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Heroic Mac Debugging
Posted by Data in Cortex Command - September 24th, 2008

Mac HeroHere’s an update on the Mac version of Cortex Command, straight from porter extraordinaire Chris himself:

“Last night was productive. The game is running again now. The most annoying debug session ever. The main problem was ridiculous.

It turns out the problem (i’ll save you too much of the gory details), was my use of a non-standard wifi dongle for my Internet connection!

If you don’t use the Airport … you’re in for a nasty surprise.

Unbelievable that it can cause an exception so deep in workings of Mac OSX it was distinctly non-trivial to find. I was so perplexed I started looking for harebrained causes, and eventually I was lucky enough to get a crash that didn’t completely overwrite the stack and I noticed it was crashing deep in the os dns lookup library somewhere.

Short story: It was just trying to get its own hostname on game startup and blowing up in my face because it assumes the use of the Airport.

Now, I can concentrate on the mouse, which is the original bloody problem :)”

The mouse issues he refers to appear to be related to legacy mouse interface code in Allegro which causes the mouse to skip and not be responsive. He’ll probably have to write new mouse handlers that use more modern API’s.

Other than that, things are looking good for a Mac release very soon!

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41 Responses to “Heroic Mac Debugging”

  1. darklink - # September 24th, 2008 at 10:04 am

    That makes me a happy clone.
    ^^

  2. Lazyfaith - # September 24th, 2008 at 10:08 am

    Well i’m sure the mac users will be happy.

    Please, how are you with the next Windows build?

  3. Chamyky - # September 24th, 2008 at 10:13 am

    Aaah, great. That’s always satisfying to read updates of Cortex Command!

    PS: I sent you an email Data, but it seems that it fell into your junk box.

  4. kecie - # September 24th, 2008 at 10:51 am

    YAY! glad yo hear that.

  5. digitalstick - # September 24th, 2008 at 11:34 am

    HAHAHA thats funny
    pictures funny

    theres cracks out there still
    is the find one and get a code still valid?

  6. 12InchPenis - # September 24th, 2008 at 11:42 am

    To digitalstick: no, they stopped doing that awhile ago.

  7. duel - # September 24th, 2008 at 11:50 am

    i didn’t know porting to mac was sooo hard!

  8. greg - # September 24th, 2008 at 12:22 pm

    Awesome, can’t wait. I’ll be first in line to pick this up.

  9. Simon - # September 24th, 2008 at 2:12 pm

    Stay well away from wifi dongles on macs, the drivers the creators (I’m talking Belkin etc) make are utterly horrible. My laptop became very unstable (kernel panics several times a week) after using one.
    Luckily the only mac you would ever need one with is the 6 year old powerbook G4

    cant wait to buy that mac version!

  10. Tobeh - # September 24th, 2008 at 2:17 pm

    So you are still alive :0

  11. Zinc - # September 24th, 2008 at 2:22 pm

    I… love… pie.

    On a side-note, great job at the DRHQ! We need to buy you that Missile Base and that Cloning machine, with 87,957 of you, the game will be done in no time!

  12. Bolter - # September 24th, 2008 at 2:25 pm

    Ooh, update!

  13. Tomaster - # September 24th, 2008 at 2:49 pm

    Just out of interest, but did you do the update because of me!!! Cause I was the last one to ask for an update and we got one!!! Everyone should praise me!!! Now you need to implement the elite mailing list.

  14. BadDude! - # September 24th, 2008 at 3:22 pm

    Blaa! This is not very important… Make some new Gadgets 😉

  15. Darklink - # September 24th, 2008 at 3:56 pm

    Yes tomaster.
    Data updated ALL BECAUSE OF YOU.
    Because you are IMPORTANT TO HIM.
    YOU ARE A UNIQUE AND BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLY.

  16. Coops - # September 24th, 2008 at 4:23 pm

    YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    That’s what i wanted to hear!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    AWESOME

  17. zalo - # September 24th, 2008 at 5:25 pm

    Woohoo! Soon we’ll have Mac people populating the boards too!
    Yay. Also, 14 comments, and we already have someguy who made a bajillion exclamation marks and increased the page width twenty fold.

  18. Tomaster - # September 24th, 2008 at 6:03 pm

    It’s good to know that there are still douchebags on this log.
    @Darklink
    I am so proud, Data updates all because of me 😀 I’m so happy, I’m a fucking butterfly.

  19. Mooseral - # September 24th, 2008 at 6:30 pm

    Indeed, ‘s good to have more compatibility.

    On the other hand, wants the contents :D.
    Any progress on putting Prom’s stuff in game in the last month or so?

  20. Foa - # September 24th, 2008 at 6:41 pm

    Woot!

  21. Coops - # September 24th, 2008 at 8:59 pm

    can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait! can’t wait!

  22. Musicman3000 - # September 24th, 2008 at 9:22 pm

    Awesome, an update! Coincidentally, I went ahead and got CC yesterday, so I was wondering when news on the Mac port would show up.

  23. Mooseral - # September 24th, 2008 at 10:03 pm

    Yeah, this is actually pretty awesome. Kruger appears to be sub-hiring additional staff himself; I wonder how Conan would be at bug fixing? Converting games USING THE SHEER BRUTE STRENGTH OF HIS SWORD OF MUSCLYNESS. SMASK THEM DONGLES.

    Or, perhaps Chris is actually Conan… IN DISGUISE. DUN DUN DUNNN.

    On a side note, is he a part of the development on a more permanent basis, or is he just around for the mac port?
    Mostly just curiosity, but hey.

    I wonder… if Coops can wait? Perhaps he should reiterate. Wheee.

  24. FinDude - # September 24th, 2008 at 11:11 pm

    …whee…
    …mac…

    Well, you have fun who haven’t sold their soul to Microsoft.
    (Burn in gamevoid, you heretics.

  25. ARme - # September 25th, 2008 at 7:47 am

    Hello Data

    Good news for Mac user then.

    Since the last release is good enough for new stuff, can you tell us what’s the best part of the next release ?
    Maybe new content ?

  26. Darklink - # September 25th, 2008 at 8:52 am

    @Tomaster

    *Insert witty remark here*

  27. Chamyky - # September 25th, 2008 at 9:33 am

    @Arme : That’s the kind of question which is often asked but never answered in comments. You juste have to wait for an update.

  28. war_man333 - # September 25th, 2008 at 1:26 pm

    Very soon could be in a week or in 3 months.
    Very soon is such a relative turn, don’t use valve time please. 😀

  29. war_man333 - # September 25th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

    I meant relative term, not turn -_-

  30. Tomaster - # September 25th, 2008 at 3:47 pm

    @Darklink
    In case you got it screwed up, I was calling whoever shoved 4000 exclamation marks in here a douchebag, not you.
    P.S I’m a fucking butterfly.

  31. -E-S- - # September 25th, 2008 at 3:57 pm

    holy ass 😀

  32. zalo - # September 25th, 2008 at 4:50 pm

    Coops made an Exclamation mark chain approximately 4,758
    characters long. Thank you Microsoft Word for counting that for me.

  33. Geti - # September 25th, 2008 at 4:58 pm

    awesomeness in purest form.
    also thanks for clearing up what the mouse issue was, i was starting to think you were silly.
    in any case, awesome update, cheers 😀

  34. sircooper45 - # September 27th, 2008 at 1:50 pm

    yaaa
    yayayaayyaya

  35. Coops - # September 28th, 2008 at 6:57 pm

    i’ve already made my own mod..

  36. Coops - # September 28th, 2008 at 6:59 pm

    P.S

    sorry Tomaster.. i never knew i could piss someone of by typing lots of exclamation marks

  37. atomicthumbs - # October 1st, 2008 at 7:02 pm

    Then are you going to work on a Pandora release? 😀

  38. Detegr - # October 6th, 2008 at 11:44 am

    This is sooooo cool. Looking forward for release 🙂 I highly appreciate your work to develop this great project for other OS’s as well!

  39. Allen - # October 10th, 2008 at 1:08 am

    I will read every single update, regardless of wether i’ll understand a single word, that pertains to the mac release of this game.

    Cortex Command is the only reason i still have windows taking up 15 gigs of my hard drive space. When it gets released i can finally say goodbye to bootcamp and this ridiculous partition.

    So if you’re worried about boring people with details, know that i will not be bored by it.

  40. Tomaster - # October 22nd, 2008 at 7:54 pm

    @Coops

    Thanks for your apology, but no one is ever gunna read this again.

  41. bittenbydesign - # October 28th, 2008 at 10:39 pm

    All I can say is after just getting the game, and signing up for the mod forum, finding out that there will be a MAC os version coming is just plain AWESOME.

    I have both PC and mac, but I am much more interested in running it on my mac laptop on the way to and from work.

    The question is, with a valid purchase code, can we get both a registered mac and a PC version?