CuppaManga

Does your Mac have ATI video?

Did you try using the Verify Files button after the patching completes?

Hyper, Chained...

1. Which build of the client are you running? You can check by single-clicking the City of Heroes icon and using the Get Info command in the Finder. The build number is after the 1.0 in the Version section.

2. Open your Library > StartupItems folder. What's listed in there? Also what's listed in your System Preferences in the Accounts > Login Items?

3. Next time your game crashes open Console (in Applications > Utilities), select the last 10 lines displayed, use the Copy command on the edit menu, and Paste (also on the Edit menu) them into a reply here.

This is a month-old thread - since we didn't hear from the OP since then the connection issues likely worked themselves out.

There's a few bad patch servers out there. It's annoying, but you'll have to wait for a dev fix server-side.

That 2nd error comes from the server. The first one you probably got was Assertion Failure - are you using a Mac with ATI based video?

There seems to be an issue with City of Heroes and ATI video cards - varying symptoms, present both on the Mac and Windows versions. More info as the investigation proceeds.

There is a setting for that in General options - can't remember offhand which one - that has to do with speech bubbles.

Try the first troubleshooting solution here:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=234445

Also, are you using the latest build? (select the City of Heroes application and then use the Get Info command in the Finder) If you're not using version 1.0.4462 it's an older version, and you should download the newer one from your NCSoft account page.

There's a whole variety of factors which can cause that - the easiest one to test is to make sure your computer has internet access (try to visit and web page with Safari). At the root of the problem is either that or your ISP is somehow not allowing you to connect.

NCSoft support has an ISP connection troubleshooting procedure, so your next step is contacting them at help.ncsoft.com. That way, if there's a widespread issue going on, they'll be able to solve the problem for a lot of people at once.

Try turning off Geometry Buffers and see if that makes a difference.

Also are you using a Mac with ATI video?

The black screen phenonmeon occurs when an incorrect OpenGL feature set is detected by Cider. It does that sometimes, and I still haven't narrowed down what triggers it, except that it seems to happen a lot less often since 2 issues ago.

The only suggestion I have is to make sure you're using both the latest Snow Leopard and the latest CoH for Mac build (4462), if only because it's not giving me those kinds of problems.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=238194

Cider (the translator that allows CoH to run in a Mac environment) uses its own method for detecting keys that works differently from the Mac. It has some weird key mappings, and often doesn't detect certain special keys or mouse buttons at all.

I think with the G15 the Alt and Windows keys might be reversed - see if that makes a difference.

I have a G15 but I haven't tried hooking it up to the Mac (because it's a laptop) but I guess I could try it.

Weird part is I've been using the Map Pack since forever and it's well behaved so far.

Make sure that "data" folder contains ONLY maps. Anything else like icons, bind files, or replacement game assets seems to cause problems.

Instead of complicated instructions I'm going to try to make this very simple:

...except for the WARNING: Tampering with the internals of your CoH for Mac client may render it inoperable, resulting in a lengthy download and re-patch.

Step 1: Make sure your game client is version 1.0.4462 - if it's older, download the new client from your NCSoft account page and patch it up to date. Check your client version by selecting the City of Heroes application and using the Get Info command in the Finder.

Step 2: MAKE A COPY OF YOUR LIVE COH CLIENT. No, my caps lock isn't stuck, this is simply the most important step of all. From this point on, the copy you modify becomes the Beta client. You make a copy by selecting the City of Heroes application and using the Duplicate command in the Finder.

Step 3: Rename the new copy to "City of Heroes (Beta)".

Step 4: Right-click or Control-Click the City of Heroes (Beta) application, and select Show Package Contents. Open Contents next.

Step 5: Duplicate the Info.plist file. If you screw up, you can always drag the Info.plist to the trash, rename the duplicate to Info.plist, and start over.

Step 6: Right-click or Control-Click the Info.plist file and select "Open With" and then "Other". Select TextEdit in your Applications folder.

Step 7: Clear out the text edit window by selecting all (Cmd-A) and then hiding Delete. Then switch back to this post, and copy everything between the ---- marks below onto your clipboard (Cmd-C). Paste it into TextEdit (Cmd-V) so it replaces everything that was there before. DO NOT paste the ---- marks, and make sure there is no extra space above the first line or after the last line.

Step 7: Save the file and Quit TextEdit. Then launch the Beta and wait for it to patch.

P.S. I'm going to see if the devs can either make a beta client available for download, or at least a copy of the Info.plist necessary to convert a live client. Meanwhile these instructions are risky but should work.

----
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>CFBundleDevelopmentRegion</key>
<string>English</string>
<key>CFBundleDisplayName</key>
<string>City of Heroes</string>
<key>CFBundleExecutable</key>
<string>cider</string>
<key>CFBundleGetInfoString</key>
<string>City of Heroes v1.0.4462</string>
<key>CFBundleIconFile</key>
<string>cityofheroes</string>
<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
<string>com.transgaming.cityofheroes</string>
<key>CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion</key>
<string>1.0</string>
<key>CFBundleName</key>
<string>City of Heroes</string>
<key>CFBundlePackageType</key>
<string>APPL</string>
<key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
<string>City of Heroes</string>
<key>CFBundleSignature</key>
<string>COHR</string>
<key>CFBundleVersion</key>
<string>1</string>
<key>CedegaGameDir</key>
<string>C:\coh</string>
<key>CedegaGameName</key>
<string>c:\coh\cohupdater.exe</string>
<key>CiderBuild</key>
<string>4462</string>
<key>CiderGameOptions</key>
<string>-- cohupdater.exe -beta</string>
<key>LSMinimumSystemVersion</key>
<string>10.5.7</string>
<key>NSMainNibFile</key>
<string>MainMenu</string>
<key>NSPrincipalClass</key>
<string>CiderApplication</string>
<key>PrefsFolderName</key>
<string>City of Heroes Beta</string>
<key>apLaunch</key>
<string>cider</string>
<key>apPostURL</key>
<string>https://tarts.transgaming.com/submit.cgi</string>
<key>apSkipUpdate</key>
<string>1</string>
<key>apURL</key>
<string>http://updates.gametreeonline.com/cityofheroes</string>
</dict>
</plist>
-----

I tested 10.6.5 - no spectacular difference from 10.6.4, good or bad. Hopefully it'll fix things for people who had problems.

Visit opendns.com and follow the instructions for using it for your DNS. It should shave up to 3 seconds off the patch server location time.

First, reboot to make sure wine or cider isn't still running.

Right-click the City of Heroes application and then double-click Contents, then Resources, then transgaming, and then drive_c. Open the "coh" folder too.

Drag "updater.lock" and "coh.checksum" to the trash. Then launch the updater again.

That should fix it. If you still have problems, post again.