Altitude unable to launch on OS X

[sinkie]

After playing Altitude during its free weekend in September, I finally decided the purchase the game due to the Steam sale. While the game worked flawlessly previously, the game will no longer launch. When I try to launch Altitude from Steam, the icon appears in the dock, the screen flashes black for a split seconds, then the icon fades away almost instantly. Steam marks my last time played as today, although I was unable to play at all. The demo works fine as well, so I am negligent to call this a graphics or driver issue, especially since the game worked fine previously. I saw someone on the Steam forums with a similar issue, but I was unable to post there, since my account has yet to be verified. Attached is my system info report. If any further troubleshooting is needed, I'd be more than happy to help for the Mac version.

[davidkellis]

I'm having this same trouble. I bought the game off of Steam today (12/25), installed it, and it consistently crashes when I try to run it from within Steam. I downloaded the demo from http://altitudegame.com/, installed it, and it ran fine (except that it's not registered). Why doesn't the Steam version run just as well? I'm on Mac OS X 10.6.5. 4GB of RAM, integrated Intel GMA X3100 video chipset w/144MB shared VRAM, and plenty of disk space. Why does it not run properly?

[lamster]

Thanks for the reports. Steam-Altitude recently started crashing on some versions of OSX when we attempt to load the Steam native libraries. This may be related to a Mac OS update or to minor changes in Steam's native code -- we are currently looking into this problem and hope to have a fix very soon. It may take a few days to push the update to Steam because the relevant Valve staff may be on vacation, but we'll let you know when a fix is ready.

[Tekn0]

Thanks for the info. I'm going to hold back all my Mac updates until this is resolved. Can this thread be updated when this issue is resolved for all Mac users?

[miguelandresyb]

I bought the game on christmas day also, I noticed this happens:

1. You download from skype
2. You launch the game
3. The game says (in-game) that it is trying to download updates.
4. The game restarts and plays fine after the in-game update.
5. After you quit the game, it won't launch again.
6. When you verify game content in steam it says 6 files were corrupted and it will redownload them.
7. It still won't launch
8. You have to delete game content to get it to work again.

My wild guess (as a Software Engineer), is that the game should NOT download updates in-game, because Steams signs the application binary on Mac OS X and it would invalidate the signature eventually, and the mac would REFUSE to reload the application.

Instead Altitude should push those updates THROUGH THE STEAM UPDATE SYSTEM.

Please check into this problem as soon as possible, I bought this for my one-week holiday break from work and it's getting really frustrating having to delete game content and redownload just to play EVERY FREAKING TIME

[r1g3l]

I bought Altitude during the labor day sale (and again in the recent holiday sale when it was part of an indy games pack, though since I already owned it, I didn't receive a new license). After a recent Java update, I can no longer launch Altitude in steam, and launching from the application shortcut (installed when I first hosted a dedicated server) launches a version without my registration information. Is there a way to retrieve my registration information so that I can use the application shortcut?

[r1g3l]

Well, I was able to run altitude again. I use a non-Apple JVM for my dissertation research. Using the Java Preferences app, I was able to switch to use the apple jvm. That allows me to run Altitude in steam. Unfortunately, I then have to switch jvms again to do run the code for my research.

[capraMabrica]

I also am having this problem. I downloaded from steam today, it loaded and did an update, restarted, and now it gives me 2 osx popups saying: You can't open the application altitude because it may be damaged or incomplete.

Steam is also giving me an error saying that there is an error, and to try again some other time :\
I tired removing all the content from my mac, and downloading again. This worked and it even did the update fine. I played the first level. But when I went back and tried to start the game again, I was back in the same place.

System info attached. I'm looking forward to playing this game!
C

[davidkellis]

Wow, r1g3l, I think you solved the issue for me. I opened the Java Preferences and I saw that I had 4 versions of the JVM listed. This screenshot shows the listing before I changed anything: http://grab.by/85lr. I changed the order so that the two System JVM versions were listed first, as in this screenshot: http://grab.by/85lG. Before I changed the order, Altitude, when run from Steam would only crash. The game would not start at all. Now that I've reordered the JVMs, I can run the game from within Steam.

Thanks again for the tip, r1g3l.

[sinkie]

Originally Posted by davidkellis

Wow, r1g3l, I think you solved the issue for me. I opened the Java Preferences and I saw that I had 4 versions of the JVM listed. This screenshot shows the listing before I changed anything: http://grab.by/85lr. I changed the order so that the two System JVM versions were listed first, as in this screenshot: http://grab.by/85lG. Before I changed the order, Altitude, when run from Steam would only crash. The game would not start at all. Now that I've reordered the JVMs, I can run the game from within Steam.

Thanks again for the tip, r1g3l.

I only have Java SE 6 listed, so I am unable to confirm that this fix works. Hopefully Lamster's update will be out soon. (Thanks for responding, Lamster)

[lamster]

Sinkie --

The issue reported by other Mac users on the Steam forums appears to have been related to "phantom" Java Virtual Machines that were either installed as part of the "Java Developer Update" or by another program that installed a non-System VM as part of its installation process. Those users all reported non-system VMs and their issue was fixed by reordering.

I believe your crash might be different -- perhaps there is a bug with the Mac-Steam overlay on OpenGL games with 2 monitors? Have you tried disabling the Steam community overlay?
1) Open Steam
2) Click File -> Settings
3) Click the "In-game" tab
4) Uncheck "Enable Steam Community In-Game"
5) Click OK
6) Launch Altitude
Have you tried disconnecting your second monitor and then launching the game?

If you are still unable to launch the Steam version please email support@nimblygames.com with all files in the directory ~/Documents/Steam\ Content/common/altitude/log and I'll take a look.

[sinkie]

Originally Posted by lamster

Sinkie --

The issue reported by other Mac users on the Steam forums appears to have been related to "phantom" Java Virtual Machines that were either installed as part of the "Java Developer Update" or by another program that installed a non-System VM as part of its installation process. Those users all reported non-system VMs and their issue was fixed by reordering.

I believe your crash might be different -- perhaps there is a bug with the Mac-Steam overlay on OpenGL games with 2 monitors? Have you tried disabling the Steam community overlay?
1) Open Steam
2) Click File -> Settings
3) Click the "In-game" tab
4) Uncheck "Enable Steam Community In-Game"
5) Click OK
6) Launch Altitude
Have you tried disconnecting your second monitor and then launching the game?

If you are still unable to launch the Steam version please email support@nimblygames.com with all files in the directory ~/Documents/Steam\ Content/common/altitude/log and I'll take a look.

Although none of these worked, I was able to launch the game successfully by verifying the integrity of my game cache (Properties -> Local Files). I don't recall this working previously, so it may need to be done multiple times for anyone who is having trouble. Thank you for assisting me in fixing this, though! I can't wait to play now