CoH won't run on Snow Leopard

Hello everyone,

I've just recently picked up the Mac client, ran it and the updater seemed to work fine. However, immediately after going through the agreement phase, the City of Heroes icon would bounce around in the dock for a bit before staying there, doing nothing, and forcing me to click "force quit". Since then, when I try to start up City of Heroes I get the bouncing and then nothing, not even the updater screen.

By the way, I'm using a Mac Mini, 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB ram, again with Snow Leopard 10.6.1 and the video card's an Nvidia 9400. I'm also running it wireless through a 2 TB Time Capsule network.

I'm utterly computer illiterate so I had absolutely no idea what to do until I came here and did a search. I've used Console, clearing the display right before I start up CoH, and this is the only line I get after clicking City of Heroes in the apps folder:


11/1/09 9:42:42 AM [0x0-0x2f02f].com.transgaming.cityofheroes[432] Could not stat /Applications/City of Heroes.app/Contents/Resources/transgaming/f_drive (No such file or directory), ignoring drive F:


Unlike other posts I've seen here that have a line similar to that, nothing else concerning City of Heroes pops up before or after it in the console. If it makes any difference, I also had it installed previously on my Mac via Windows 7 and Fusion 3.0, but once I discovered there was a Mac native client I uninstalled the PC client and opted to try the native one instead.

If anyone has any ideas, I'd greatly appreciate any advice you could give me. Thanks ahead of time!

First, just as a precaution, open Safari and pull down the Safari (application) menu. Select Empty Cache.

Then restart the computer. Sometimes the "wineserver" process launches and gets stuck, and it will prevent CoH from launching as long as it's still there.

(you can also run Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor and quit it from there, but restarting is easier to explain)

If neither of those work, we have to troubleshoot your network connection and see if you have your firewall turned on possibly set in a way to interfere with CoH (are you using a 3rd party firewall?).

Hi CuppaManga, first of all thanks for the quick reply.

I tend to use Firefox rather than Safari for navigating, though I have no idea whether that would make a difference or not. That said, I emptied the cache in Safari, which didn't change anything. After that, I checked the activity monitor and observed that wineserver was on as long as CoH was on, but as soon as I force quit from CoH it turns off (or at least disappears from the activity monitor).

According to system preferences, the firewall is currently off and allowing all incoming connections. I did set up McAfee on Windows in the Fusion virtual machine, so I don't know if that would affect Snow Leopard (Connection-wise, the PC client had no problems starting and connecting with CoH in Fusion). If it makes a difference, the network includes two macbooks, and I've allowed file sharing with one of the macbooks.

Can CoH connect from either of the Macbooks?

Ok next try this: Open Terminal (in Applications > Utilities > Terminal) and type this:

sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

You'll need your administrator password for that. It will flush the DNS cache and reset it, in case the name server lookups are failing. It's not harmful, so it doesn't hurt to try it.

At this point, if the troubleshooting hasn't worked yet, send a support request to NC Support (help.ncsoft.com or support@ncsoft.com). They might have something I missed and more heads working on this the better (especially when mine is sick with the flu).

Well, I tried running it on one of the macbooks, and it actually worked... once. Since then I haven't been able to get it to run again. Oddly enough it also worked on the Mac Mini at one point yesterday, around the 10th or 15th attempt, but also hasn't worked since then.

Now when I restart the mini and clear the cache via the terminal, it goes to the updater and license agreement, but when I agree it once again bounces in the dock and eventually stops without opening. If I try again without restarting, it just bounces and stops with no updater or agreement. It seems totally random to my untrained eye.

I'm running this from Japan (though my settings are English, and I changed the mini's language setting and location to the US so it wouldn't screw up CoH) and the Time Capsule's location is noted as Japan, so I wonder if that's messing things up?

In any case, it looks like I'm resigned to run CoH through fusion until I hear back from NCsoft's support. Thanks for the assist, CuppaManga, and get better soon!

I'm getting a slightly clearer picture now, and this may have to do with complex stuff like what language you had selected when you did the initial Snow Leopard install.

But there may be a longshot way around it:

First, make sure you have the U.S. version of CoH for Mac, not the European version. You can transplant the files inside the application using my guide, so you don't have to download them again. It's a fairly common mistake to make.

Next, Open System Preferences and then Language and Text.

On the Language pane of that panel, make sure "English" is at the top, not "U.S. English" or "Canadian English". Then make sure Japanese is second on the list. If this is how it was set, reverse the first two - Japanese first, then English.

On the Formats pane make sure Region is set to United States (if it was set to United States, try changing it to Japan).

Then try launching CoH after checking all that and see if that works.

Well, I made sure I have the US version as you suggested, then tried swapping the languages and formats. Still no luck. What makes it even more frustrating is that it worked a second time on the laptop without my doing any of that, yet afterwards wouldn't work. I don't understand what could be preventing it from working most of the time yet on rare occasions allowing it to work.

It wasn't all for nothing, I learned something important: It's something your 3 Macs have in common, but mine doesn't.

I think your best bet at this point is to talk to Apple support, especially if you have an Apple Store with a Genius Bar somewhere around (and bring CoH with you). They'll be able to see close up what I'm missing, and will use some of the same troubleshooting methods I did, except they have more resources on what might make your Japanese Mac different from the U.S. ones.

OK, I'll make an appointment at the store in Shibuya this week and see if they can't figure it out. I'll let you know the results here too. Thanks for taking the time to help!

Did you ever take it to Apple? What was the resolve to this?

Sorry for the long delay in a reply. In the end I didn't take it to the Apple store because I found the PC version worked fine with Windows 7 through Boot Camp (previously I had been using Windows 7 exclusively through Fusion, which isn't the most ideal setting for running a game unless you have more than a dual-core processor). Seeing as I now have other games which I use via Boot Camp anyway, I decided it wasn't really worth the train ride just to try and fix this issue.

hi, im not sure if my problem is the same but it sounds like it. I downloaded the mac client off the website but every time I try to load the app it goes unresponsive. I've tried all the approaches suggested above, so any help would be excellent.
I'm on a new macbook pro

Try all the steps in this thread first:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=199092

...including contacting support.

If that doesn't work, open Console (Applications > Utilities > Console) and copy-paste to post here the last few lines you see after CoH stops responding.

Okay, had the same issue. Would try to open CoH up, it wouldn't respond. tried clearing the cache, still nothing. BUT THIS DID WORK-----> Preference cleaner http://www.echomist.co.uk/software/P...eCleaner.shtml its a free app and very small. You may need to readjust your preferences in game as far as window scales and stuff but this should work