urbanbabel215

Hi @Subbub, how did you buy the Mac version/where did you buy it from? I run the Steam version on Mac, which hasn't required any updates or patches. This page seems to indicate what updates/patches are and are not required for the various versions of the game depending on where you downloaded from (digital versus Origin, etc.): https://community.simtropolis.com/SC4-maxis-files/. I did, however, download the Maxis landmarks for Mac from that page, which I believe gives you (among other things) the expanded Maxis landmarks collection, nightlighting compatibility for them (which seems to be a running issue for many [custom] buildings you can download and use on a Mac), and enables the jobs capacity of all the Maxis landmarks (to this last point, you may need to also utilize a jobs capacity plugin, but I'm not sure). I will also mention that if you downloaded a Mac install of this game recently, chances are good it's been updated for 64-bit compatibility (instead of the 32-bit version of the game you likely played 10 years ago), which has brought on an entirely new litany of issues in running the game with mods. My Steam version was updated to 64-bit overnight without warning a month or so ago, and it would crash to desktop after the intro ran for days until I was able to troubleshoot with many of the kind folks here. This thread has more on that: In short, I had to do a fresh install of the NAM and go through all of my plugins one-by-one with iLivesReader to find/correct transit-related bugs in the coding. The NAM transit stations that were causing the crash in NAM 36 were fixed in the NAM 37 release candidate, so no further issues there, but any other plugins you use could still be problematic. Even after I've been able to successfully load the game and play cities, I find the game can still crash randomly with problematic mods installed in my plugins through an errant hover of the disconnector tool over a six-lane toll booth or placing a windmill near a custom lighthouse that I never thought was transit-enabled and so didn't think to check in iLivesReader before playing. The various SC4 teams in these and other forums have been trying to proactively update problematic mods, and the LEX makes it easy to see if any mods you have from there have been updated since you've downloaded them, so the simple solution for those mods is to make sure you have the most up-to-date version downloaded and use those in your plugins. STEX doesn't seem to have such a function and my mods from here have just been trial and error, adding one mod at a time and seeing if it causes a crash, and then fixing it in iLivesReader if it does. Some of the related forums on here are monitored by people that can help fix problematic Mac files in the 64-bit environment, but nobody's been able to identify a single place on Simtropolis that's being used to track problem files and fix them, so I've kind of been on my own for troubleshooting STEX files. That thread goes into more detail on all of this. I know it sounds overwhelming and it's been a big undertaking on my end the past month that's detracted from playing the game, but I'm finally getting my plugins to a place that I can play the game relatively normally again. I've just learnt to save more often and focus on doing one thing at a time in the game so the random crashes don't erase hours of work.

Hi @xxdita, definitely happy to participate on behalf of all, and hopefully my being able to correctly identify issue files with iLivesReader will validate any files I report (rather than just relying on CTDs) so I don't create any wild goose chases for you all. In that regard, I believe I've been able to identify a few transit files with the Float32 discrepancy that folks on this thread have been kind enough to explain that don't appear to have been updated yet on the STEX. Where is the best place to report these as I come across them? Should I continue on this thread, or is there another thread targeted specifically at these issues? Thanks again for all the help!

@rsardachuk Yessir, I actually removed all my plugins and upgraded to the new NAM 37 Release Candidate, and that's fixed the problems. Now I'm trying to add all my previous plugins one by one to see which ones trigger additional problems based on some of the other issues discussed in this thread, but so far it's been pretty smooth sailing. Regarding your NAM version, I'm pretty sure you would know if you have the new NAM 37 RC as it was just released in the past month and would have required you to delete your previous NAM files out of your Plugins folder to install, so let's assume you don't. You can find the new NAM here: https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=18616.0. It's been really great so far.

It's really nicely done. Feels like photographs directly out of the PNW! Would you mind me asking what terrain/tree/building style mods you're using?

I'm glad to hear I'm not going crazy. FWIW regarding the FLUPs and the RHW starters you mentioned, I'm pretty sure I've been able to access the full set still in NAM 37 RC. In addition to fully cycling or reverse cycling through the Tab ring, I sometimes need to rotate through individual pieces (on my MacBook Pro, function+left/right key) to get access to the full spectrum. To be honest, I think it's always been this way on my machine with the FLUPs in my experience, and I thought that was by design. (For instance, tabbing never offered access to road and one-way road FLUPs separately — I've always selected what I thought was a general 'road FLUP' and then rotate through the various directions of one-way inbound, one-way outbound, and two-way until I found what I wanted — and the same with the street FLUPs and street tunnels. It was always particularly pronounced with underground FLUP routes.) It's just been recently that it seems to happen with everything. So for the RHW starter pieces, all mine seem to be grouped by C sets when forward tabbing through the ring. If I land on the RHW 8C starter piece and reverse tab once, it will give me the RHW 8S.

Thanks @mattb325, I do appreciate the response and did see the update to these stations on LEX (and will definitely update them on my end), but I'm actually trying to understand the underlying exemplar conflicts so I can learn to help myself (especially where files may not have been updated by their author) and not burden you wonderful people during what is clearly a very stressful time. I just happened to reference one of your old files and, like I said, wasn't looking for support, just confirmation. If you're willing to help me with that, I'd be very much obliged. And if not, I fully understand, and hope the member to whom I addressed my response will be able to assist.

Hi @rsc204, I tried posting in the dedicated thread you indicated, but it appears closed. I'm in the process of troubleshooting all of my non-NAM plugins since the game was updated to 64-bit on Steam. One of the files that causes a CTD when plopped is any of mattb325's suite of train stations that I downloaded from the LEX (no implications of any kind intended, simply using this file for example purposes). I'm using NAM 37 RC on Mac Mojave (Steam version). I'm not looking for support with this, per se, but wanted to confirm my understanding that based on your reply, an analysis of the Float32 exemplar in iLivesReader of one of the stations being a value other than "0" is the cause of the CTD?

Hi fellow SC4 Mac users, I've noticed a rather curious behavior that seems to coincide with my version of SC4 being updated to 64 bit on Steam: in tabbing through various menu items in the game (for instance, RRW curve puzzle pieces or RHW ramps — basically any items that allow you to tab through variations), the forward tabbing — that is, just pressing tab — seems to skip over every other item. But if I reverse tab (on my MacBook Pro using the Steam game, I press Ctrl+Shift+Tab), the skipped items will appear. I swear it's not user error, as I assumed it must have been when I noticed it yesterday; I've done some purposeful testing and it's a recurring behavior. I upgraded to the NAM 37 RC today and it's been happening there, but it also occurred in NAM 36 after Steam updated the game to the 64-bit version. I never noticed it using NAM 36 prior to that, and it's annoying enough that I think I'd have noticed it before. The 64-bit update is all I can pinpoint in the change in behavior. Has anyone else encountered this and/or have any ideas for a fix or what might be causing it? To be clear, I fully understand that NAM 36 is no longer being supported and am not looking to initiate any verboten conversation around it; as I stated, I am running the NAM 37 RC and experiencing the issue with that, and only offer the NAM 36 references for context to support why I think it coincided with the 64-bit update of the game on Steam and at first glance seems likely not, for instance, a NAM-related issue. I also profusely apologize if this has been discussed elsewhere (I did try researching the issue prior to posting and didn't come across anything relevant) or if this is not the appropriate place to post this in... a polite redirect or suggestion would be well-received and very much appreciated. But timid formalities aside, anyone else? Any ideas?

Didn't you just participate in testing this NAM36 bug yesterday? Sorry to have put you out somehow in responding to rsc204's request that someone having CTD issues test the stations...

Hi @rsc204 I can confirm I was able to successfully play the game with HSR installed in the NAM by replacing the two files you added, so thank you very much. I reinstalled NAM 36 with the HSR options this time, and while it allowed me into the game without CTD after intro, the game CTDed when trying to load a city. Replacing the two files you patched (HSR Station.SC4Lot and GHSR Station.SC4Lot) where they're installed in the NAM fixed the problem.

I'll be happy to test them tomorrow and report back if someone else doesn't beat me to it. Apologies I can't tackle it now, only jumped on for a minute to see if there were any developments. And thank you for your explanation of the Float 32 bug. I'm still on Mojave at the moment and managed to get iLivesReader running with Wineskin just before this whole 64-bit debacle when I was trying to track dependencies for the small airport tram plugin by joerg/uploaded by suplado! that I couldn't get to show up in the game, so I'll be sure to use that when I come across my other plugins that cause the game to crash as I add them back in. Sure, prior to succeeding with a fresh install of NAM 36, I tried removing these folders (and their contents) from the following path: Plugins > z___NAM > Mass Transit Lots > High Speed Rail Stations Modern Arched GHSR Station Modern Arched HSR Station When that didn't prevent a CTD after intro, I additionally removed the entire 'High Speed Rail Project' folder from the 'Network Addon Mod' folder, and still encountered a CTD after intro. I also went back to the 'Mass Transit Lots' folder in z___NAM after that and removed the entire 'High Speed Rail Stations' folder (and its contents) and still had the game CTD after intro after launching it again. To be clear, it was only when I did a fresh, custom install of NAM 36 into a blank Plugins folder without any of the High Speed Rail options checked (though I did install the BTM) that I was able to successfully get into the game and play cities. By clean, I mean empty. Wiped. Gone. I made a copy of my entire Documents > SimCity 4 folder somewhere outside my Documents folder and then erased the folder and all its contents. So when I uninstalled and reinstalled the game anew in Steam and started playing it, the game created a new 'SimCity 4' folder with new Regions and Plugins folders and config files. Thus, when I did a fresh install of NAM 36, it populated 'Network Addon Mod' and 'z___NAM' in an empty Plugins folder that the game created, not the one leftover from my pre-64-bit gameplay. Basically, I figured if I was going to have to take baby steps for trial and error to get the game running again after the 64-bit update, I might as well pretend I'm starting the game from scratch like I did for the first time a couple years ago and let the installers and software create all the infrastructure that I've ended up manipulating over time. Not sure if that's essential or not — like I said, I'm not particularly tech savvy — but it seemed like minimal extra work at this point to know that nothing legacy I may have created (including folder structures) was causing a conflict in the way the game and the NAM interact.

Hi friends, so I've had some time to do some troubleshooting and thought I'd chime in with this (lengthy) bit of an update. My last paragraph has a partial fix if you don't care about the minutiae. In researching the 64-bit issues, I came across this thread on the forum: Some folks on Macs were saying they were getting CTD issues after updating to the 64-bit game on the App Store and were able to trace those issues to a couple HSR (high-speed rail) stations and some lots/buildings by a member here named spa. So after making a backup copy of my current SimCity 4 folder contents and then wiping that folder clean and uninstalling SimCity 4 Deluxe from Steam, rebooting the computer, and installing it anew in Steam, I was able to get into the game and play the Timbuktu starter cities. (Note: the intro still looks different than it did before and I thought for sure it would crash, but amazingly it kept going even after flashing my Dock after the intro sequence. @rsardachuk described the subtle differences in the intro spot on in his original post.) So then I loaded my previous custom regions only into the Regions folder and was able to get into those cities and play them for a short while, albeit with a lot of brown boxes from my missing plugins and empty spaces from NAM networks. I could save, exit, go back into the city, go back into other cities... all good. Only caveat is I noticed it created a Regions 2 folder in my SimCity 4 file with all the standard regions that also exist in the Regions file, but it doesn't seem to matter. Satisfied that I got the game working again with the 64-bit update, I loaded the Network Addon Mod and z___NAM files I backed up into Plugins and tried removing the few station folders in the z___NAM > Mass Transit Lots > High Speed Rail Stations they identified in the post I cited above, and did a search of spa's uploaded files on the STEX to confirm that I didn't have any of them in my Plugins (which I didn't, but it's possible they're involved in other plugins or dependencies I have or perhaps he had content on the LEX that I've downloaded and I haven't been able to do an exhaustive search of all my files yet). Right back to the CTD after intro. So then I wiped my Plugins clean again and reinstalled NAM 36 fresh using the installer, custom installation setting without any of the High Speed Rail Project checked, and opted for the Bullet Train Mod (BTM) only. Game loaded and allowed me to play and save existing regions again with all the previous NAM content I had placed (except obviously for HSR, which I hadn't previously used in my cities anyway). Building bullet train tracks and stations worked fine as well, as did some new RHW. (Note: after success with the fresh NAM install, glutton for punishment that I am, I deleted those files and tried adding my previous NAM plugins [Network Addon Mod and z___NAM folders] back into my Plugins folder without the entire HSRP folders from both of them instead of just the few HSR station files in z___NAM > Mass Transit Lots > High Speed Rail Stations like I attempted earlier, but that didn't work and the game went back to CTD after intro, so I'm thinking there must be some glitch around the fundamental HSRP in the entire NAM install with the 64-bit update on the Mac Steam, maybe something to do with the re-skinning of the monorail whilst still allowing monorail as an option [which as I understand it is all HSRP is] whereas the BTM replaces the monorail as a re-skin entirely.) Last, I went back and added all my other backed up plugins to the Plugins folder and the game went back to CTD after intro, so now I have the thankless task of testing all my previous plugins one-by-one to see what other conflicts there are. But the somewhat good news and ultimate moral of this tale is that you can get back to playing the Steam version on Mac with NAM after the 64-bit update (albeit without HSR) by starting with clean folders, uninstalling and reinstalling the game in Steam, and going through a fresh install of NAM 36 without HSRP. Or at least I can. And I didn't need to update my OS to Catalina — yet. Did all this staying in Mojave. (Take this statement with a big grain of salt, however, as I only played/saved a couple different cities and regions for very short whiles. But exiting in and out of the game as much as I did and loading some rather large cities I was building before is a hopeful sign there's some stamina and stability in this.) Now to start tackling all these plugins I've accumulated over the years and put into my cities... I'll be sure to post an update when I discover where those conflicts lie if it would be helpful.

I am so glad someone posted about this... I just started having the E-X-A-C-T same issues with the game CTDing after a subtly different intro sequence (before the region view loads) in the past day on a 2017 MacBook Pro after playing the Steam version without incident the past two years. I'm running on OS Mojave and have long held off updating to Catalina specifically because of the warnings about the 64-bit compatibility issue. Unfortunately, I don't have much to add at this point as I've spent the better part of the day trying specifying launch options with CPU counts, cleaning plugins, editing graphics and video configuration files, and downloading recommended SC4 launchers (before thinking better of it) — all to no avail. I knew it had to be something to do with a system update either from Steam or Apple because I hadn't made any changes to my Plugins since successfully playing last two days ago. So thank you for explaining how to verify this! To be clear, is the thought that updating to Catalina if it doesn't affect other programs (in my case, it doesn't) is the most ideal fix? Will existing cities still load after, or is there expected to be an issue with anything created in 32-bit instances? Apologies if I'm not understanding this part correctly, but I'm not particularly tech savvy... though enthusiastically pursuing this game and NAM on a Mac is slowly changing that [he admits begrudgingly].