[Abandoned] SC4MacInjector - Support Thread

[simmaster07 1,220]

This mod is no longer supported. See this linked post for more details.

-------------------------------------------------

What is SC4MacInjector?
SC4MacInjector is a mod for Mac copies of SimCity 4 Deluxe that enables the use of dynamic library mods (the equivalent of DLLs on Windows) for Macs. General discussion and development updates are posted in the game framework discoveries thread – this thread serves to consolidate any potential support requests in one purpose-specific place.

General troubleshooting steps
The injector responsible for enabling these mods may be overwritten by game updates or checking game cache integrity in Steam. Try re-running the installer if mods like the extra cheats DLL are suddenly disabled. Also make sure you've obtained the latest version from the STEX.

Reporting issues
One very helpful thing to provide is a detailed installer log. When running the installer, bring up the log:

Change the detail level to All Logs:

Then click the Save button on the installer log in the top right corner of the window. Attach this log to your post.

Another extremely helpful thing to provide, if present, is the injection log, which you can find at ~/Documents/SimCity 4/libinjector.log. Attach this too if possible.

Lastly, try to provide a thorough description of your problem, when it started occurring, and what version of the game you use (e.g. Steam, App Store, disc copy).

[SimsofLasVegas 1]

 

Installer Log 26-Dec-2017.txt

[simmaster07 1,220]

Hey @SimsofLasVegas,

I uploaded a new version to fix the issues you're seeing. Can you redownload and try again?

[SimsofLasVegas 1]

@simmaster07

It works now, thanks.

[TimodeJ 3]

Is there a way to get your sc4fix.dll to run using this? I'm using the AppStore version of the game and I don't think the instructions you used on the steam version for applying the fix are the same as should be used on mine, so I wanted to use this as a workaround. 

[Iodyne 36]

If one wanted to go about uninstalling, how would one do that? I've tried deleting libinjector.dylib and the .log but then the game wont open (steam launches the launcher but thats as far as it will go). Basically the game won't run unless libinjector.dylib is present. Are there any hidden files or files located elsewhere I need to delete? I do see a SimCity 4 Deluxe Editionsub unix executible file with a date modified the same time and date of the libinjector.dylib. Should I delete this? I see the sub2 file has an earlier date so I'm guessing it was an overwrite and I need to reinstall SimCity 4 via steam?

[simmaster07 1,220]

On 9/29/2019 at 3:47 PM, Iodyne said:

If one wanted to go about uninstalling, how would one do that? I've tried deleting libinjector.dylib and the .log but then the game wont open (steam launches the launcher but thats as far as it will go). Basically the game won't run unless libinjector.dylib is present. Are there any hidden files or files located elsewhere I need to delete? I do see a SimCity 4 Deluxe Editionsub unix executible file with a date modified the same time and date of the libinjector.dylib. Should I delete this? I see the sub2 file has an earlier date so I'm guessing it was an overwrite and I need to reinstall SimCity 4 via steam?

Right, the sub2 file is the original executable so to uninstall you'd either manually rename sub2 to sub or verify the game files in Steam. I'll probably have to update this mod for Catalina at some point so I'll work on adding a proper uninstall option then.

[bito345 1]

This is not working on Catalina (10.15.3) The app was just recently re-released as a 64-Bit App

[rsc204 21,805]

It could be that the files need recompiling for 64-Bit operation, otherwise Catalina/The updated version works differently. I suspect @simmaster07 would be better placed to answer this.

[simmaster07 1,220]

Yep, I don't use my Mac much so I haven't kept up with Catalina breaking the 32-bit plugins. I'll give it a look; hopefully I can keep backwards compatibility with old macOS versions, otherwise I'll have to do Catalina-specific releases :/

[ozweekly 0]

Hello - I just tried to install this on my game and now the game won't open at all. Any idea what I might be doing wrong @simmaster07? My log is attached. And I have not downloaded Catalina. Many thanks!

libinjector.log

[AspiringSenator 0]

Hi, @simmaster07! I tried installing this with a Mac App Store version of "SimCity™4 Deluxe Edition.app", on my iMac running macOS Mojave 10.14.6. Now the app won’t run. I even went so far as to disable System Integrity Protection to see what was up. I’ve attached the error message I received, "Could not load libinjector for SC4 / symbol GZCOM not found".

I was under the impression that SC4MacInjector and some plugin .so files would work based on the description from the SC4MacInjector download page on this website (link below). However when I dug into your GitHub page (https://github.com/nsgomez/sc4macinjector) you noted "The Mac App Store release will not work as it is not Aspyr's port but a Wineskin wrapper."

Would love this to work — and barring that, the ability to easily uninstall. Also, just some verbiage about whether System Integrity Protection is getting in the way at all would be helpful for future users.

Thanks for any clarification about all this. Seems like quite a fun tool!

 

 

[simmaster07 1,220]

Hey everyone, bad news -- I took a look at these errors and it looks like SC4MacInjector is dead. 🙃

Three reasons for that:

1. macOS Catalina enforcing 64-bit app execution. SC4MacInjector only targeted 32-bit since SC4 used to only run as a 32-bit app. This actually isn't the worst thing since normally I'd be able to rebuild it in 64-bit mode, but this is where the next two issues come into play.
2. Aspyr stripping code symbols from the game. It's a bit of an open secret that the Mac versions of the game were built in a way that kept the function names from the source code intact. It's not full source code, but it's enough to do some tricks like hooking functions by name. That's no longer the case, so there's no easy way to tell macOS to "hook this cGZCOMLibrary::Load function and redirect it to my loader." Instead I'd have to disassemble the whole game and figure out where that function resides in memory, which is exponentially more effort. But even if I did that:
3. Apple enforcing app hardening and notarization. Any app distributed outside the Mac App Store now must be notarized, which means Aspyr and other developers need to take additional steps to verify that the app is authentic and not malicious. One of those requirements is enabling "hardened runtime," which tries to improve app security by disabling things like code injection. But SC4MacInjector is a code injector by definition, so Catalina has effectively killed code-level modding on the Mac.

The only possible solution would be to tell people to downgrade to Mojave and also downgrade their game to 32-bit, which I don't see as a tenable solution. I'm just going to archive the GitHub repo and take down the STEX entry.

[DexterDing 0]

How can I still download this file?

[Propfam 2,286]

10 hours ago, DexterDing said:

How can I still download this file?

I recommend to not so. But for purpose of reference, here's the link:

and the source code can be found at https://github.com/nsgomez/sc4macinjector.

Both are in archive mode and unsupported. So, no expect to update and be supported.

[Anthracite 37]

So there's no way to use mods in the base form of DLLs like Extra Cheats anymore?

[CorinaMarie 29,569]

Just now, Anthracite said:

So there's no way to use mods in the base form of DLLs like Extra Cheats anymore?

That is correct. The 64 bit version of the game (and the newer versions of the Mac OS) completely preclude the DLLs from being injected.