[Tut] Mac/Linux users, how to get Stonehearth from Steam (on your platform)

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Thanks to Stonehearth’s DRM-free nature, the Steam version of the game can work on its own without the Steam client watching over it. If you want to get the latest release that’s not yet available on HumbleBundle, follow the steps below to download Stonehearth within your Mac/Linux Steam client. You can then move the downloaded files to your Wine wrapper to play.

I have not tested this on Steam’s Linux client. Linux users are probably used to all these workarounds anyway.

The good:

  • No more being a 2nd class citizen. Always get the latest Stonehearth from Steam, just like the popular kids!
  • No need to setup a Windows VM or Steam client just to get the files.

The bad:

  • If Steam starts to enforce a more strict platform check, this stops working.

The ugly (!! WARNING !!):

  • There is a chance of conflict when the Mac version of Stonehearth becomes avaialbe on Steam, if you are not careful.
  • The devs/supports won’t like this and have no desire to support issues from your unsanctioned activities. Nor should they. You are on your own.

Requirements:

  • haivng Stonehearth in your Steam game library.
  • knowing what file extensions are and how to edit a plain text file.
  • knowing what Wine is and how to use it on your paltform.

Steps:

  1. Find out where your “steamapps” directory is. Look for “Steam Library Folders” in your steam client settings/preferences.

  2. Quit/exit your Steam client completely and make sure it’s not running in the background.

  3. Open a plain text editor, copy & paste the content below into a new file. Mac users make sure you are editing in plain text, not Rich-Text mode…

"AppState"
{
	"appid"		"253250"
	"Universe"	"1"
	"name"		"Stonehearth"
	"StateFlags"	"4"
	"installdir"	"Stonehearth"
	"UserConfig"
	{
		"betakey"		"latest"
	}
}

  1. Save this file as “appmanifest_253250.acf” in the steamapps directory. Again, Mac users watch out for the file extension when saving.

  2. Start up the Steam client. It should begin to donwload the game in the background. If not you might want to check Steam’s download settings to allow background download.
    …
    OR…
    Right-click on the game name and choose “Properties.” Do “VERIFY INTEGRITY OF GAME FILES” under the “LOCAL FILES” tab in the Properties window. This should force trigger the download process.

  3. Once the download is completed, navigate to your “steamapps/common” directory and you should see the “Stonehearth” folder. This is the full Windows release. Copy this folder to your Wine or Wineskin wrapper’s c_drive. If you have an older game version, it shouldn’t overwrite your “user_settings.json” and the “saved_games” folder, but back them up if you want.
    See Gorkiork’s post “The Mac version” for more info on a fresh Wineskin installation. You do not need to install the game. Just point Wine/Wineskin to the Stonehearth.exe executable. Do not use the /x64 version.

  4. (IMPORTANT) Right-click on Stonehearth in your Steam client, “Delete Local Content…”

  5. (IMPORTANT) Delete “steamapps/appmanifest_253250.acf” and “steamapps/common/Stonehearth” if there are still there.

  6. Done. Enjoy. Keep up with the dev logs and repeat these steps whenever a new Steam-only release is available. Remember step 7 and 8 are critical to avoid potential conflicts when the Mac/Linux version of the game gets released on Steam.

Thanks to “dotfloat” for figuring out the attributes to “trick” the Steam client. (Don’t follow the steps listed in that post however!)
Also thanks Gorkiork for writing up the nice step-by-step instructions for Wineskin on Mac.

8 Likes
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Very nice! Now you don’t need another wrapper to use the windows steam version!

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Doesn’t work for me, Stonehearth crashes on startup: “The program Stonehearth has encountered a serious problem and needs to close”.

EDIT: Never mind, I configured my wine wrong. I don’t really use my mac other than going through the iOS build process & hearthstone. Cheers for the guide!

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first of all, welcome aboard @cookme! :smile:

second, brilliant stuff! thanks for compiling this guide… huge help to the Mac/Linux community! :+1: :clap:

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I’m glad this can be helpful. I for sure have had my fill of messing with Steam on VM for every little updates for my wine games…

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When I launch the stonehearth.exe I get the music but the game screen is black

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@saukawolf, welcome to the Discourse! Are you trying to launch Stonehearth on Mac/Linux, or on Windows?

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Mac. Sorry for not saying so.

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OK! I noticed you are also looking for Mac support (same issue it appears) over on this thread:
http://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/the-mac-version/12521?u=jomaxro
In order to avoid confusion and duplicate responses, please pick one of them to get support in, and remember that the Mac version is not officially supported at this time (everything you are doing is a “workaround”/“hack” :smile:)

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@jomaxro @cookme

i have a similar problem… same issue but on linux 64 bit. any tips?

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I’m not going to be much help here, have never attempted an install on Linux personally, and @cookme hasn’t been around since September. If you don’t mind waiting, I have my last final for the semester on Friday, should be able to test this out on a Linux install over the weekend, and I will see what I can find.

Just a friendly reminder, Linux and OS X are not supported (yet), so anything we get working can break at any time without warning.

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Hmm, sorry, I don’t know why the black screen happens. I occasionally run into those sound-only black screens (maybe 1 in 5 launches) ever since many alphas ago, but it always works again after relaunching or after killing all-wine related processes.

Maybe check/post your “stonehearth.log” and see if there is anything odd in it?

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@jomaxro thank you very much for your offer! and since I’m a linux user i’m used to waiting :smiley: especially when it’s not officially supported.

@cookme stonehearth.log says something about a fatal exception in memory stats… no idea what that could mean.
I’ve also looked at the wine crash report. It says “Unhandled exception: page fault on read access to 0x0000001c in 32-bit code (0x10aa1d43)” in the first line.
I have attached them both. I’d be very grateful if you checked them out to see whether you can find anything.

stonehearth.log (3.9 KB)
backtrace.txt (13.8 KB)

and thanks to both of you for your fast answers :smile:

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I don’t see “Navigate called without an existing browser!” in my logs, and no fatal memory error, of course.

No idea, maybe a dev will see the logs and figure something out?

1 Like
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okay I see… anyways thanks for your time!

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So… I was highly interested in this game and almost bought it until I noticed the Windows only thing. Am I understanding you correctly that the Devs are in deed ‘making’ a Mac version officially?

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Hey there @Kitten2021, welcome to the Discourse!

You are correct, there are official Mac & Linux versions planned. The current is get the Windows version feature complete, then work to get the native versions for OS X and Linux working. That being said, there is no ETA yet.

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I have the same problem, but i dont know what i have done wrong… can you explain what you did to fix it?

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Hey there!
I tried the step by step guide here, however, when i run the created .app with winebottler, then I get the error “The program Stonehearth has encountered a serious problem and needs to close”, are there any prefixes which I have to set up before creating the .app with winebottler?
Thanks in advance :slightly_smiling_face:

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Checkout this thread: The Mac version