OSX Mojave - Black screen after I hit "Play" button in launcher - Problem returned

[gingus418]

The launcher starts up fine and the game will update but then I hit play and nothing. All I see is a black screen and my cursor (the normal OSX cursor, not the big white fat one that pops up with the launch screen). I've been playing FFXIV on this computer for a few years without having this problem.

Not sure what it could be. Thought maybe the gpu had died but I ran a hardware diagnostic on my computer and no issues cropped up. I've also done a fresh install of the game. This seemed to fix the problem for a little while when the issue popped up this past weekend but it's started again. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

[Einmimiria]

Good afternoon and thank you for posting on the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.

When you reinstalled the game, did you delete the folder located here /Library/Application Support/FINAL FANTASY XIV/? This has some locally saved data that but isn't deleted when reinstalling the game.

When it happened again, did anything change/update on your Mac?

We hope we can be of assistance in helping you enjoy the exciting world of Final Fantasy XIV!

[gingus418]

Good afternoon and thank you for posting on the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.

When you reinstalled the game, did you delete the folder located here /Library/Application Support/FINAL FANTASY XIV/? This has some locally saved data that but isn't deleted when reinstalling the game.

When it happened again, did anything change/update on your Mac?

We hope we can be of assistance in helping you enjoy the exciting world of Final Fantasy XIV!

I did delete this folder but before I did I saved my character data from the My Documents folder within the FFXIV folder and then copied it back into place after the fresh install. I also backed up my UI settings and restored them after the fresh install.

Nothing else was changed/updated as far as I know.

[MicahZerrshia]

I get this too from time to time. Normally have to wait it out, if you click absolutely nothing on your PC after a few minutes it will kick in and load the game but if you do click anything I get the spinning circle of crash, bang, boom and you need to force quit and relaunch. Only game I have this issue on and it does it on both my computers.

Next time it happens just give it a few mins and see if it loads.

[Dynratygus]

Thank you for the reply gingus418,

Did you start the game with the /Library/Application Support/FINAL FANTASY XIV/ folder removed? Please also update the graphics drivers if you have not done so already.

Also, what kind of Mac do you have and what is your GPU?

Hope to see you online!

[gingus418]

I honestly don't recall. I thought a fresh one got created when the game got reinstalled though.

I have a 15 inch Mid 2012 Mac Book Pro with a 2.6GHz Intel Core i7 Processor, 8 GB 1600 MHZ DDR3 RAM, and a dedicated NVIDIA GeFore GT650M GPU with 1 gig of onboard memory. I'm running Mojave, OSX 10.14 for my OS. As far as I know, my graphic drivers are up to date and come packaged with the OS.

[gingus418]

Thank you for the reply gingus418,

Did you start the game with the /Library/Application Support/FINAL FANTASY XIV/ folder removed? Please also update the graphics drivers if you have not done so already.

Also, what kind of Mac do you have and what is your GPU?

Hope to see you online!

Hi Dynratygus, not sure if you saw my response. It’s the previous post. Any thoughts? Thanks.

[Einmimiria]

Thank you for the update gingus418 and i apologize for the delay in our response.

We tried to replicate this on our Mac but it loaded fine after updating to Mojave.

It looks like your Mac doesn't quite meet the minimum requirements. Macs tend to be a bit looser on the actual requirements, so that may be why you haven't run into trouble until now.

Can you reinstall the Mojave OS or perhaps revert to an older version? It seems like the combination of the OS and older hardware you have may be causing this issue.

We hope we can be of assistance in helping you enjoy the exciting world of Final Fantasy XIV!

[gingus418]

Thank you for the update gingus418 and i apologize for the delay in our response.

We tried to replicate this on our Mac but it loaded fine after updating to Mojave.

It looks like your Mac doesn't quite meet the minimum requirements. Macs tend to be a bit looser on the actual requirements, so that may be why you haven't run into trouble until now.

Can you reinstall the Mojave OS or perhaps revert to an older version? It seems like the combination of the OS and older hardware you have may be causing this issue.

We hope we can be of assistance in helping you enjoy the exciting world of Final Fantasy XIV!

Can you tell me where I’m falling short in the requirements? Given that I didn’t have a problem running the game until I installed the newest version of OSX, I’m going to guess that it may be a memory allocation issue and my computer is short on RAM?

I don’t think I can easily revert and I’m not too clean on doing a completely fresh install since I don’t want to loose my files and setup. I do have a backup of course but don’t want to have to deal with having to replace missing files and redo all of my settings.

[Einmimiria]

Thank you for the reply gingus418.

The system requirements are a bit more vague than the PC version. It has a list of compatible models but doesn't list all of the ones that will play it (such as yours). You can see the list here (scroll down and select Mac under system requirements): https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/stormblood/product/

The oldest model listed is from late 2013 and the minimum for the GPU is the GTX 750 (compared to your GT650M). Obviously you were able to play before, but it sounds like some combination of the older hardware and your newer OS may be contributing to the problem. Since it's not on this list of compatible devices (and seems older than all of them), it's difficult to guarantee that the game will work as intended.

Thank you for visiting the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.