Patch Loader - MacOS Installation

Patch Loader mod installation guide for MacOS users

Installation

Due to how the Patch Loader and MacOS system works the user needs to perform additional action to make the mod working.

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Navigate to game directory, usually it's located in
/Users/<your_name>/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/Cities_Skylines

Important: make sure that Cities_Loader.sh file is present, if not launch the game and enable Patch Loader mod on the Content Manager -> Mods tab first.

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Navigate further to the Cities.app/Contents/Launcher (right-click on Cities.app then select "show package contents")
Find the file launcher-settings.json and open it in any text editor as shown below

Before change

Find and change value of "exePath" property replacing "../MacOS/Cities" with "../../../Cities_Loader.sh" as shown on the screenshot in the section After change

After change

Final words

Save laucher-settings.json file and run game as usual.

If everything was done correctly game should launch normally and Patch Loader mod should stop warning about "Critital error".

Keep in mind that future Paradox Launcher updates may overwrite the config file so above procedure needs to be performed once again.

Known Issues

If you see following screen then it means that you've made a typo or provided solution no longer works.

[Krzychu1245]

@dm981994 I mentioned if multiple times here, if you followed all instructions and it still doesn't work then there's nothing I can do. It's some OS compatibility problem I can't fix.
You can check previous comments, but I haven't seen any clear solution, and I don't have a MacOS machine to test anything.

[dm981994]

Hey!
I did everything right and in the right order. Now with Patch loader installed, my game won't open anymore and will crash immediately saying:

''The game appears to have crashed or terminated unexpectedly (exit code 1). The issue may be solved by verifying the integrity of your game files and deactivating any mods. If you are using Windows, you may also need to install Visual C++ Redistributable and . NET Framework.''

Could you please help me with this?
I'm playing on Tahoe 26.5.1

[Krzychu1245]

@oskar it says what is wrong, and nor I or the modification can't do anything about it. Fix permissions on your system (MacOS is very restrictive, they can break every game update).

[oskar]

nhandled Exception: System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path "/Users/oskar/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/Cities_Skylines/Cities.app/Contents/Logs/PatchLoader.log" is denied.
at System.IO.FileStream..ctor (System.String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, Boolean anonymous, FileOptions options) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at System.IO.FileStream..ctor (System.String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access,
(omitted some to respect steam comment character limit)
at PatchLoader.EntryPoint.GetWorkshopModsPath (System.String workingPath, Utils.Logger logger) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at PatchLoader.EntryPoint.Main (System.String[] args) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

[Bubitalk]

last year i commented saying this didnt work, but i tried again a few days ago and it works great!!! tysm!!!

[MOB]

If you cannot find the steam folder do this. Go to find click GO at the top, and type that. It will bring you to the file. I have macOS Tahoe 26.2 and it worked.

/Users/XXX/Library/ApplicationSupport/Steam/steamapps/common/Cities_Skylines/Cities.app/Contents/Launcher/

[死蓝胖子]

sorry bro, this mod does not work on mac.

[unity]

Bummer..... I upgraded my Mac from Monterey to Sonoma. No matter what I do I just end up with a back screen now even when bypassing the Paradox launcher, reinstalling, etc. Oh well, the game is OLD so I guess it is dead to me now. But I certainly did like the game and this mod was such a great help on an older Mac like mine. I know there is nothing that can be done to resolve this.

[dodo]

Oh my god, it works! Thank you so much for this.
I kept getting the same error messages over and over again, no matter what I tried. I nearly gave up. BUT it turns out that using Apple’s TextEdit app to copy the command from Steam Workshop into the actual file messed something up.

After reopening the file with another editor—in my case, MaxConsole (MaxForLife)—I noticed a missing comma and a weird floating space that I’m pretty sure weren’t there before. After deleting and recopying the same command, I saved it, and it just worked.

It probably took me an hour to figure this out. It’s so stupid how something this small and simple can mess you up for hours sometimes.

I hope this helps!

And if anyone’s interested, I’m running the game on an older MacBook Pro (2018) with Ventura. Still, lol.

[Dion]

works great -- but this does break the steam overlay. still worth it though!