Updated Mac installer

[Moon Wizard]

We just pushed an updated Mac installer to the downloads section:
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/filelibrary/FGUWebInstall.pkg

If you are a Mac user, can you give it a try for us? With the recent Apple security changes, we had to go through a bunch of extra steps to get this built, so we want to make sure it's working.

Thanks,
JPG

[Aventhar]

Worked fine for me!

MacBook Pro - macOS Catalina/fully patched

[IdGibbins]

The new installer worked fine for me as well.

macOS Mojave - 10.14.6 - fully patched
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013)

[Cdub]

It does not work for me, I'm getting the dreaded version v0.33 on my MacBook Air, Mojave, version 10.14.6

[Moon Wizard]

@Cdub,

I'm not sure what you mean by the "dreaded version v0.33". Can you clarify?

Thanks,
JPG

[Cdub]

@Cdub,

I'm not sure what you mean by the "dreaded version v0.33". Can you clarify?

Thanks,
JPG

Where the updater shows version v0.33 and won't do anything after install. It's called out in the updater issue thread that redeyesofnight has stickied.

31823

[tiawaz]

Macbook Pro, Mojave 10.14.6

Updater stuck at 0.33 and not functional

[redeyesofnight]

Hey everyone!
Ryan here!

I've finally managed to track down the source of the v0.33 bug referred to here.
Unfortunately it was an issue in the Log file creation itself, so it took some time to track down.

Now that I've got a handle on the cause, I'm working on updates to address this quickly.

I appreciate your patience and I will update with progress.
--Ryan--

[Cdub]

New package they posted resolved my issue! Thanks everyone!

[digitalhobbit]

Worked fine for me, too.

[dastels]

No joy here... can't connect/join. LAN or WAN IP

[Moon Wizard]

@dastels,

This thread is specifically for resolving installer issues; which are addressed by re-installing with the latest installer.

If you are having a separate issue, please start a new thread; and provide as much information as possible to help us help you.

Regards,
JPG

[aribethdm]

working and updating OK in my mac. But seems like the computer gets slow if I open other programs. Seems like FGU is usign a lot of resources but not reporting it in the Activity Monitor.

macOs high Sierra 10.13.6
2.3Ghz intel Core i7
8GB RAMT 1600 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536MB

I want FGU in steam so I can buy the licence FGC Ultimate to FGU Ultimate

[jaharmi]

I’ve gotten the early access beta and found the installation of FGU on macOS cumbersome. It took me a while to actually get the app after running the FGU Updater. It was bizarre to not have the app installed by the package. It’s definitely out of the ordinary to only get an updater.

I’m a long-time Mac admin, so I also looked at the package itself. I’m not sure why everything is being installed in subfolders two levels deep under /Applications. I would try to avoid that and use one level at most, none if possible.

I would also try to eliminate the postinstall script. Just about everything done in that script could be done before the package is built (ownership, permissions) and should be carried through the pkg into the target Mac.
- Avoid any filesystem commands in the postinstall. If a folder must be created, it should be in the package payload. For ownership and permissions, set those in the package source before building the package.
- Although I don’t expect enterprise deployments of FGU, I would also try to avoid the use of “$USER” and definitely “~” (tilde) in any package script. The tilde will actually refer to the root user’s home directory.
- The “open” command in the post install script is potentially dangerous, especially if the package is somehow run when no user is logged in. In that case, the FGU Updater app will be run as root.
- Some of the steps in the install script are for a user. I would recommend moving those steps — like checking for the ~/Library/Preferences/SmiteWorks folder — into app itself, so that any necessary folders are created by and for the macOS user account that is launching the app. Installer packages on macOS are really meant to be system-wide and based on my experience, user-specific payload should be avoided.


There are tools that can help with package construction that you may be able to incorporate into your app build process. For example, https://github.com/munki/munki-pkg is well-regarded. (It comes from the Mac admin community, which has to deal with the foibles in a lot of vendor packages.)

[dmbrown]

I concur with aribethdm. My Mac is almost identical, except I have 16GB of RAM and I run into the same problems.

[dastels]

Yes. My bad. I found this searching for solutions to running on Catalina. I'll be jumping on the open beta.

[AlphaDecay]

Ignore.. post replied to wrong thread.

[Fishypeanuts]

I am wondering if there is a MacOS Catalina friendly version of FG yet?

[Moon Wizard]

FGC will not be supported on Catalina; FGU already works on Catalina.

Regards,
JPG

[jrowsey1]

I've been running the FG Unity version on macOS Catalina since March. Current version of FGU should work on MacOS running Catalina.

[LordEntrails]

I am wondering if there is a MacOS Catalina friendly version of FG yet?
Yes. Just install the Mac version found here; https://www.fantasygrounds.com/home/FantasyGroundsUnity.php

[Akphoenix4118]

We just pushed an updated Mac installer to the downloads section:
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/filelibrary/FGUWebInstall.pkg

If you are a Mac user, can you give it a try for us? With the recent Apple security changes, we had to go through a bunch of extra steps to get this built, so we want to make sure it's working.

Thanks,
JPG

Do I seriously have to turn down my new d&d group because you haven’t kept up with iOS? Ugh, it looks like I’d have to upgrade my memory and run boot camp or parallels with windows or Linux. Is that seriously my only option?

[Akphoenix4118]

10.14 is Mojave not Catalina. I’m running 10.15.7 on one machine and beta of.8 on another. Won’t work on either.

[jaharmi]

Fantasy Grounds Unity certainly does run on both macOS Mojave and Catalina. I have been part of multiple groups using FGU and were all-Mac. I connect to my games hosted on macOS Catalina from a Mid-2012 MacBook Pro running macOS Mojave so that I can see what my players see.

Make sure you are getting Fantasy Grounds Unity and not Fantasy Grounds Classic.

That said, you must also match with your gaming group. If your group is using Fantasy Grounds Classic, you will need some workaround or a different computer/OS combination in order to be part of that group.

If the hosting DM/GM does not want to use Fantasy Grounds Unity, that is a limitation. Fantasy Grounds Unity cannot connect to games hosted on Fantasy Grounds Classic and vice versa.

[Jalex]

Fantasy Grounds Unity certainly does run on both macOS Mojave and Catalina. I have been part of multiple groups using FGU and were all-Mac. I connect to my games hosted on macOS Catalina from a Mid-2012 MacBook Pro running macOS Mojave so that I can see what my players see.

Make sure you are getting Fantasy Grounds Unity and not Fantasy Grounds Classic.

I'm running 10.15.7 on a brand-new MacBook Pro 16. The installer doesn't work for me, so Akphoenix isn't the only one. I get an error regarding permissions writing to the data and applications folders. I enter the administrator credentials when prompted, so this should allow the program to install.

I downloaded Unity and not Classic.

Very frustrating for a $135 purchase. I've sent an e-mail to support@fantasygrounds, so hopefully they can help get it resolved.

[Ulric]

I'm running 10.15.7 on a brand-new MacBook Pro 16. The installer doesn't work for me, so Akphoenix isn't the only one. I get an error regarding permissions writing to the data and applications folders.

Can you post a screenshot of the error message?

[Jalex]

Can you post a screenshot of the error message?

Sure. Here it is:

[LordEntrails]

What happens after you enter the administrator credentials? Is their another error message or just nothing happens? Is their any events or info in the system logs? What about your security software? (Sorry, not Mac competent so can't give better direction.)

[Jalex]

What happens after you enter the administrator credentials? Is their another error message or just nothing happens? Is their any events or info in the system logs? What about your security software? (Sorry, not Mac competent so can't give better direction.)

I get that message AFTER the administrator's credentials are entered. When I click the Fix Permissions button, it says the permissions couldn't be fixed. The system log is very verbose, the first line that looks like trouble says that the Smiteworks/Fantasy Grounds/cache folder couldn't be accessed (or created, can't remember exactly).

I'm running BitDefender Pro, and I've tried the intstall with BitDefender running and disabled. No luck either way.

[Jalex]

Here's the FGUpdaterEngine log:

<deleted log>

Never mind. I ran the updater several times in a row without uninstalling in between, making sure that I completed every tab in the settings window after I got the permissions error. After 3 or 4 repetitions, FGU finally installed.

Thanks for the help LordEntrails!

[jaharmi]

@Jalex, I don't recall never hearing of Bitdefender Pro for Mac until your post, so I'm not aware whether or not the product could be interfering. Although the product appears to have many interesting reviews / accolades on its Web site, I would suggest completely uninstalling it before attempting these installs/upgrades in the future, just to see if that is an issue. Turning it off may not be enough. Doing this would let us know if that is the difference between the experiences you were having and the success I and others have had with FGU installs/updates. Apple doesn't bundle any third-party products of this sort.

I'm not sure what's triggering the permissions issues. I know I'd seen mention of permissions issues related to the Windows installer earlier in the year, but hadn't seen it mentioned in the context of the Mac installer.

Are you running with a user account created when you first set up the Mac? (It's an admin account, so it can elevate privileges for installations, among other things.)

What is your system's current setting for "Allow apps downloaded from" in System Preferences app > Security & Privacy pane > General tab? Is it "App Store and identified developers"?

Do you have any listing for Fantasy Grounds in System Preferences app > Security & Privacy pane > Privacy tab under either "Files and Folders" or "Full Disk Access"? (I only show Fantasy Grounds as having access to my "Downloads" folder under "Files and Folders," so I don't think this should be an issue, but it's worth checking.) Apple has implemented new Privacy controls since macOS Mojave and these controls can often prevent the use of software in ways that you would expect to work. For example, I've heard of people not being able to save Microsoft Word files to their "Documents" folder because Word was not given access to it. That's a great feature in certain ways, but it can be very frustrating to troubleshoot why an app is not behaving as expected in the more recent versions of macOS.

The directory `~/SmiteWorks/Fantasy\ Grounds/cache` does exist in my macOS user home folder. It looks like it was probably created by my initial FGU install / app launch. It's owned by my user account and has `0755` permissions.

Since things are working, I hope they continue to work. It would be nice if we could collectively figure out what the problem was.

[Jalex]

@Jalex, I don't recall never hearing of Bitdefender Pro for Mac until your post, so I'm not aware whether or not the product could be interfering. Although the product appears to have many interesting reviews / accolades on its Web site, I would suggest completely uninstalling it before attempting these installs/upgrades in the future, just to see if that is an issue. Turning it off may not be enough. Doing this would let us know if that is the difference between the experiences you were having and the success I and others have had with FGU installs/updates. Apple doesn't bundle any third-party products of this sort.

Uninstalling the antivirus was going to be the next step. This is the first time I've used BitDefender, and the first time I've had trouble installing an application in 12 years of using a Mac. Maybe that's not a coincidence...




Are you running with a user account created when you first set up the Mac? (It's an admin account, so it can elevate privileges for installations, among other things.)

I'm on a user account, and entered the administrator credentials when prompted. This is the first time that didn't work.



What is your system's current setting for "Allow apps downloaded from" in System Preferences app > Security & Privacy pane > General tab? Is it "App Store and identified developers"?

It's set to "App Store and identified developers."


Do you have any listing for Fantasy Grounds in System Preferences app > Security & Privacy pane > Privacy tab under either "Files and Folders" or "Full Disk Access"? (I only show Fantasy Grounds as having access to my "Downloads" folder under "Files and Folders," so I don't think this should be an issue, but it's worth checking.)

FGUpdater has access to the Desktop folder under Files and Folders. (I don't know why, I never use the desktop folder.) It installed in user/<username>/SmiteWorks/Fantasy Grounds.



The directory `~/SmiteWorks/Fantasy\ Grounds/cache` does exist in my macOS user home folder. It looks like it was probably created by my initial FGU install / app launch. It's owned by my user account and has `0755` permissions.

That's where my cache folder ended up. From what I can tell, I am the owner, and have read & write permissions.


Since things are working, I hope they continue to work. It would be nice if we could collectively figure out what the problem was.

When I was thinking about this last night, I remembered that I used Migration Assistant to transfer documents, music, photos, etc. from my old computer to this one. I didn't migrate any applications. I did have the demo version of FGU installed on the old laptop, and the SmiteWorks folders were copied over. I deleted all of these after the first installation failure. I wonder if that may have caused a problem. I don't know why that would mess with permissions, though.

I plan to dig into FGU a little bit this week. I'm sure there will be lots of questions. It's good to know that I can get answers quickly on these forums and from customer support.

Thanks!

[jackvinson]

Brand new to Fantasy Grounds. Hunted around a little to see if I could find some troubleshooting guides on installing the software, and this seems to be the place...

I downloaded and opened the FGUWebInstall.pkg with no trouble. But at the point where it said something like "Fantasy Grounds will open" nothing happened. When I went to the "/Applications/SmiteWorks/Fantasy Grounds" location and ran FantasyGroundsUpdater.app manually, a window popped up for a microsecond and then closed. Based on some comments here, I will run the installer again. 3rd time. 4th time. 5th time. All no luck.

I'm guessing something is preventing the Updater from running once it is installed. I've installed plenty of other non-App Store software on my machine without trouble. I have the security settings such that downloaded software is allowed to run.

Running macOS Big Sur on a 2020 MacBook Pro, if that matters. 16GB Ram.

Thanks for any help! Or pointers to a troubleshooting guide?

Update: I went all the way to the "Fantasy Grounds Updater Engine" and that seems to be working! Everything buried in too many folders. ("FGUpdaterEngine.app" instead of "FantasyGroundsUpdater.app")

[jaharmi]

@jackvinson You should only need to launch the Fantasy Grounds app. You shouldn’t need to launch the “FGUpdaterEngine.app” or “FantasyGroundsUpdater.app” directly. These other apps run when you click on the Update button from the main Fantasy Grounds menu screen.

It has been some time since you posted, so hopefully things are sorted out for you.