MacOS: Can't launch CoH from Island Rum (or install the official launcher)

[Zhym]

Update for @GM Manga:

 

I installed the IslandRum update manually by unzipping the islandrum-mac-signed.zip file and moving the new IslandRum.app over the old one.  Still no joy in launching the game, but:

 

Aha!  Looks like the installer is putting the install path in there twice.  Here are the contents of islandrum.sh:

#/bin/sh
export PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin
export WINEARCH=win64
export WINEPREFIX=/Users/<xxxxx>/.privatewine
USE="-cups"
cd "/Applications/Games/CoH"
/Applications/Games/CoH//Applications/Games/CoH/wine.app/Contents/Resources/wine/bin/wine64 "/Applications/Games/CoH/hc-bin64\cityofheroes.exe" -assetpath piggs -assetpath homecoming -auth 51.161.76.201 -legacylayout

 

Check out that last line—the path /Applications/Games/CoH/ (which I have set in IslandRum as the game path) is prepended twice.

 

When I edit that script manually to remove the extra path prefix, CoH runs.  But when I try to launch the game through IslandRum, it re-writes that script with the wrong path.

 

 

 

Edited June 1 by Zhym

[uninventive]

Both IslandRum and LaunchCat expect the game files to be in /Applications/coh. 

Edited June 1 by uninventive
Nevermind the rest, I'm wrong.

[Zhym]

10 minutes ago, uninventive said:

Both IslandRum and LaunchCat expect the game files to be in /Applications/coh

IslandRum actually has a configuration option for where the game files live (it's under Options > "Install Path").  @GM Manga can say for sure, but I suspect there's just a slight bug in the last update that affects what IslandRum does with that setting.

[GM Manga]

3 hours ago, Zhym said:

IslandRum actually has a configuration option for where the game files live (it's under Options > "Install Path").  @GM Manga can say for sure, but I suspect there's just a slight bug in the last update that affects what IslandRum does with that setting.

 

I'm looking info the launch path issue.  

 

Where your setup gets tricky though is that when you're using limited users, Apple expects that apps are only able to write to the user folder.  But it also doesn't allow detection of whether it's a limited user or not.  So in order to support limited users, Island Rum and LaunchCat would have to be stored in ~/Applications (your user Application folder) in order for it to be able to self-update, and the game files would have to be in either ~/Application Support (user Application Support) or ~/Documents (user Documents).  

 

That would be a major change, and would inconvenience a lot of people if it doesn't work right or if they're used to the current coh folder location and like to be able to find their screenshots and demos there.

[GM Manga]

4 hours ago, Zhym said:

IslandRum actually has a configuration option for where the game files live (it's under Options > "Install Path").  @GM Manga can say for sure, but I suspect there's just a slight bug in the last update that affects what IslandRum does with that setting.

 

Ok the Island Rum launch path issue has been corrected, and I also added a fix to make sure changing the path works.

[Zhym]

1 hour ago, GM Manga said:

 

I'm looking info the launch path issue.  

 

Where your setup gets tricky though is that when you're using limited users, Apple expects that apps are only able to write to the user folder.  But it also doesn't allow detection of whether it's a limited user or not.  So in order to support limited users, Island Rum and LaunchCat would have to be stored in ~/Applications (your user Application folder) in order for it to be able to self-update, and the game files would have to be in either ~/Application Support (user Application Support) or ~/Documents (user Documents).  

 

That would be a major change, and would inconvenience a lot of people if it doesn't work right or if they're used to the current coh folder location and like to be able to find their screenshots and demos there.

Yeah, I've struggled to figure out what the "right" way to install IslandRum under limited permissions would be.  What's worked for me is having it in a subfolder of Applications (which, incidentally, doesn't seem to have quite the full set of restrictions that /Applications has) with permissions set to have my non-admin account as owner of the folder.  The subfolder approach also works well since IslandRum seems to create other folders as part of the update process (e.g., "__MACOS", "old"), so having it in a subfolder reduces clutter in Applications.

 

If I were installing this fresh, I might try putting it in ~/Applications instead of /Applications, to see if that helped. 

 

Ideally, IMO, anything other than the application itself would go in Application Support.  That seems to be the model MacOS uses.  But I realize that cross-platform software can't always adhere to the Official Apple Way of Doing Things.  And the whole thing about CoH being a WINE application complicates matters further.

 

Thanks for the fix!

Edited June 2 by Zhym

[GM Manga]

56 minutes ago, Zhym said:

Yeah, I've struggled to figure out what the "right" way to install IslandRum under limited permissions would be.  What's worked for me is having it in a subfolder of Applications (which, incidentally, doesn't seem to have quite the full set of restrictions that /Applications has) with permissions set to have my non-admin account as owner of the folder.  The subfolder approach also works well since IslandRum seems to create other folders as part of the update process (e.g., "__MACOS", "old"), so having it in a subfolder reduces clutter in Applications.

 

If I were installing this fresh, I might try putting it in ~/Applications instead of /Applications, to see if that helped. 

 

Ideally, IMO, anything other than the application itself would go in Application Support.  That seems to be the model MacOS uses.  But I realize that cross-platform software can't always adhere to the Official Apple Way of Doing Things.  And the whole thing about CoH being a WINE application complicates matters further.

 

Thanks for the fix!

 

It's not so much the cross-platform of it than that having the coh folder in Applications is always the way it's been done, and changing it suddenly will confuse a lot of people.  Plus having Island Rum move the coh folder around on launch is kind of hazardous because of the minefield of permissions issues that constantly causes issues.

 

I added a new toy, though!  If you download and launch LaunchCat once it will create a LaunchCat.plist file in your user Documents folder.  Then you can alter that to change your Applications and coh folder paths, and whether or not it auto-launches.  It's now somewhat hackable!

[Zhym]

5 minutes ago, GM Manga said:

I added a new toy, though!  If you download and launch LaunchCat once it will create a LaunchCat.plist file in your user Documents folder.  Then you can alter that to change your Applications and coh folder paths, and whether or not it auto-launches.  It's now somewhat hackable!

Thanks!

 

One thing that confused me about this, though.  When I extracted the .zip file, it had a LaunchCat app.  Running that seemed to install a LaunchCat app in /Applications.  It wasn't really clear to me what was the installer and what was the launcher.  Are there they different apps, both named LaunchCat?  Or is it one that ends up in two different locations?

[GM Manga]

22 minutes ago, Zhym said:

Thanks!

 

One thing that confused me about this, though.  When I extracted the .zip file, it had a LaunchCat app.  Running that seemed to install a LaunchCat app in /Applications.  It wasn't really clear to me what was the installer and what was the launcher.  Are there they different apps, both named LaunchCat?  Or is it one that ends up in two different locations?

 

It probably self-updated because I forgot something and added it just now.  The self-update drops it into the last known application folder setting rather than the current folder like Island Rum does.  I might change that in the future because I didn't anticipate the sheer number of people who throw it on the desktop and then wonder why it self-updates every time (they don't look in the Applications folder).

[Zhym]

1 minute ago, GM Manga said:

 

It probably self-updated because I forgot something and added it just now.  The self-update drops it into the last known application folder setting rather than the current folder like Island Rum does.  I might change that in the future because I didn't anticipate the sheer number of people who throw it on the desktop and then wonder why it self-updates every time (they don't look in the Applications folder).

One thing about that—it seemed like LaunchCat the installer automatically put LaunchCat the launcher in /Applications (unless I misunderstand the various LaunchCats, which I might).  Is there a way to have the installer ask where to put the launcher?

Not that it matters for me personally—as long as IslandRum keeps working, I'll probably use that.

[GM Manga]

51 minutes ago, Zhym said:

One thing about that—it seemed like LaunchCat the installer automatically put LaunchCat the launcher in /Applications (unless I misunderstand the various LaunchCats, which I might).  Is there a way to have the installer ask where to put the launcher?

Not that it matters for me personally—as long as IslandRum keeps working, I'll probably use that.

 

There is now!  I just released a second (well, third) update that allows LaunchCat to launch and even update itself wherever it sits.  It also downloads its files to a temp folder before extracting them, so that should improve some of the file permission issues.

 

If that works out pretty well, I'll see about adding the temp folder downloads to Island Rum as well (if it can handle it).

Edited June 2 by GM Manga