Game Won't Open / Crashes on Mac

[The Pooka]

I've had this game for a week, and The Talos Principle simply won't open.

I click the blue "Play" button on Steam, then a small pop up option box appears, which says at the top "The Talos Principle - Steam" , with several options listed below. I leave the box on the default setting--which is "Play The Talos Principle"-- and click "Play" once more. Then the box disappears, and the word "-Running" appears--for perhaps a second--next to "The Talos Principle" in the left hand column list of Steam games in my library. After that one second, the word "Running" simply disappears, and nothing happens. That's it. I've tried a dozen times, on various days, and it is the same each time. My other games are functioning fine, so the problem is specific to The Talos Principle.

Let me start by saying that I looked over your posted initial troubleshooting steps, and as the relevant section only has directions that start with entering text into Explorer, it seems that we Mac users were not being considered when they were written (which is unfortunate). I would appreciate trouble shooting steps for a Mac, so that I might play my new game.

I'm running Steam on my 15" 2015 Macbook Pro. I have a Terabyte SSD (with 500GB free space), 16GB of RAM, and a Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB Graphics card.

[The Pooka]

PS. In addition to the Intel Iris Pro graphics card, it additionally has a NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M Graphics card. The computer is a 2.8 Ghz quad core.

[Misa]

i have a macook air 2014 and it ran fine for me . . . that's strange

[AlenL]

I'm sorry that you felt offended by the Windows cases in the FAQ. Unfortunately, OSX players are still a small portion of the playerbase, so most of the troubleshooting happens for Windows. Or you could say it's like it because Windows is more problematic. ;)

Anyway, as stated on the store page, Intel GPUs are not supported on OSX. You should make sure that your computer is using the Nvidia card to run the game. Since it's a laptop, it is quite possible that it defaults to Intel, depending on how it's set up.

If there's a Talos.log file please post it so we can look into details of the problem. Thanks!

[The Pooka]

Hello Alen,

I did not intimate that I was "offended", I said that it was "unfortunate" that you don't post trouble shooting steps for Mac; in part to avoid being erroneously redirected to those PC trouble shooting steps by you (though it does seem to me that it would be a very good idea for you to add Mac trouble shooting steps there, as well).

How do I find a Talos.log on my Mac? How would I check whether or not it's trying to use the Nvidia card with your game? Again, yours is the ONLY Steam game that I am having a problem with, and my laptop does have a dedicated Nvidia graphics card. I would appreciate some step by step trouble shooting instructions, as this does not necessarily have anything to do with an Intel GPU.

P.S. With the help of Applecare, I was able to varify that Talos is not working--in the exact same way--when the Nvidia Card is specifically selected, so this is not an unsupported Intel GPU issue.

[AlenL]

I see. Well, there are instructions for the OSX, for the thing that is different. Here's the snippet:

Q: I cannot find the SteamApps folder on OSX. Where is it?

A: It is in:

/Users/<your user name>/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/

However, in latest versions of the OS, namely Lion and above the Library folder is hidden. To get around it, do this:

In Finder, hold down the Option key (keep holding!) and open the Go menu.
Library folder will be listed as one of the items in the Go menu.
Select Library, and a Finder window will open showing the contents of the Library folder.
You can now let go of the Option key.

This should help with getting the log file, for which the FAQ says:

Q: My game has crashed, it shows an "application has malfunctioned" message. What should I do?
A: Please locate the Talos.log file. It should be in the folder:
<steam installation>/SteamApps/common/The Talos Principle/Log/
Then create a post in the discussions board, describe what you are doing when it crashes and paste the contents of that log file. (It is just a text file and you can open it with any text editor.) If the forum says the file is too big, please use Pastebin[pastebin.com] and post the link to the paste in the thread.

However, in your case, it might be that this is not a crash, but that Steam doesn't even start the game. We will know more when you find the log (or if you determine that there is no log, which would mean it is not even started).

[The Pooka]

There are two log files in this location. One is called "Talos.All.log" and anouther called simply "Talos.log". I tried to post both, but "Talos.All.log" has far too many characters to post here (there is an 1800 charecter limit). If you would like to provide me with an email, I will send you that one. In the mean time, here is "Talos.log":

-------- START OF LOG --------

14:21:50 LOG: Core version: $Version: Talos_PC_distro; Talos_Executables-OSX-Final; 250756 2015-12-01 10:26:53 @builderm01.croteam.local; OSX-x86-Static-Final-Default$
14:21:50 LOG: Command: $
14:21:50 LOG: Initializing timer.
14:21:50 LOG: Timestamp: 2016/01/13 14:21:50
14:21:50 LOG: Binary name: Talos
14:21:50 LOG: Binary soft path: Bin/
14:21:50 LOG: Binary hard path: /Users/Pooka/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/The Talos Principle/Bin/
14:21:50 LOG: Application directory: /Users/Pooka/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/The Talos Principle/
14:21:50 LOG:
14:21:50 LOG: * OS...
14:21:50 LOG: Name: OSX 10.11 El Capitan
14:21:50 LOG: Kernel: Unix
14:21:50 LOG: Version: 15.2, build 0
14:21:50 LOG:
14:21:50 LOG: * CPU...
14:21:50 LOG: Vendor: GenuineIntel
14:21:50 LOG: Name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4980HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz
14:21:50 LOG: Type: 0, Family: 6, Model: 6, Stepping: 1
14:21:50 LOG: Clock: 2.79 GHz
14:21:50 LOG: Cores: 8
14:21:50 LOG: CMOV: Yes
14:21:50 LOG: SSE: Yes
14:21:50 LOG: Invariant TSC: Yes
14:21:50 LOG:
14:21:50 LOG:
14:21:50 LOG: * Memory...
14:21:50 LOG: Total physical memory: 16384 MB
14:21:50 LOG: Free physical memory: 0 MB
14:21:50 INF: Crash! (Segmentation fault: 11)
14:21:50 DBG:
14:21:50 DBG: //=====================================================
14:21:50 DBG: Report generated at: unsupported unsupported
14:21:50 DBG: Version: $Version: Talos_PC_distro; Talos_Executables-OSX-Final; 250756 2015-12-01 10:26:53 @builderm01.croteam.local; OSX-x86-Static-Final-Default$
14:21:50 DBG: Build type: OSX-x86-Static-Final-Default
14:21:50 DBG: Dump type: Crash
14:21:50 DBG:
14:21:50 DBG: Received signal 11 (Segmentation fault: 11).
14:21:50 DBG:
14:21:50 DBG: Dumping registers:
14:21:50 DBG: EAX:00000000
14:21:50 DBG: EBX:017008EE
14:21:50 DBG: ECX:BFFFF50C
14:21:50 DBG: EDX:9B4CF7BA
14:21:50 DBG: ESI:00000000
14:21:50 DBG: EDI:9878C72E
14:21:50 DBG: CS:EIP:001B:9878C732
14:21:50 DBG: SS:ESP:0023:BFFFF510 EBP:BFFFF528
14:21:50 DBG:
14:21:50 DBG: Dumping stack back trace:
14:21:50 DBG: 9878C732 00000001 $adr: "/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation" 0001:00012732
14:21:50 DBG: FFFFFFFF 00000001 $adr: "unknown" 0001:00000000
14:21:50 DBG: 01700951 00000001 $adr: "/Users/Pooka/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/The Talos Principle/Bin/Talos" 0001:016FF951
14:21:50 DBG: 01584782 00000001 $adr: "/Users/Pooka/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/The Talos Principle/Bin/Talos" 0001:01583782
14:21:50 DBG: 0152C0D0 00000001 $adr: "/Users/Pooka/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/The Talos Principle/Bin/Talos" 0001:0152B0D0
14:21:50 DBG: 0152C5D1 00000001 $adr: "/Users/Pooka/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/The Talos Principle/Bin/Talos" 0001:0152B5D1
14:21:50 DBG: 00EE11EA 00000001 $adr: "/Users/Pooka/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/The Talos Principle/Bin/Talos" 0001:00EE01EA
14:21:50 DBG: 0000FAC3 00000001 $adr: "/Users/Pooka/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/The Talos Principle/Bin/Talos" 0001:0000EAC3
14:21:50 DBG: 00002775 00000001 $adr: "/Users/Pooka/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/The Talos Principle/Bin/Talos" 0001:00001775
14:21:50 DBG: 0000FAC3 00000001 $adr: "/Users/Pooka/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/The Talos Principle/Bin/Talos" 0001:0000EAC3
14:21:50 DBG:
14:21:50 DBG: //=====================================================
14:21:50 DBG:
14:21:50 DBG:

[HellyHella]

This issue is filed as internal bug #44906.

[AlenL]

The Pooka, can you please send the Talos.All.log file, using http://pastebin.com ? This is a very strange crash, and I'd like to see if it is always in the same place. Thanks!

[The Pooka]

Here you go: http://pastebin.com/AHsD3jxi


PS. I strongly doubt it matters for your trouble shooting, but just in case it becomes relevant, you should know that I have made a small alteration to the logs. Because this is a public forum, I swapped my real name for "Pooka", wherever it appeared in the logs.

[The Pooka]

Hello Alen? Did you look at the logs on pastebin?

[AlenL]

Yeah, sorry, forgot to reply. Looked at it and it seems like for some reason your OS crashes in the same system function every time. It doesn't happen for anybody else so far (as far as we know), which is weird. But we think we can try to fix it by working around that system function instead. Will try to ship a fix for it in the next patch.

[The Pooka]

Glad to know you think you can fix the problem. I've heard good things about your game, and I'm looking forward to playing it. Any idea of approximately when that patch will be released, so that I can test it out?

[Misa]

Mac = all form, no function xD

[AlenL]

I think the patch should be ready next week. We will post announcement to this forum when it is in beta. If you subscribe to this forum, you will be notified by Steam.

[Robert]

The patch is out! For instructions on how to install this beta patch, click here.