asb
Level: Goblin
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Dear Drodders! I am sorry for bothering you like this but I need your help. I was playing drod like crazy with great pleasure and hefty bag of anguish. Took a break for some years and went back to it - ooh - such great time I've had discovering familiar puzzles again. Then... My Mac updated to Big Sur and I can't play it anymore. It doesn't work standalone nor on steam. I only get white screen mocking my enthusiasm. I have contacted support but no reply unfortunately. Maybe you guys are aware of the issue and could help me fix it. Pleasepleaseplease

ErikH2000
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asb wrote:
Dear Drodders! I am sorry for bothering you like this but I need your help. I was playing drod like crazy with great pleasure and hefty bag of anguish. Took a break for some years and went back to it - ooh - such great time I've had discovering familiar puzzles again. Then... My Mac updated to Big Sur and I can't play it anymore. It doesn't work standalone nor on steam. I only get white screen mocking my enthusiasm. I have contacted support but no reply unfortunately. Maybe you guys are aware of the issue and could help me fix it. Pleasepleaseplease

It always irritates me to no end when software stops working after a supposedly-benevolent O/S upgrade. I've taken to avoiding Mac upgrades until I'm two behind or Apple just forces me.

Yeah, I'm on Mojave now, so by my own standards it's about time to upgrade to Catalina. I'm not gonna touch Big Sur until it's properly burned in.

None of this helps you, sorry. And I'm on the outside of the Caravel team these days, so please don't interpret my comments as an official unhelpful response.

Best of luck. Maybe someone else will have something useful to add.

-Erik



____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

disoriented
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Maybe the OP can try the 5.1.1 alpha and see if it works on Big Sur? It’s posted in this thread:
https://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=44738&page=2

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34th Skywatcher

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[Last edited by disoriented at 11-27-2020 12:11 AM]

asb
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Thanks Guys for your replies. Really appreciate it! I will perhaps contact steam and tell them about the issue. We'll see. Best!!!!

disoriented
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Obviously Caravel wants to get TSS working on macOS 11. But in the meantime, another solution that might work for Big Sur users is CrossOver. I haven't tried it, but it seems like it could work.

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34th Skywatcher

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asb
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Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!!! Mr Disoriented, it works like a charm!! You THE MAN! Thanks!!!

disoriented
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So was it the alpha that worked, or the CrossOver suggestion?

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34th Skywatcher

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asb
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disoriented wrote:
So was it the alpha that worked, or the CrossOver suggestion?

It was crossover.

lannen
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I just tried the build that was posted on 11/3 and it's working for me. There's lots I haven't tried yet, but I did play rooms in 2 separate holds with no issues.

disoriented
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Just a quick update. Due to my work situation, I was forced to upgrade today from Mojave to Big Sur (macOS 11.2).

DROD TSS launches in Big Sur, but displays only a white screen. Nothing can be done except quitting the app.

I've tried granting DROD additional permissions (Full Disk Access, Input Monitoring) but no luck. (Technically these shouldn't be necessary anyway)

If possible, I don't want to be forced into buying CrossOver and figure out how to use it. But maybe this is where we are now.


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34th Skywatcher

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asb
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I tried different builds and methods - none worked but CrossOver. I believe It was around 50 bucks. It is working fine now and I can play with no problems.

disoriented
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File: Screen Shot 2021-02-03 at 1.04.06 AM.png (195.2 KB)
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I downloaded the free trial of CrossOver. Unfortunately my luck hasn't been as good as yours.

I could not import my .player file due to an out-of-memory error.



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34th Skywatcher

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[Last edited by disoriented at 02-03-2021 06:48 PM]

disoriented
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File: Screen Shot 2021-02-03 at 11.34.12 AM.png (841.1 KB)
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So I tried cloud sync instead. It found my cloud profile, but it crashed during import. Looks like none of my hold progress has come across.



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34th Skywatcher

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Dragon Fogel
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This is probably due to all the holds you've played. I had a similar problem some time back.

I dealt with it by moving the data files directly.

kikuchiyo
Level: Master Delver
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Wouldn't it be possible to run Linux in VirtualBox on MacOS?
Then you could run the Linux version of DROD in the virtualized system. This solution would be free, if it were technically possible. (Last time I've used a Mac, around 2006, it was a fairly usable, complete Unix-based system, but apparently they've come a long way towards complete uselessness.)

Lamkin
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ErikH2000 wrote:
I’m on Mojave now, so by my own standards it's about time to upgrade to Catalina. I'm not gonna touch Big Sur until it's properly burned in.

Just a heads-up that Catalina drops compatibility for 32-bit apps.

Also, in case you (or anyone else) might be tempted to install Big Sur on a separate volume of the same container of your existing version of macOS, though Apple will tell you it’s okay, I would strongly advise against it. I’d done this with Catalina and Big Sur, and my Mac had slowed down to a crawl. Had to wipe the entire drive and then reinstalled only Catalina. But all is good now.

And then to comment on asb’s and disoriented’s white screen issue—that sucks that that’s happening...I’ve seen this issue affecting other Big Sur users with a few other games, and I’m not sure it’s an easy fix, unfortunately.

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[Last edited by Lamkin at 02-03-2021 11:07 PM]

disoriented
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I got the Mac alpha to run on Big Sur... a couple of times. Then it started showing a white screen like the official build.

If I restore the DROD 5 folder (in ~/Library/Application Support/Caravel) it seems to work again, for a short time, until it corrupts the folder once more.

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asb
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File: Zrzut ekranu 2021-02-4 o 10.19.57.png (229 KB)
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Sorry to hear that. I am indeed lucky because my drod is working very well on Crossover. profile sync and all. I play drod 5.1.0.6512 on Crossover 20.0.2 (20.0.2.33166). I have bottle 7 set up.
Hope that helps.

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[Last edited by asb at 02-04-2021 09:24 AM]

disoriented
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Dragon Fogel wrote:
I dealt with it by moving the data files directly.

Thanks Fogel. I didn't think this would work between the Windows and Mac platforms, but it appears to have done the job for now.

Steps:

- Set up the Windows version of DROD TSS 5.1 to run in CrossOver as a "bottle".

- Copy the Mac drod-5_0 folder (containing the DROD data files) to the "C Drive" that the CrossOver application uses. For me, this meant I needed to copy the directory /Users/me/Library/Application Support/Caravel/drod-5_0/ to the location /Users/me/Library/Application Support/CrossOver/Bottles/DROD/drive_c/ProgramData/Caravel/drod-5_0/


Now I was able to run the CrossOver instance of DROD and it recognizes my player and progress. Running the app is slower than running the Mac native DROD, but until the Mac native version is fixed for Big Sur, this appears to be a viable stopgap.

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34th Skywatcher

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[Last edited by disoriented at 02-04-2021 09:04 PM]

disoriented
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Found an alternate method: run the Mac version of DROD (5.1 release version) in a macOS Mojave virtual machine.

I couldn't get this working with VirtualBox, but I have it working using VMWare Fusion.

Faster than the CrossOver solution:
- screen transitions
- going to the demos screen (F6)
- choosing a different hold (Change Location)

Slower than the CrossOver solution:
- moving around a room


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34th Skywatcher

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NoahT
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Are there any updates regarding getting DROD to work natively in Big Sur and beyond?

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My stuff:

asb
Level: Goblin
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Don't know of any, but I have crossover on my bigsur and drod 5 installed as a bottle and it works as a charm. Syncing and all.

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[Last edited by asb at 04-30-2021 08:54 AM]

disoriented
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I’ll probably be upgrading to an Apple Silicon machine this year, so if anyone has tried running CrossOver on M1, would you share your experience here? Thank you!

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34th Skywatcher

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ispot707
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just made an account to report this: no need for crossover or virtualbox on MacOS to run drod, you can use the excellent porting kit (i cannot post links but google porting kit) to install the windows version. just select 'custom port' and install the game, porting kit will create a custom wrapper for it. i'm currently playing Gunthro on an m1 mac w Big Sur this way. i had to switch of visual fx because of lag, and the voice overs do lag a bit from time to time but other than that the game works fine!

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[Last edited by ispot707 at 04-23-2022 08:27 AM]

disoriented
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I'm using an M1 Max machine and I've had good success running slimm tom's beta 436.

https://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=44738&page=3

It seems pretty stable overall.

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34th Skywatcher

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disoriented
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DROD TSS 5.1.1 (official release) runs fine on MacOS Sonoma, thanks to the efforts of the Caravel team and slimm tom.

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34th Skywatcher

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