Mac export (loading) problems nw.js

Hello,

We're having problems with our nw.js Mac export. The game often has the red loading bar issue and hangs on start up.

This is a serious issue for us and we need to find find a solution. Our Windows export works fine, no problems, only Mac has these problems.

sqiddster how did you get your Mac release up and running on Steam? I'm having no luck with the nw.js builds here: https://www.scirra.com/nwjs

Is there a build not featured that works? Do you have download links?

— I've seen that you've done a lot of research into which nw.js builds work best, have you had any luck with Mac builds?

Ashley any ideas on a fix for this?

If there is a reliable fix, but it takes time to set up, we are happy to pay a good rate for someone to come and help us out on this. Please either post here or get in touch.

Thank you.

Update.

Found this incredibly useful thread by Aurel : how-to-node-webkit-for-linux-and-mac-2015_t127201

Was able to download nw10.5 osx32 from there. (If 10.5 is the only working nw export for large projects on Macs a link on this page https://www.scirra.com/nwjs with a note would be useful.)

nw10.5 seems to work much better with "--file-descriptor-limit<10000>" and "--ignore-gpu-blacklist" arguments added to package.json.

Though game still fails to start around one in three times - Red bar.

This solution could work fixed-the-red-mac-loading-bar-for-my-game_t165327

But there is no runtime.js in the nw10.5 osx32 export as in the instructions. mapmerry could you share some more details on this. the only runtime.js file I can find is in the construct folder and that would need to be changed pre export.

I have looked though and added a pixel / switched invisible to any fully transparent PNGs in the game. Using 10.5 with arguments. It's better, but still often failing to start.

0.10.5 was the last NWjs that works on MAC for me.

Everything else since is just the red bar load scene being stuck.

Even with all the attempted work-arounds, for some reason if your game has lots of assets/images, it will not work on MAC with NWjs.

The problem with 0.10.5 is a very nasty memory leak bug (which wasn't fixed until NW 0.13 builds!), in smaller games it's not so noticable, you have to play for an entire day to start seeing memory usage explode and the game stutters/crashes. Bigger games get to this point faster, ~30 minutes for my latest game.

That's why I went with NW 0.13 alpha7, as it fixed the memory leak bug, rendering is very smooth and performance is good.

But it's broken for GreenWorks support, and newer C2 builds will crash on NWjs older than the 0.13 betas (which are buggy).

Overall, not a good situation for PC export options for bigger games, and MAC is even worse.

Of all the things I love about C2, exporting builds to the different platforms has been the worse experience by far. If that's something C3 fixes, it would be the best 2D game engine around.

—

Thanks for info.

So currently to get a Mac build working semi-reliably we need:

Construct r216 nw.js 0.10.5 "--file-descriptor-limit<10000>" and "--ignore-gpu-blacklist" arguments added to package.json No transparent PNGs in the game

And even then it sometimes randomly decides to red bar and suffers from a memory leak.... Ouch.

This really needs to be solved.

I used the nw.js ver 12 for the mac fix that worked for my game.

the c2 runtime files in \osx64\eternalstep.app\Contents\Resources\app.nw after export.

funnily enough I have had no error posts on my game from macs with that shoddy fix, just from pc which obviously you will get every now and then because its pc.

shouldn't matter about size that much with my game being 280 meg with over 5000 frames on animation at usually 128 by 128

I am not aware of any recent bug report describing problems with NW.js on Mac (or maybe there's an old report which I missed? Please bump it if so). There is very little anybody can do without a .capx demonstrating the issue and a report following all the guidelines, so please focus on that approach - nothing much I can say right now.

Ashley

This is a NWjs bug, not C2. On Github, it's a well known problem. Some of the fixes suggested by folks in this thread spawn from github discussions.

I can confirm that the only luck I've had is with 10.5.

OK, well is there a bug filed with the NW.js developers with a repro (basically following the same requirements our own guidelines specify)?

Ashely there is a thread on github, you even commented it, but is dead since July.

github.com/nwjs/nw.js/issues/3307

There's other threads too, they know about it but nothing has been done and it seems to be a case of "OSX-issues"... seems to be a lost cause.

0.10.5 works for even moderate sized games. However, over 1000 images and it often encounter the same red loading bar.

The thing is OSX has the new Safari that is much faster than Chromium. There should be a Safari based wrapper, similar to the mobile approach. Very small filesize overhead, much more compatibility.

squidster please could you tell me how you magaged to get the camera to spin in your game