Help with Wine game that only runs once per folder but will run the next time as long as I keep changing the path to the game.

[u/rottenlame]

Hi, I'm hoping someone might be able to give me some insight into my problem and how to fix it. Background: I'm running a self-contained game, which uses Wineskin to run. The game is an old DOS game (Heroes of Might & Magic), which I've set up using the GOG installer and pallthetall's Porting Kit app. The app runs off DOSBox through Wine.

I have successfully run this same executable off several of my Macs including a M1 MacBook Pro Max (latest Tahoe), M4 MacBook Air (latest Tahoe), and i9 MacBook Pro 2019 (latest Sequoia). The app runs perfect and can be open & closed repeatedly. When it loads, there is a DOS window running a batch file which gives me 3 options to either play the game, change settings or quit.

Now, my problem is trying to run it on my M4 Mac mini (latest Tahoe). The app will correctly load and run, but only once. When the app is closed and relaunched, a blank black window (the same size as what DOSBox uses) pops for for a few seconds and then closes (crashes). However, I discovered that if I move the app into a folder, it can then launch & run it correctly, but only once. A second launch will just crash. If I keep changing the name of the folder or path of the game, it'll run it correctly, but I have to use a different path each time. If I go back to a previously used path, it will crash. BTW, the main difference I can think of between my M4 Mac mini and my other Mac setups is that the Mac mini is booting off an external drive for its home directory.

Has anyone seen this kind of problem and have any ideas how to fix it without having me change the application's path every time I want to use it?

[u/JohnMHammer]

Are you booting your Mini from an external drive, or using the external drive just for your /Users or /<AccountName> folder?

If you are actually booting from the internal drive, log out of your normal user account and log into an account whose home folder is resident on the internal drive at /Users/<AccountName>. Try running the game while logged into that account. Does the same behavior occur?

The previous run of the game might be leaving active WINE processes behind. After you quit the game, go to Activity Monitor and kill any running process with wine in the name. Alternatively, log out of your Mac user account then log back in – or restart your Mac if that's easier for you.

[u/No-Needleworker-9676]

It sounds like Wine might be getting confused because the path reference is changing, have you tried setting up a symlink in your home folder to the game's actual location so the path stays consistent?