Known Mac Issues

[Vint]

Posting this here to avoid repeats in the bug report or support threads.

Currently, there are a few issues Mac users are seeing when running MazzleUI. They are NOT MazzleUI bugs.

1- Missing textures around minimap/casting bar, etc. when switching between windowed and full screen mode. - Known Blizzard bug with the Mac client.

2- Crash reporter triggering when logging on.
-- This is addon related, not specific to MazzleUI, but to date, we (Mortlach and myself) have been unable to determine which addon is causing it. Feel free to play the 'extension conflict' troubleshooting game if you're bored and help narrow it down.

3- Crash reporter triggering on exit/logout
-- See #2 above. This one is more fun, since it seems to happen after all addons have been unloaded. Again, feel free to help try and narrow down the culprit.


#2 and #3 are not play impacting, #1 can be, if it happens a /console reloadui will correct it. But, until the memory leak triggered by switching modes is fixed by blizzard (or Apple, whoever is fixing it) you don't want to be switching modes alot anyway.

Anything I missed Mort?

[MacDude]

#1 is annoying, but I can live with it for now.

Working on narrowing down the Crashreporters for 2 & 3.

[Seerah]

Originally Posted by Vint 1- Missing textures around minimap/casting bar, etc. when switching between windowed and full screen mode. - Known Blizzard bug with the Mac client.

I ended up with #1 today, and I am on a PC (Windows XP Home). Same cause- switched to windowed mode and back. I realize this is most likely on Blizzard's end, too, just curious if it's been noted by any other PC users I suppose. Glad I saw this here, though, before submitting it in the bugs forum. Any clue on why it's happening on a PC and not only on Macs?

[Vint]

Originally Posted by Seerah I ended up with #1 today, and I am on a PC (Windows XP Home). Same cause- switched to windowed mode and back. I realize this is most likely on Blizzard's end, too, just curious if it's been noted by any other PC users I suppose. Glad I saw this here, though, before submitting it in the bugs forum. Any clue on why it's happening on a PC and not only on Macs?

Its caused by the way the wow client deals with custom textures that aren't 100% "perfect". I suppose its not just technically a Mac issue, since (as you're obviously aware) it can happen on the Windows side as well..For some reason, it is more common on the Mac side. (And its not specific to Mazzle's custom textures... I had it with other textures prior to using Mazzle's stuff. By chance, are you forcing WoW to run using OpenGL instead of the windows default of DirectX?

[Seerah]

Pretty sure I'm using DirectX... Although, I did just go to the site to see if there were updates. A new one was put out last Friday- I'll install that and see if it helps...

[Seerah]

Nope. (Guess I didn't really expect it to. )

I hope Blizzard would fix that, since I use windowed mode if I'm keeping an eye out for IMs or flipping between the game and websites, etc....

[Mortlach]

Here's my two coppers, after several dozen restarts and various geeky analysis tricks over the past months of beta. Nothing herein is gospel or a solution-set, but ruminations on the path to sanity and solace as we enjoy this stellar UI on our beloved boxen.

Please note that the major MacWoW bugs of windowing, loss of textures after windowing, and spurious crashes on logout are recurring, often made more visible by a hunky UI like Mazzle's.

1. The current WoW Mac build is not as stable as we deserve. Blizzard has a great team of 4 programmers on it, but they need information to work from. Perhaps the success of MazzleUI will get our rather outre bugs noticed by them. Report all bugs clearly in the manner Blizzard requests; remember that complaints cannot be coded around, but bugs can be squashed.

2. Various past betas of MazzleUI demonstrated/triggered Mac bugs, most often related to two key Blizzard .c files (coding files), both of which deal with graphic realization (inferring by name, not any inside information.) There is a recurring issue of how MacWoW handles graphics, textures in general, and graphics cards.

3. The area where the most trouble occurs has seemed to be Fubar (which we all adore) and various libs. In fact, I cured a couple of minor display/strata bugs by updating internal MazzleUI Addons with current/dev versions of Fubar and libraries. This is not recommended for casual attempt, lest you give up MazzleUI, your computer, or your sanity; however, organized analysis and testing may predicate a viable solution.

4. Since many of the errors seem to be with differing graphics cards within the Mac product line, I'd like to suggest that users of towers consider testing out a different graphics card or verifying drivers. (Yes, Virginia, Macs have video drivers, too. They just don't bite us as often as they do our PC guildmates.)

For general testing knowledge, I'm running a stock MazzleUI + OfflineMail and GuildCalendar (altaholicism, mailaphilia and guildmastery being Azerothian diseases to which I'm prey.) I run on a 17" MacBook Pro CoreDuo, formerly a 17" PowerBook G4, plus a 20" iMac G5. MazzleUI has worked fine, with beta growing pains, on all of them.

As you find problems, let's try to not duplicate too much effort but focus on sharing information that Blizzard and us users can find useful to enjoying WoW, MazzleUI and giving WoW coders ammo to improve the product.

Bravo, Mazzlefizz and team!

--M
__________________
Knight-Capt. Dadrian Mortlach
Prince & GuildMaster of Blooded Rose, Ally
Morticai
Prince & GuildMaster of Briar Rose, Horde
Vek'nilash

[Mortlach]

There's a pretty massive change in MacWoW according to the patch notes. MacWoW's being setup for proper OpenGL multi-threading, which will allow better performance esp. on graphics.

Let's see what happens!

--M

[Vint]

Originally Posted by Mortlach There's a pretty massive change in MacWoW according to the patch notes. MacWoW's being setup for proper OpenGL multi-threading, which will allow better performance esp. on graphics. Let's see what happens! --M

My understanding is that the intel based Macs can already take advantage of Multi-Threaded open GL.. Its something that definetly seems to be under constant review/tweaking from Blizzard (and obviously, Apple..since they need to roll out the OS support so Blizz can use it)... I think it was the 2.0.3 patch that first added in the Multi-threaded OpenGL support (if you're running 10.4.8)..with a few refinements since then..and that some major improvements are rumored to be in the pipe for 10.4.9 (and presumably, 10.5 when that comes out later this spring)

[Mazzlefizz]

I've noticed some add-ons include a folder called "__MACOSX". It doesn't seem to actually contain any code, though it does contain a bunch of small files that correspond to the lua files in the real folder. Does anybody know what these files are for?

[meio]

Originally Posted by Mazzlefizz I've noticed some add-ons include a folder called "__MACOSX". It doesn't seem to actually contain any code, though it does contain a bunch of small files that correspond to the lua files in the real folder. Does anybody know what these files are for?

It's just a folder that mac's add. I don't remember exactly what it's for, but it can safely be deleted.

[Mazzlefizz]

Then why are some add-on authors explicitly including it in their downloads? Since the folder is at the top-level, i.e. at the same level as the add-ons folder, I have to assume they do intentionally because it servers some purpose.

[TDurden]

Originally Posted by Mazzlefizz Then why are some add-on authors explicitly including it in their downloads? Since the folder is at the top-level, i.e. at the same level as the add-ons folder, I have to assume they do intentionally because it servers some purpose.

If they author the mods on a Mac or at least package the .zip on them, OS X can add invisible folders/files relating to networking and/or desktop settings they are unaware are in the package, unless they specifically set preferences in their compression program to see them and delete them.

I made this mistake myself when packaging a mod I'd made minor update changes to, it included the invisible (to me) .DS_Store file that OS X uses to track icon and window positions in the OS X interface. PC users posted about it wondering what the file was for, alerting me to the issue.

[Bouvi]

Yep I can confirm. When I .zip up files on my Mac to send to my PC at home I always have this folder. in there.

The OS X just puts it there like the above poster stated.

[Lyc]

this is the error window i get when i log out of any toon, and sometimes when i log in and everytime i mazzify.


WoWBuild: 6403


=========================================================
Assertion Failed!

App: /Applications/World of Warcraft/World of Warcraft.app
File: /Volumes/F1/usrbuild/xb/build/WoW_6403patch2.0.8/WoW/Source/Mac/../../../Engine/Source/FrameScript/FrameScript.cpp
Line: 120
Time: 2007-02-15 13.55.33 CST

Assertion: !lua_registered

---------------------------------------------------------


Thread 0 (Crashed)
0 0x0020adc5
1 0x00029d81
2 0x0002a0ee
3 0x00005820
4 0x0007ffb8
5 0x003b10ba
6 0x003ac75b
7 0x00241f40
8 0x00190b29
9 0x00190d25
10 0x0000f275
11 0x00115e55
12 0x0011940d
13 0x002d2a94
14 0x002d4006
15 0x004a9eb2
16 0x001177cd
17 0x0000c39c
18 0x002183d9
19 0x0021d787
20 0x0021da12
21 0x000111f0
22 0x00004611
23 0x92dc886b DispatchEventToHandlers(EventTargetRec*, OpaqueEventRef*, HandlerCallRec*)+0445
24 0x92dc7f10 SendEventToEventTargetInternal(OpaqueEventRef*, OpaqueEventTargetRef*, HandlerCallRec*)+0130
25 0x92dc7dd5 SendEventToEventTargetWithOptions+0037
26 0x92dcf357 ToolboxEventDispatcherHandler(OpaqueEventHandlerCallRef*, OpaqueEventRef*, void*)+0165
27 0x92dc8c22 DispatchEventToHandlers(EventTargetRec*, OpaqueEventRef*, HandlerCallRec*)+07fc
28 0x92dc7f10 SendEventToEventTargetInternal(OpaqueEventRef*, OpaqueEventTargetRef*, HandlerCallRec*)+0130
29 0x92dcf1f0 SendEventToEventTarget+0038
30 0x92e130c7 ToolboxEventDispatcher+0051
31 0x92e11adf RunApplicationEventLoop+00a5
32 0x00004742
33 0x00003292
34 0x000031ad
35




i hope this helps if even in the least bit to find out the problem. as i understand alot of people are having the same problem and ive tried on my macbookpro and my ibook.

[owensd]

The errors are being caused by certain Ace2 addons/libraries. I haven't spent the time to narrow down which errors, but the last download of Clearfont2 I tried from www.wowace.com gave me a similiar error - I'm guessing it's one of the libraries that's being used.

[MacDude]

Originally Posted by owensd The errors are being caused by certain Ace2 addons/libraries. I haven't spent the time to narrow down which errors, but the last download of Clearfont2 I tried from www.wowace.com gave me a similiar error - I'm guessing it's one of the libraries that's being used.

I concur. Clearfont2 seems to be causing Crash Reporter on UI load or unload.

Haven't been able to isoloate the map (and the castbar) going black when switching window modes. (I kinda miss simpleminimap [Mazzle - I know this isnt' the right place to bring up other mods.] )

[Mazzlefizz]

Or perhaps it's one of the fonts it uses. Maybe you mac guys have an issue with my removal of the other fonts, as noob123 suggested (though he never mentioned macs.) Try copying in a full install of clearfont2.

[Vint]

Originally Posted by MacDude Haven't been able to isoloate the map (and the castbar) going black when switching window modes. (I kinda miss simpleminimap [Mazzle - I know this isnt' the right place to bring up other mods.] )

You can't isolate that... its a Blizzard bug related to how the WoW Client deals with custom textures...thats not addon specific, and its been around for ages. Blizzard is aware of it, whether or not they intend to fix it, I can't say.

[Mortlach]

Originally Posted by Mazzlefizz I've noticed some add-ons include a folder called "__MACOSX". It doesn't seem to actually contain any code, though it does contain a bunch of small files that correspond to the lua files in the real folder. Does anybody know what these files are for?

As a wild flying guess, I'd bet that certain AddOns that use an IfDef-like structure to take advantange of Mac specific features, but.. .no REAL idea. I'd love to redo Auctioneer to use Core Data - woo!

Can you name an AddOn I can examine?

Also, the multi-threaded OpenGL features are in the OS, but need to be coded into apps. Beyond that public information, I can't comment on anything directly Apple for the most obvious reason.

--M