Problems running some apps on mac, no error message

Question

I hope this question is within superuser scope.

I've recently downloaded an application that just happens to be a computer game but this is not pertinent to the problem.
Thing is, I can't run any of them on my mac, and I have no idea why. Whenever I try to open them, they seem to open and close too quickly to see anything happen. No error messages at all.

I've tried even rebooting my mac. I have never had other similar issue whatsoever.

I've got a new macbook pro with OSX 10.6.2 and quite a lot of apps, but none that I can imagine would conflict with this.

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I'm hoping to find two kind of answers here:

How can I track this problem down? Someone more experienced with mac may know this.

Maybe someone have had the same issue and got a word about it?

Answer 1

Here's how I've managed to solve my issue:

$ chmod +x SystemCheck_enUS.app/Contents/MacOS/BlizzardSystemCheck

And here's why that happened:

For many reasons, I started trying a great extraction tool (apparently highly advised by John T) called springy. Apparently it did a bad job with keeping the permissions while extracting the ZIP file I've downloaded from Blizzard. I'm already looking for yet another solution.

That's all.

Answer 2

I would check the Console to see if there are any error messages.

If it says something like "Permission Denied" then you may have to repair permissions.

Mac OS X assigns specific access privileges, known as permissions, to all of your programs, folders, and documents. These permissions are usually managed automatically, but when a permissions error occurs, it can cause significant problems. For example, your applications may not launch, or your computer might respond slowly. These problems are more likely to occur after you update your operating system or install new software.

To improve your system's performance, use the permissions repair function in Disk Utility:

1. To open Disk Utility, from the Applications folder, open Utilities, and then double-click the Disk Utility icon.
2. In the column on the left, click your startup disk.
3. Click the First Aid tab, and then click Repair Disk Permissions. Disk Utility will reset any files and folders with incorrect settings.

Note: If a third-party application has permissions errors and did not use Apple's installer, a permissions repair may not fix everything. If you follow the steps above, and your application still does not launch, you may need to remove and reinstall the problematic applications. For more information on removing applications in Mac OS X, see In Mac OS X, how do I remove an application?

For more information about how permissions work in Mac OS X, see Troubleshooting permissions issues in Mac OS X in Apple's knowledge base.

Answer 3

Do you have an administrator account? (The console saying "Permission denied" often indicates that you don't). If you do, you can try to fix permissions. In Utilities, run Disk Utility, select your hard drive, and tell it to repair permissions.

The file you want to look at is the system.log. If the console is not working for you, here are two alternatives:

In Terminal (also located in Utilities), typing in

tail -f /var/log/system.log

should let you watch as messages are written to the system log. If you then run your game, cough, app :) any error messages should appear there.

If you have TextWrangler on your computer, open it up and choose "File -> Open File By Name" and type in /var/log/system.log. This'll let you see the entire system log, and will prompt you to authenticate if needed.