Mac Cities on Windows PC not Showing Up

[live_cows 47]

Do any of you know of issues where Cities created in a Mac version of the game do not open in a PC version? Clearly PC to Mac is fine as I have opened all of my old high school files without issue. However, when I shared my newly created region with a friend on a PC the region is blank, as if the city files in the folder won't load. I've searched the internet for a few days now, and I can't seem to find this issue being discussed. 

[Raymond7cn 6,776]

3 hours ago, live_cows said:

Do any of you know of issues where Cities created in a Mac version of the game do not open in a PC version? Clearly PC to Mac is fine as I have opened all of my old high school files without issue. However, when I shared my newly created region with a friend on a PC the region is blank, as if the city files in the folder won't load. I've searched the internet for a few days now, and I can't seem to find this issue being discussed. 

Hiya @live_cows, I used to transfer Region folder between MAC and Windows, it seemed as no problem then, May i ask that does you friend has the same plugins (plugins in plugins folder) as yours? Just thought you'd better to make sure your friend has those plugins which was recorded within your region's save file, Sorry for if wasn't able to be more helpful.

Sincerely

-- Raymond

[live_cows 47]

1 hour ago, Raymond7cn said:

Hiya @live_cows, I used to transfer Region folder between MAC and Windows, it seemed as no problem then, May i ask that does you friend has the same plugins (plugins in plugins folder) as yours? Just thought you'd better to make sure your friend has those plugins which was recorded within your region's save file, Sorry for if wasn't able to be more helpful.

Sincerely

-- Raymond

Yes, we made sure the plugin folders were exactly the same. I also noticed that when I open an old city and save it the file icon changes. I don't know if it is significant, see my photo. "Red Lake City" turned to the white icon after I opened it and saved it. New regions I create in my Mac are all the white files. Could it be that I uploaded a zipped version of the region to dropbox so he could download? Anytime I shared things in the past it was always a flash drive. 

[CorinaMarie 29,898]

Hiya, @live_cows

I've split your posts and @Raymond7cn's reply into its own dedicated thread. Y'all'll need to re-follow it.

[CorinaMarie 29,898]

1 hour ago, live_cows said:

Could it be that I uploaded a zipped version of the region to dropbox so he could download? Anytime I shared things in the past it was always a flash drive. 

A zipped version via Dropbox should be just fine.

Is said zip file still in your Dropbox and would you mind to send me a linky to it? If so, I'll download and see if I can figure out anything goofy with it.

Edit: Your plugins isn't required for the basic testing I'll do.

[live_cows 47]

2 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

A zipped version via Dropbox should be just fine.

Is said zip file still in your Dropbox and would you mind to seen me a linky to it? If so, I'll download and see if I can figure out anything goofy with it.

Sure, thanks for taking a look here is the link. https://www.dropbox.com/s/tpg4nbur5o0fb65/Imperiel Valley.zip?dl=0

[live_cows 47]

Just now, live_cows said:

Sure, thanks for taking a look here is the link. https://www.dropbox.com/s/tpg4nbur5o0fb65/Imperiel Valley.zip?dl=0

FYI none of the cities have been developed yet. Just rendered and added trees/animals. So, I'm thinking plugins shouldn't matter. Generally I have mostly a vanilla game, just some custom buildings. 

[CorinaMarie 29,898]

Ok. It looks like this is a zip before any of your rendering as all of the city tiles are just the City - New City type names. So yes, I see everything as plain flat terrain with nothing at all developed.

Please check again on your Mac and try re-zipping the Region.

[CorinaMarie 29,898]

12 minutes ago, live_cows said:

So, I'm thinking plugins shouldn't matter.

And yes, you are correct. Plugins won't matter at all at this stage.

The rendering of the tiles would show up any new terrain features if they were present in the save files.

[CorinaMarie 29,898]

Wait!

I believe I've figured it out.

Hang on ...

[live_cows 47]

6 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

And yes, you are correct. Plugins won't matter at all at this stage.

The rendering of the tiles would show up any new terrain features if they were present in the save files.

The City - New City type names are in all my regions. Here is a new zip file, I made two quick test cities in this version. https://www.dropbox.com/s/8kil69986xgppbr/Imperiel Valley copy.zip?dl=0 

and also a proof of my render, not that you don't trust me. 

[CorinaMarie 29,898]

This is the strangest thing I've encountered with a region. Opening in the game still gives the all flat terrain as your friend experienced, but I can open the region in Mapper and it sees it all just fine. Ofc, when then saving from Mapper and it has re-generated each tile showing the goofy colors and both test cities got nixed.

Here's what I see with that method:

 

The renaming to 3 was so I didn't overwrite the second copy you sent.

[live_cows 47]

6 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

This is the strangest thing I've encountered with a region. Opening in the game still gives the all flat terrain as your friend experienced, but I can open the region in Mapper and it sees it all just fine. Ofc, when then saving from Mapper and it has re-generated each tile showing the goofy colors and both test cities got nixed.

Here's what I see with that method:

 

The renaming to 3 was so I didn't overwrite the second copy you sent.

Oh man, so weird. I'm at a loss of what to do next. My game works totally fine with no glitches except for a crash every once in a while. I don't know why it would be doing this. 

A side note, a long time ago I downloaded a region that looked like that, as I opened and saved cities the colors would normalize. However, the fact my test cities were wiped out isn't encouraging especially since we wanted to keep sharing each others progress. 

[CorinaMarie 29,898]

Yeah, the weird colors are just how Mapper does it and opening and saving does then apply your terrain, water, etc mods to it. This'll look different than yours, ofc, because it's different terrain stuff:

 

Now, the odd thing is I even tried to import your Test City Tiles and the game just refuses to recognize them. I then opened Test 2 in Save Game Explorer and it sees it alright:

 

So, we'll need more help from Mac peeps as there's something going on I simply don't understand.

[live_cows 47]

6 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Yeah, the weird colors are just how Mapper does it and opening and saving does then apply your terrain, water, etc mods to it. This'll look different than yours, ofc, because it's different terrain stuff:

 

Now, the odd thing is I even tried to import your Test City Tiles and the game just refuses to recognize them. I then opened Test 2 in Save Game Explorer and it sees it alright:

 

So, we'll need more help from Mac peeps as there's something going on I simply don't understand.

wow so weird. I was going to ask if importing individual cities would work, but you were one step ahead (and confirmed it doesn't work lol). I wonder if I should try reinstalling? I'm just afraid that will do something else. This old game is so finicky with our new advanced computers. 

Thanks for taking the time to investigate! That was very nice. 

[CorinaMarie 29,898]

Let's try something. See if you can load this region. (It's just a single tile.)

Lua Small Region.zip

If it does load up ok, save the city tile and send it back.

[Cyclone Boom 17,032]

I'm also not a Mac user here, but I just wonder...

Perhaps this might be a problem caused from the new 64-bit Mac version recently released. Above @Raymond7cn said he'd had success with transferring between Mac and PC for regions, and so that suggests it is possible, although maybe that was with the older Aspyr release. It does suggest there is an incompatibility between game versions, since you're able to load it up just fine locally with no issues. I don't suspect Plugins are a factor either, and so it really is very odd indeed.

I had a thought if the snapshot thumbnails might be corrupted (I made a post here explaining how to reset them), although since @CorinaMarie showed the Save Game Explorer preview with those appearing, and it was able to read the region perfectly fine.

(By the way, I notice your 1st Dropbox link leads to a 404 page now for some reason.)

[live_cows 47]

9 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Let's try something. See if you can load this region. (It's just a single tile.)

Lua Small Region.zip

If it does load up ok, save the city tile and send it back.

I was able to load up your file fine and I added a new neighborhood and saved it. Attached is a zip of my save. 

Lua Small Region.zip

[live_cows 47]

6 minutes ago, Cyclone Boom said:

I'm also not a Mac user here, but I just wonder...

Perhaps this might be a problem caused from the new 64-bit Mac version recently released. Above @Raymond7cn said he'd had success with transferring between Mac and PC for regions, and so that suggests it is possible, although maybe that was with the older Aspyr release. It does suggest there is an incompatibility between game versions, since you're able to load it up just fine locally with no issues. I don't suspect Plugins are a factor either, and so it really is very odd indeed.

I had a thought if the snapshot thumbnails might be corrupted (I made a post here explaining how to reset them), although since @CorinaMarie showed the Mapper preview with those appearing, and it was able to read the region perfectly fine.

(By the way, I notice your 1st Dropbox link leads to a 404 page now for some reason.)

@Cyclone Boom I was wondering that myself, and tried looking into it. I think Aspyr automatically updated my game when they released that version. I have cities on a old 2009 Macbook (bless its soul) that wouldn't have the new update because it can't connect to the internet. Let me pull a region from those files and see if @CorinaMarie still has issues (if available to keep testing, that is). I wish I had a PC to do these tests,.

[CorinaMarie 29,898]

25 minutes ago, live_cows said:

I was able to load up your file fine and I added a new neighborhood and saved it. Attached is a zip of my save. 

And that totally wipes out the city for me. While it starts with the city tile named in the folder, it then opens as an undefined New City. So yes, something in the Mac save is making the Windoze version of the game unhappy.

 

19 minutes ago, live_cows said:

Let me pull a region from those files and see if @CorinaMarie still has issues (if available to keep testing, that is). I wish I had a PC to do these tests,.

Sure, send one along and I'll check it.

[live_cows 47]

13 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

And that totally wipes out the city for me. While it starts with the city tile named in the folder, it then opens as an undefined New City. So yes, something in the Mac save is making the Windoze version of the game unhappy.

 

Sure, send one along and I'll check it.

Ok here is a link to a region I just pulled off the old Macbook. The last time it connected to the internet was 2018, so it does not have the 64bit update. Sorry, I couldn't do a smaller region it is too slow now for me to do much. Plus I thought it might be a good idea because there are some city files in this region that I haven't opened and saved since High School when I used a PC. The city "Los Angeles" is one of those files that was last opened and saved on a PC. The city "Valles Marineris" and "Argyre" were made on my Macbook. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2rthh3jarm9tu8w/Southern Katerack.zip?dl=0

[CorinaMarie 29,898]

And that confirms the new 64 bit version borks the tiles, but the old version plays nicely:

 

And, ofc, the few brown boxes will be the differences in plugins.

[live_cows 47]

Just now, CorinaMarie said:

And that confirms the new 64 bit version borks the tiles, but the old version plays nicely:

 

And, ofc, the few brown boxes will be the differences in plugins.

yay solved! Did Valley Marineris open too? I like the way the cliffs look with your plugin

[CorinaMarie 29,898]

2 minutes ago, live_cows said:

Did Valley Marineris open too?

 

3 minutes ago, live_cows said:

I like the way the cliffs look with your plugin

That's ENN_RockMod_Sandstone1_256Brown.dat.

[live_cows 47]

3 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

 

That's ENN_RockMod_Sandstone1_256Brown.dat.

Thank you @CorinaMarie and @Cyclone Boom for your responses. Now I have to go investigate if I can roll back my Aspyr game without the 64bit. I am still using an old operating system because originally they said they were not going to upgrade SC4 to 64bit. What's the point of having a computer if SC4 won't work?

[Cyclone Boom 17,032]

Confirmed working here too:

 

13 minutes ago, live_cows said:

Did Valley Marineris open too?

Yes, it did indeed.

I also checked Los Angeles along with a handful other tiles, and other than a few brown boxes they opened just fine.

So this does point towards the new version likely messing up the format to be seen on Windows systems. At least we've gotten to the bottom of this, although certainly is far from convenient. I wonder if a workaround might be to try loading your "Imperiel Valley" region on your old Macbook and try saving tiles from there instead of the new version? Of course, do make a backup before doing this, but perhaps if saving on your old system and it might then allow it to be translated and understood in a form Windows can interpret. Then it could be possible to share it with your friend as you planned, since it could then be cross-compatible between both.

[live_cows 47]

9 minutes ago, Cyclone Boom said:

Confirmed working here too:

 

Yes, it did indeed.

I also checked Los Angeles along with a handful other tiles, and other than a few brown boxes they opened just fine.

So this does point towards the new version likely messing up the format to be seen on Windows systems. At least we've gotten to the bottom of this, although certainly is far from convenient. I wonder if a workaround might be to try loading your "Imperiel Valley" region on your old Macbook and try saving tiles from there instead of the new version? Of course, do make a backup before doing this, but perhaps if saving on your old system and it might then allow it to be translated and understood in a form Windows can interpret. Then it could be possible to share it with your friend as you planned, since it could then be cross-compatible between both.

@Cyclone Boom I did what you suggested loading "Imperiel Valley" on my old Macbook and got the flat version @CorinaMarie and my friends got in the beginning. So, at this point the 64bit change would be the only thing that makes sense, because like what @Raymond7cn said, I also was sharing files in the past including just a year ago when I gave my brother a region. 

I may play this "shared game" in my old macbook since it works, just not as good as my new one (obviously). We'll see how it goes. Thanks again. 

[CorinaMarie 29,898]

2 minutes ago, live_cows said:

I may play this "shared game" in my old macbook since it works, just not as good as my new one (obviously). We'll see how it goes. Thanks again. 

Can you prevent that comp from auto-updating the game to 64 bit?

And, would you like me to send the converted Imperial Valley region that is just the terrain from Mapper? (You'd have to open and save each to get the right terrain colors.)

[live_cows 47]

9 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Can you prevent that comp from auto-updating the game to 64 bit?

And, would you like me to send the converted Imperial Valley region that is just the terrain from Mapper? (You'd have to open and save each to get the right terrain colors.)

Well the wireless card broke on my old computer so I'm not worried about it updating. I'm kinda annoyed Aspyr automatically updated my game on the new computer, but I guess thats how things are done now. I was aware new MacOS' didn't support 32 bit which is why I never updated to a new OS. 

@CorinaMarie Thank you for the offer! I've already rendered it on my old computer, it wasn't as slow as I was expecting. Mac made a good computer in 2009. 

[Raymond7cn 6,776]

Ah, I should think of the problem caused by 64-bit, Yes, Mine is 32-bit and the Mac i bought in 2011 has belonged to my son, I'm weak in Mac OS, so i couldn't recall what exactly i did so that Aspyr couldn't update SC4 automatically. Anyway, Glad to hear of you have found the answer by the help of CoriBoom™.

I'm a little bit curious about 64-bit SC4, since i could understand what Robin has elaborated on the theory of 64-bit program, whereas i couldn't understand why the .sc4 savegame is also different with 32-bit, shouldn't they just recode information like a database? Or maybe some head's statement or format are different? I have no idea, we may could figure out it by analysing the .sc4, But that should be the area of @smf_16, not me.

Sincerely,

-- Raymond