CRASH: Game crashes every time I use Zoom accessibility feature in MacOS.

[scatteredbeams]

I am using a 2021 16" M1X MacBook Pro running MacOS 12.0.1. I am legally blind and use the Zoom accessibility feature in Mac to read UI in games. In EUIV (and Stellaris for that matter) the second I use the the Zoom hotkey (hold CTRL and use mouse scroll wheel to zoom in) the screen goes blank and the game crashes. I have tried changing the hotkey in System Preferences to see if a different hotkey combination would work and it does not. This happens when starting the game in Fullscreen mode. It does not do it when launching in Windowed mode; however, when in windowed mode the game screen does not display everything due to the window borders. Also, it does not do it in Borderless fullscreen; however, the top row of the UI is not visible because that mode leaves the Apple menu bar displayed and the UI is behind that menu bar.

Is there a fix or work-around for the crash bug in fullscreen? Other developer's games work fine with this feature but my Paradox titles all seem to crash the second I hold execute the hotkey.

I would appreciate any help so I can play the games. Thanks

 

[AndrewT]

I would assume our games are not tested using this feature on Macs. Additionally no game has been ported over to native M1 code, they all use the Rosetta emulation in MacOS. Technically speaking M1 is unsupported hardware for these games!

You mention this affects all Paradox titles. Under your name here I see EU4, Stellaris, Prison Architect and Cities Skylines. The first two are games we develop on our own game engine, the second two are developed by separate external studios using the Unity game engine. Does this really happen with all 4 of those games?

 

[scatteredbeams]

Thanks for getting back and for your clarification. I do need to correct my statement - I did not realize Cities: Skylines and Prison Architect are Paradox titles. So to be more accurate I did test those 2 titles again as well.

The only 2 games experiencing the crash I described are EU4 and Stellaris. Prison Architect and Cities:skylines do not crash and work as expected with the Zoom.

Please let me know if any more information would be helpful for nailing this down. Thanks!

 

[AndrewT]

I see, then I guess this is an incompatibility between that feature of MacOS, Rosetta, and the Clausewitz game engine we use for those games. In that situation there will be nothing you or I can do to fix that problem, it would need a code fix.

Your only hope really would be to lodge a bug report in that forum for each of those games:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forums/euiv-bug-reports.813/

Stellaris: Bug Reports

Found a bug? Does something seem odd? Share it and it will be investigated!

forum.paradoxplaza.com

There QA will look into it, and I suspect open a case with against the Clausewitz game engine. If and when that will bear fruit I cannot say, but I suspect it will not be very quick. Sorry about that!

PS: another thought - you could contact Apple about that as well, as it could be considered a failure in their Rosetta emulator.

 

[scatteredbeams]

I will file a bug report. Thanks for the explanation and the link to the right forum!

 

[AndrewT]

I will file a bug report. Thanks for the explanation and the link to the right forum!

I strongly suggest you also report it to Apple, as I mentioned. This is because technically speaking this game is not supported on the M1 hardware, so QA and the devs may not take it on as a game bug.