20 replies to this topic

[DirtyHarry50]

Both times I've had trouble with VP (so far) have been with racers. Last time it was Flatout 2 but credit where it is due, they did fix the problem with controller support.

However, that is in the past and they just lost all their attaboys because...

When I try to fire up Dirt Showdown and play it for the first time this happens:



Naturally, retrying repeatedly does not work and just keeps bringing this up again. Skipping it means no progress gets saved. VP support was alerted to this emergency immediately and I have received the special confirmation message back too! Now, I wait...

[MichalM.Mac]

I have run into crash between levels in Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena . Continue game -> crash.

My support request https://vpltd.zendes.../requests/10486 was closed two times without single comment on their part.

[DirtyHarry50]

MichalM.Mac, on 19 September 2015 - 04:07 AM, said:

I have run into crash between levels in Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena . Continue game -> crash.

My support request https://vpltd.zendes.../requests/10486 was closed two times without single comment on their part.

That sounds familiar. I had an issue with something else I can't even remember now. The only thing I remember was never getting a reply to whatever it was. They must have closed it too because I only have one open ticket, the one for Dirt Showdown now.

I did a little homework on this problem and found a Mac user in the Steam forum complaining about the same issue. What is much worse though is I also found more than one Windows user complaining about it which I think probably means certain doom here.  I have no idea what might cause it in Windows but it only affects some people not everyone so it has to be some sort of configuration problem. But what? Who knows? I doubt VP does. I doubt Codemasters cares. I think I am probably out of luck here. Even I am starting to not care about this now.

Ah, so many problems and so little time.

There's nothing new under the sun though is there? I mean, for so long as I have been using software I have experienced random problems with software. To quote a line from Jerry Seinfeld, "it's like an infinity wheel of hell." I should know by now for a very long time that once I hit an issue and cannot resolve it in a short time I should simply bail, uninstall and go do something else. It's not like my paycheck depends on making this crap work anymore thankfully.

Considering the problems I've read about with VP ports I think I will avoid anything they touch in the future. I waste enough time already without any help from them. Since I foolishly purchased a bunch of games they did I will be sure to post about the fun of attempting to play them as I get to them. I may as well have a few laughs I guess.

[Matt Diamond]

When I get an error about something failing to load or save, I try moving the game to my boot drive, Applications folder. (Or if it has an installer, wherever it would go by default.) Some games just don't like to be moved from their default location.

You can also try running it from an administrator account, and/or in a directory that has no spaces (that's not commonly a problem, given that most Macs have a "Macintosh HD" drive by default, but you never know.)
Also try repairing permissions, rebooting, and reinstalling.

[DirtyHarry50]

Well, I tried using an app that removed the game and all references to it from the system. Then I ran Disk Utility and Repair Disk which found no problems with the startup disk where the game was installed in the Applications folder by the App Store. I then ran the Disk Permissions Repair also which turned up a bunch of stuff per usual, most of it iTunes per usual. I don't know what is up with iTunes and disk permissions but every time I run the thing they are all screwed up. Fortunately, iTunes itself never gives me any problems at all. I did not see any messages that I thought could pertain in any way to this game but figured running that cannot hurt just in case permissions were messed up on some preferences folder or something.

I did try rebooting too. No joy. Oh, and yeah I did reinstall after the above steps to test it out and got the exact same error. I wish I knew where it is trying to write its profile and save files but this is not documented anywhere I can find. If I knew that I'd go check permissions on the relevant folders just in case. That reminds me, maybe I will go poking in the library folder for any related folders to this game and check permissions on each of them. Maybe something there is screwed up. As I understand it, repairing disk permissions only deals with Apple's stuff and not anything else? Correct me if I am wrong there but I thought I read that quite a while back but I ran it thinking well, the library folder, etc. might fall under that anyway but maybe it doesn't for non-Apple apps.

You know though, what you mention makes me want to try the reverse just for the hell of it. In other words, move the game to my external USB just to see what happens. I might do that too.

I have not heard from VP but it is a weekend.

[DirtyHarry50]

Well I located the savegames folder for this catastrophe and the permissions allow me read and write so that isn't it. Within the app itself, I found a profiles.xml file that is documented to contain saved state for the game and be read on startup that had system read/write permission. I wasn't sure what exactly that means so I added permissions for me as a user but it made no difference either.

Meantime, I learned the hard way that when prompted to press Start you'd better press Start because if you press any other button the game crashes. Then again it crashes randomly on start even when you press Enter which is allowed.

I'm so done with this popsnizzlety excuse for a port. It sounds like the game even before being ported has some problems. I should have cut my losses before now but I am stubborn. Even I will throw in the towel eventually though and I just did by removing all traces of this offensive software from my system. I am very unlikely now to even consider doing anything with this again until and if I see an update claiming to fix this problem become available on the app store.

As my wonderful friend Imoen would say, "I've done had enough of this!"

[Matt Diamond]

Sorry, I didn't mean to send you down a rabbit hole of trying to get it to work. You certainly tried more than anyone could reasonably expect.

What a mess.

[macdude22]

Oh VpLD, how the mighty half fallen. I played a lot of Kult: Heretic Kingdoms back in the day. Once you were a port house to be compared to Aspyr and Feral but now. Man. My Pride.

[DirtyHarry50]

Matt Diamond, on 19 September 2015 - 08:48 PM, said:

Sorry, I didn't mean to send you down a rabbit hole of trying to get it to work. You certainly tried more than anyone could reasonably expect.

What a mess.

Oh, no I appreciated the suggestions. I felt it was worth trying to rule out what could possibly be ruled out here before giving up.

macdude22, on 19 September 2015 - 09:04 PM, said:

Oh VpLD, how the mighty half fallen. I played a lot of Kult: Heretic Kingdoms back in the day. Once you were a port house to be compared to Aspyr and Feral but now. Man. My Pride.

This made me smile just now. I went back in time somewhat with VP and reinstalled the recently updated (again) Flatout 2, adjusted the settings to max, configured the controller and took it out for a spin. A good time was had. I then quit out and ran it again just to be sure the old problem with remembering the controls config was still fixed and it is. A little more fun was had. That older game may not look as good as Dirt Showdown but it is a very fun arcade racer that runs without issues. I have had fun with Flatout 2 on and off since I was playing it on a PS2 a long time ago.

[DirtyHarry50]

Got an update from VP support today.

"We are checking this issue. Will back to you."

[the Battle Cat]

DirtyHarry50, on 22 September 2015 - 05:06 PM, said:

Got an update from VP support today.

"We are checking this issue. Will back to you."

Sounds like VP support is based in Indonesia or China.  Probably not China as it would have read "We checky check.  Will back to you."

[Frigidman™]

DirtyHarry50, on 19 September 2015 - 02:23 PM, said:

Considering the problems I've read about with VP ports I think I will avoid anything they touch in the future. I waste enough time already without any help from them. Since I foolishly purchased a bunch of games they did I will be sure to post about the fun of attempting to play them as I get to them. I may as well have a few laughs I guess.

This is exactly where I got with all things Bethesda.

[DirtyHarry50]

Well, since 20 days has passed since I opened a ticket and I have not heard from VP I thought I would check the status of this little problem which other users have too. I found my ticket was closed on October 5th but no comment was left about it at all. I was also not contacted. I routinely check and empty my spam folder just to keep checking easy and nothing from those guys not that I expected that where their other emails come though fine, the ones telling me they "Will back to you."

So, I wrote them this:

Michael Lyons, Oct 12, 21:49:

I got a message telling me this: "We are checking this issue. Will back to you." on September 22, 2015, 08:30, so 20 days ago now. I come here today to ask for a status and find the issue has been closed for comments.

So my question is, what's the story here? Has a patch been issued to fix this on the Mac App Store? Is there some other solution I was not informed of? Please let me know what the status of this problem is at my email address which you should have on file associated with this account but just in case for your convenience it is: xxxxxx

Thanks.

After this I went and checked to see if any update was available on the MAS but there had not been one since September 15th which was prior to my encountering problems with the game. So I don't know if closed ticket means they decided to forget about it or if it means a patch is in the pipeline for approval at the MAS but they could not be bothered telling me about it or what.

I guess we are down to, "don't call us, we'll call you" but I am calling them anyway.

Profile save failed. Save failed. VP failed. Do you want to retry?
Yes. Yes I do.

[DirtyHarry50]

Squeaky wheel gets the grease!

Paul Lesurf, Oct 13, 11:03:

We have a fix submitted to Apple, we are awaiting it's approval.

Regards.

[Matt Diamond]

Didn't expect that. Bit sloppy of them not to tell you, but I'm guessing you won't hold a grudge if the problem is fixed.

[DirtyHarry50]

Yeah. Easy come, easy go. I had already figured it a total loss actually. I tend to have low expectations outside of a handful of game companies I feel excel in customer service. So I am pleased they have perhaps fixed it. We shall see when the update shows up on the App Store. It is a fun game although it's no Dirt 3 that's for sure.

[Jan]

I trust Aspyr and Feral, but I've learned my lesson with most other porting companies or publishers. For all the flak Transgaming got in the past, their GameTree Mac customer support always replied pretty fast. Haven't played a VP port in a while -- wasn't Spec Ops ported by Digital Tribe?

[DirtyHarry50]

Another 10 days pass and no Dirt Showdown. I was told on the 13th, ten days ago, that it had been submitted to the MAS for approval.

So I opened another ticket asking, where is it?

lol

[DirtyHarry50]

Newsflash!

I sure hope Apple can "download it from their server" this time, whatever that means.



Paul Lesurf, Oct 26, 09:30:

It's in the Apple review queue.
Note we have no control over when Apple start this.
Regards.


Juliusz Komenda, Oct 26, 08:26:

Hi,
Yes, we had to re-send build again because Apple was not able to download it from their server. So entire process of approval start again.


Michael Lyons, Oct 23, 18:18:

I got a message back on October 10 (ten days ago now) regarding my previous ticket indicating a fix was submitted to the Mac App Store. There is still no updated version available to install. Did some problem arise? I didn't think it took them this long to approve a patch but maybe I am wrong about that? Thank you and thanks for working to resolve the problem.

[DirtyHarry50]

I am a little late in reporting this but the patch finally landed on the Mac App Store and the game does now properly save your profile.

However, at least with my controller (Logitech F-510 Rumblepad) the control in the menus is a little flaky with very rapid and hard to control movement at times but usually a combination of controller and keyboard gets around this well enough to proceed into the game which seems to be running fine in very limited play time so far.