well executed changes work for everyone without some extra effort.  These guys are asking folks to use the system, to help them identify problems while there are still alternative environments to play in, while they are being solved.  They are being quite accommodating.  Probably more so than a game company would be.  They started talking about this months ago, and it sounds like it could still be a couple of months (or more) before they finally draw the line, and move past safe-mode support.  So, there is still time to figure out issues.  However, folks gotta keep expectations real. 

 

This is not a group of corporate developers who make their primary living doing this.  They are a group of skilled volunteers, who love this game, and provide all of this for free in their spare time.  Sure, there are those of us who donate funds to their cause regularly, but its not required of all players.  So, expecting them to solve every issue that everyone has on their personal systems likely isn't realistic.  Folks use their computers for a lot of things other than CoH, and they don't always keep them up to date, get rid of unused or outdated drives, or make sure their systems are even running well in general.  They just turn them on, and if they get to a browser, they figure it works well enough, until they try to use it for CoH.  It's not an accusation on my part, or a failing on their part.  It's just a fact of computer life.  However, these overworked Devs can't be responsible for every problem that folks personal equipment has that affect game play.  Let's face it.  The fact that the game has been playable on 10-15 year old computers has been nice, but if any real change was going to be made, it couldn't remain that backward compatible forever.  Nobody expects EVERYONE to be a tech-head to work on their own machine to make sure that the machine itself is not the cause of their problems.  But, by the same token, expecting the Devs to solve the ills of any/all systems that folks use for CoH isn't realistic either.

 

In the end, I have no doubt they will do their level best to solve the problems that are solvable, providing folks use the system, and give them the chance.  But, it's not going to work for everyone, because there are a myriad of problems that already exist on systems which prevent play, but keeps the computer doing whatever the owner needs it to do outside of CoH.  Sometimes, fixing the CoH problem could actually break it's ability to do the other things they primarily use the system to do, and they can't be held responsible for that either. 

Edited January 6, 2020 by Abraxus