T-ravisaurusRex

On 11/28/2020 at 3:52 PM, unclevlad said:

I would also believe HD *is* being blocked by the Mac.  I'm not a Mac wizard, but that's what it's sounding like.

 

I presume you can use Finder to open the documents folder and see the file?  And, have you checked that you see the full file name, and the Mac didn't impose itself and slap on its own extension somehow?  AND last, in HD, you're making sure you're opening up the SAME document folder?  Cuz in Windows, there's you, and there's also the All Users user.  HD will ONLY show files with the hdc extension, so it won't show up in Applications or Downloads.

 

And yeah, the trace log won't show anything wrong because not finding an HD file type is perfectly normal.

 

Make a folder for YOURSELF.  NOT ANY KIND OF SYSTEM FOLDER AT ALL.  Make it from Finder.  Then you're the owner, and that might matter.  Play in THAT folder...make some documents and spreadsheets, and verify other files can read/write in that folder.  NOW make up a character in HD and save it into that folder.  Shut down WITHOUT CLOSING the file.  Restart;  it should reload.  I'm fishing for issues related to who has ownership of the file, as that can bite you.  (Variations on this have happened more and more as Windows' file security has gotten more anal, and It's possible it's the same here.)

 

 

So here's where things got really interesting.  I guess you could say I found a work around, but it is weird and odd and doesn't make any sense.  To answer your first questions, yep I could see all the documents and the folders in Finder, yes I had all full file extensions turned on, I was definitely using the same document folder.

So then what you told me at the end of your comment...  Make a folder for myself through Finder.  Did that, still didn't work.  But here's the weird thing, I got really frustrated and started taking that folder and shoving it all over my computer.  Screw it, what's the worst that could happen at this point.  Well, I finally shoved it into the Library > User Folder..... what the hell, it recognized it.  So I started throwing files into the User Folder, it can see all of those too.  But the weird thing is, my Documents, Downloads, Applications, every folder I use on my computer are within that User Folder.  Now as long as my hdc folder is on the very top level of that User Folder, HD recognizes it and uses it, but as soon as I put that hdc folder down into one of those sub folders, like Documents, it's off limits and blank and disappears.  So there is definitely some kind of security flaw in my computer that I'm going to have to research on the Mac side of things and try and find out why all the folders within my User Folder are off limits to Java, but any folder added into the User Folder is readable and works.

Thank you to every one of you who have taken this long journey to help a poor player trying to recover all his old characters for gaming.  I truly appreciate you all trying to help me out.  Happy gaming to all and to all a good night.

On 11/27/2020 at 7:08 AM, ibenny said:

Did you try the route I’ve suggested?

I did try your route.  I created new characters in HD and saved them to Documents, Downloads, Desktop, and inside the HD folder.  Still nothing.

Would a trace log help at all?

Whelp.  I'm still out of luck.  I actually went ahead and purchased the newest version of Hero Designer since the version I was running was from 2006.  So started with a brand new fresh HD.  Went in like unclevlad and didn't even try to open any of my saved .hdc files.  I straight up created a new character.  Built him out a little bit and then saved the newly made character to my documents folder.  Nothing.  According to HD when I go to "Open Character" there are no files or folders anywhere.  I can click on "Documents" and it's completely empty.  I can click on "Downloads", same, completely empty.  Click on "Applications", nothing, completely empty.  It's almost as if Hero Designer is blocked from accessing literally anything on my computer, but Java has full permissions for all files and folders on my computer.  I even went to other programs like Pages and Gimp to see if the files are recognized by other programs... sure enough, every other program on my computer can see, view, and find all of my .hdc files (can't open them) but they exist.  So I'm completely stumped.  I'm the administrator on my Mac, there's no other user accounts and no one else uses the computer.  I think this may be some kind of problem with MacOS Catalina, although I am at a complete loss as to how to solve this.

Hi guys,  I double checked everything.  I went into my system preferences and gave java the authority to read/write the entire disk.  I went back to old legacy Java versions.  I went through the terminal and checked Java.  All permissions are wide open.  I've installed 4 different versions of Java.  I've made sure that Java is allowed to read and write all files and directories.  I just don't know what else to do.  Every time when I open up Hero Designer, it loads up, I go to File, then Open Character, look for any and all .hdc files when I can see them sitting right there on my desktop, but the search box in Hero Designer is completely empty.  I've made sure show file extensions is on in my system preferences.  I've searched to see if the files could be symlinks and the originals elsewhere, still no.   Is there a possibility that I need to go download Hero Designer again and start from scratch?

@Simon So I double checked on my finder preferences and made sure that file extensions were shown, and I had a buddy of mine test on his computer.  The files are all .hdc with no hidden file extensions.  Thanks for the possible solution though!   @ibenny I'm going to try this next.

I fully agree with you Simon.  I've been using the Hero Designer for a few years now and haven't had any problems until now.  As I mentioned before, old mac died, transferred over Hero Designer to my new mac, tried opening .hdc files and they don't exist.  It's quite odd.  Just from my previous uses of Hero Designer I've always known (or thought) that you can only use .hdc files for character sheets and .hde files for prefabs.  Is there any kind of bug report I could look to to see where the breakdown is?  I'm attaching a photo so you can see what I'm talking about.  When you look at the screenshot, you can see the hdc file in question that I'm trying to find and open, but in the open character search box from the Hero Designer, it's not recognized at all.

I downloaded Hero Designer to my new iMac as my old Mac died.  Now that I have Java running smoothly, and I have the JDK installed, I can run Hero Designer fine.  The problem is when I go to "Open Character" in the File menu in Hero Designer there is literally nothing on my Desktop.  I click through to my Desktop and it's just a blank space, no files, no folders, nothing.  Has anyone else run into this issue?  What am I missing here?