MacOS Catalina - Launcher Can't Run

[Sebazy]

The flip side of that is that Apple has been putting out warnings that this was impending for roughly 2 years, not to mention that the new OS has been available for developers to test and preview for a month or so.

[Synful]

You do realize that it's not SE's fault that Apple's OS broke, right?

You do realize you just showed you have absolutely no idea what's going on, right?

[Saefinn]

Honestly, this whole thing is completely ridiculous. I just purchased Shadowbringers, reactivated my SE account subscription, only to not even be able to run it. No warnings when I was buying the game from the SE store, nada. Now I can sit here and not play for 2 months (hopefully it's out by then) or reward SE for this failure by buying another platforms version? $40 + $15 wasted.

...and no, I'm not interested in wiping my computer and trying to go back to a previous version of MacOS just for 1 game and to cover for this screw up. I just want my money back at this point.

It is Apple that's broke it, that's not really something the devs have control over. But they are making a work around to support whatever changes Apple have made with the new OS release. So I don't think it's ridiculous on SE's part, or heck, Apple's.

New OS releases can break games and other software. This is nothing new and is one of the things I've always been wary of before upgrading, and is one reason not everybody jumps into a new OS release when it has just come out. There are risks and this is one of them. This is also where console gamers laugh at us. This is less likely to happen to them.

And Apple, Linux and Windows users have had this issue for years. These issues get resolved by companies patching software, people finding work-arounds and people releasing unofficial patches. The dev team is working on patching it, but depending on what broke, that isn't necessarily a quick and easy fix.

As for the lack of a warning at purchase? But they list the System Requirements. I just checked the Square Enix store and it only gives macOS Mojave 10.14.3 as the OS requirement for the Mac version of the game, Catalina isn't advertised as working and there's no "and later" to suggest later versions work (interestingly, it does for Windows).

It is the purpose of the System Requirements to communicate what system configurations it should run on. Whilst yes, they could put out a big warning label at purchase but who does that? And they would only have control in that respect with the Square Enix store, if people bought from Steam, Amazon etc. then they're not going to see it. But then, before they buy people should really check the system requirements.

If your operating system isn't listed, then the sensible thing is to look up if it will run or just take the risk and see if it works then accept the consequences if it doesn't (I fit into that category). It's a new OS release, so there's a chance for compatibility issues.

And you only need to open the lodestone to see there's a notice about MacOS Catalina, which is where SE keeps the community up-to-date with news.

[OriWhitedeer]

This literally just happened to me as well. Im going to uninstall and reinstall Mojave to see if that works. Unfortunately Apple changed the way it does Time Machine so its practically non functional, I tried to revert only to find that none of my prior snapshots were saved...so I'll post back if that's a viable option.

[Arngrim_Greyashe]

You do realize you just showed you have absolutely no idea what's going on, right?

This response proves that you have no idea what's going on. Maybe do some research.

[Sebazy]

This response proves that you have no idea what's going on. Maybe do some research.

SE's client is literally a multi layered bodge. The only surprise here is that they still have the gall to charge for it, it should either be a proper native client or it should be a free addition to the Windows licence.

[Synful]

People have a seriously weird idea of "broke". Catalina is working as intended and exactly how everyone had been told it would be for well over a year. It's on SE and whoever they have contracted that in over a year, they couldn't properly update their client to 64-bit. If other people did THEIR research, they would know this. FFXIV is literally the only still updating piece of software I have that was not properly updated to 64-bit in time for Catalina.

As for the whole "this happens sometimes and they'll fix it" idea...sure. My problem is that we are looking at nearly 2 months until their estimated fix and even that can slip further. 2 months to fix the launcher is, yes, ridiculous.

Amazing the people that will make excuses for SE's poor support for a platform they still charge full price for.

[LalaRu]

Upgrading an operative system, before checking if all your software inside is ready for it, is always a bad move.

...Amazing the people that will make excuses for SE's poor support for a platform...

The "poor support" you are referring to, is the one that warned its users even before the o.s. was released (warning issued Oct,2, and o.s. released Oct,7) ? Ok.

[GilroyKilroy]

Upgrading an operative system, before checking if all your software inside is ready for it, is always a bad move.

The "poor support" you are referring to, is the one that warned its users even before the o.s. was released (warning issued Oct,2, and o.s. released Oct,7) ? Ok.

True they did but you are assuming people read these messages on a daily basis and noticed it. If they cared it would have been on the launcher weeks before Catalina, not a post here 5 days before. I personally came to research the issue only after I upgraded to Catalina and saw it didn't work. So in order to keep playing I had to create a Mojave partition to boot into just to play FFXIV.

If SE truly wanted to support the Mac they would have been on top of betas and had a working version on day 1. I'm sorry, this is SE's fault, not Apple's.

P.S. It didn't even occur to me FFXIV would be a problem since they did do a 64-bit upgrade a few months ago. I thought that was to have Catalina support.

[GilroyKilroy]

This literally just happened to me as well. Im going to uninstall and reinstall Mojave to see if that works. Unfortunately Apple changed the way it does Time Machine so its practically non functional, I tried to revert only to find that none of my prior snapshots were saved...so I'll post back if that's a viable option.

I decided it was easiest to just create a Mojave volume to boot into. You have to copy the game itself, and all parts (like from ~/Library/Application Support/FINAL FANTASY XIV ONLINE and ~/Preferences/com.square-enix.finalfantasyxiv.plist), to the volume. The biggest issue was finding the Mojave installer to install with. Google is your friend for that ("mojave installer download").