Cant get a Mac App to run after butler push [resolved]

A topic by Games By Candlelight created Sep 26, 2018 Views: 643 Replies: 5

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Games By Candlelight5 years ago (1 edit)

Using butler to push a MacOs .app file... everything seem to go well. I then try to install the file via the itch.io app and it appears to install, but when I Launch the app, i get the following error:

could not get executable path for app bundle

My Mac experience is somewhat lacking. I've been copying the app file to my PC to do the push. I cannot find any successful way to do a push on my Mac... I open terminal, try to do any butler command, and get "command not found".

Is there a simple set of instrucitons on how to successfully upload an .app file AND a guide on how to get butler commands to work? I am reading all these pages and I'm basically told that this is uber-simple, but it's not. Modifying PATH on a file that does not exist on my machine, etc., makes this all the more confusing.

Thanks

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Amos5 years ago

Hi!

macOS is a bit peculiar. Applications are in `Foobar.app` folders. There's nothing special about these folders, except they need to have a specific structure (with a `Contents` subfolder, an `Info.plist` file, etc.)

butler lets you upload the contents of a folder as an upload, and then the app installs that into an install location. The problem you're seeing here is that:

butler push FooBar.app somewhere
- Uploads *the contents of FooBar.app*
Installing that upload
- Installs *the contents of FooBar.app* to a location like `~/Games/foo-bar` - a folder that doesn't end in `.app`
- that's not an app bundle as far as macOS is concerned
.app bundles contain executables, which can be executed normally...
- ...but itch v25 currently has a known bug: it'll only launch .app bundles, not naked executables
- see https://github.com/itchio/itch/issues/2131

Here's how you can work around it right now:

Instead of doing butler push FooBar.app somewhere, create a folder named foobar, put the .app in it, and push that foobar folder.

Here's what I'm planning to do to make sure that problem doesn't happen again:

Whenever a folder that ends in `.app` is passed to butler, act as if it was wrapped in another folder already.
Fix issue 2131 mentioned above, so that even if isn't pushed "correctly", it will still launch with the app.

As for ~/.bash_history not already existing on your machine, that's expected behavior if you're on a fresh macOS install / haven't used the command-line there in a while. I think that:

The docs should mention that you may need to create that file
We should release a drag & drop graphical interface for butler soon, which will avoid a lot of confusion

Hopefully that addresses your questions!

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Amos5 years ago

Update:

I've adjusted the docs to mention that you might have to create `~/.bash_profile` if it doesn't exist
I've added the auto-wrapping behavior I've mentioned before.

What that means is that, as of butler v14.3.0, if you push an app bundle directly, it'll push this:

The old behavior is still available under the `--no-auto-wrap` flag:

If you downloaded butler directly, you can run `butler upgrade`. If you installed it via the app, it'll update it automatically.

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Games By Candlelight5 years ago(+1)

@Amos,

Thanks very much for the detailed information! I appreciate the detail and the help.

I will digest all of this and will give it another try. As I stated previously, my Mac knowledge is much more limited than my PC knowledge, and I wouldn't have been able to begin troubleshooting without your help.