A Solution for Patched FM Crashing on Startup (OS X Leopard)

For those of you on Mac OS 10.5.5 whose game started crashing after you patched to 9.1.0, try this:

- uninstall the game (search for "Sports Interactive" in Spotlight and delete everything apart from what's in your Documents folder)

- clear system caches and repair disk permissions

- restart the computer

- install FM09 again *in the default location* (i.e. just hit next and continue without fiddling with settings)

- patch to 9.1.0

I suspect that it was crashing on my system because I had selected a custom install location and the patch installer didn't like it.

EDIT: Either that or it was the pesky preference files.

Ah I had mine in the default install location and patched fine but good find!

Yeah, I'm still not 100% convinced that this has fixed it, but I've opened and closed FM a few times now without any problems.

Still doesn't explain why I could open FM once immediately after I had patched it, and then every time afterwards it gave me that "application quit unexpectedly" error message -- but if it works I won't question it.

Dumb question coming up.

I am ok with verifying/cleaning the disk in the disk utility. But how / where do I " clear system caches"?

Dumb question coming up.

I am ok with verifying/cleaning the disk in the disk utility. But how / where do I " clear system caches"?

I use a program called Cocktail to do this, but there's also a free one called Onyx which is meant to be good.

If you're cleaning out FM for a reinstall, make sure you find those pesky preference files. I think I may have missed them the first time I uninstalled FM.

Thanks. It was the preference files that was causing the problem. I had inadvertently loaded the game originally into a user profile & had not fully deleted the preference files from the 'shared' user folders. As soon as I did that then all was good.

I have just played my first pre-season game with my fresh new Barnet squad...and no injuries. Heaven.

It didnt work, I have tried everything that has been suggested. Thanks to everyone on these forums for trying to help me but I reckon I need someone from SI as I am still unable to play this game. Is anyone from SI going to answer me? I have e-mailed, wrote on numerous threads, I have had this game since Friday 14th Nov and yet I still am yet to play. What a joke!

This works for me. Thank you so much!

Llwelyn if you're using 10.5.5 try checking to see if you've cleared your preferences properly.

@Mancunia

Done, yet still no fm!

As someone suggested on another thread, you could try creating a new user on the Mac and installing FM there. The app location will be the same, but the preferences should be user-specific, so if you create a new user then no preferences should exist.

I cleared the preferences folder, but only the FM09 folder within there. I still had FM07, FM08 and FM08 Demo in there!!! But they didn't need to be deleted. Once the FM09 folder was deleted from the preferences folder, I uninstalled the game using the uninstaller programme, deleted everything having to do with FM on my mac, verified the disk and all, reinstalled and patched and now the game seems to be working fine. I played last night till 2.30 in the morning without any problems and/or serious injuries! But I haven't turned my game of yet. I'm still a bit skeptical about the patch, but so far everything seems to be ok. But I never recieved the error message about not being able to load the 4-4-2 DM thing. I'm running on a macbook pro from 2006, leopard 10.5.5, 2.16Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 1GB RAM. Anyone in the same boat as me?

Does any body know how to clear system caches and repair disk permissions please?

You don't need to clean caché or repair disk permissions or anything like that. Well, at least I didn't need it. I just went to User/Library/Preferences and deleted the 'Sports Interactive' folder. Then you just reinstall the game and voilá! It worked fine so far, both with and without the 9.0.1 patch. The folder does NOT appear in Spotlight, so you won't delete it if you follow the OP.

Hope this will help. It it doesn't then I'm afraid I'm as lost as you.

EDIT: Now that I think of it I DID repair disk permissions before deleting that folder, so it may be a required step.

How did you do that then?

How did you do that then?

To do a disk permissions repair you open Disk Utility (already installed in your computer, comes with Mac OS X), select he main hard drive in the column in the left and click 'Repair disk permissions'. I didn't clean the system cache, so I can't help you with that.

I did all of this and it still crashes on the opening!!! I got Mac OSX Macbook pro

i repaired the disk also as above, once that is done do i just exit the utilty program

Thanks guys..the preference and the cleaning of caches(or something!) helped me a lot.

I think i have repaired the disc 10x today. And the onyx thing worked aswell. But i did not know that there was THAT many preferences to delete!!!

Thanks again!

You don't need to clean caché or repair disk permissions or anything like that. Well, at least I didn't need it. I just went to User/Library/Preferences and deleted the 'Sports Interactive' folder. Then you just reinstall the game and voilá! It worked fine so far, both with and without the 9.0.1 patch. The folder does NOT appear in Spotlight, so you won't delete it if you follow the OP.

Hope this will help. It it doesn't then I'm afraid I'm as lost as you.

EDIT: Now that I think of it I DID repair disk permissions before deleting that folder, so it may be a required step.

This worked for me.

Just had the same problem where initial game worked fine, and so did first launch of the patched game, but after I played the patched game 2-3 times it wouldn't load again.

Cleared the user prefs for Sports Interactive and now it works.

This worked for me.

Just had the same problem where initial game worked fine, and so did first launch of the patched game, but after I played the patched game 2-3 times it wouldn't load again.

Cleared the user prefs for Sports Interactive and now it works.

Sounds good can you talk me through how you do it please?

You don't need to clean caché or repair disk permissions or anything like that. Well, at least I didn't need it. I just went to User/Library/Preferences and deleted the 'Sports Interactive' folder. Then you just reinstall the game and voilá! It worked fine so far, both with and without the 9.0.1 patch. The folder does NOT appear in Spotlight, so you won't delete it if you follow the OP.

Hope this will help. It it doesn't then I'm afraid I'm as lost as you.

EDIT: Now that I think of it I DID repair disk permissions before deleting that folder, so it may be a required step.

About deleting the preferences, I opened the folder you stated (User/Library/Preferences) and there was no Sports Interactive folder. Does that mean I've already deleted the folder or should I do anything else to be able to play the game? I have also repaired disk permissions and cleared system caches by using OnyX.

I had the same error-problem as you guys. I uninstalled the game and deleted the preferences. Afterwards is re-installed the game and it worked. And now I want to play it and again I have that error-thing!!!! Does it mean that I have to uninstall and delete the preferences every time I want to play it.....???

Do I have to install the patch?? Do I have to repair the disk permissions? where do i found them?

thx