Minion silently quits after launch on Mac Sonoma
 

I'm trying to find artifacts of the crash to submit, but Minion.app will not launch on the new 2023 WWDC build.

It should write a Minion.log file, check the sticky posts about how to post errors here, it should contain the path where it is stored, or search your mac for the file. Post it here please s attachment then.

And allow Minion in your firewall and and antivirus to let it connect and work properly.

Excellent - found ~/.minion/minion.log
 

Alright - found the log... going to clear it and run to get a good read of what's going on...

So it looks like an uncaught exception outside of the Java world - Objective C array index out of bounds from the looks of it:

I'm going to clear out my settings and see if I can get a "fresh install" going, or whether this is occurring before reading local configs...

...and it appears that we get the same error if I move aside my ~/.minion folder.

I'm seeing the same thing under the most recent developer beta:

I tried running the JAR, but Oracle JDK 8 doesn't run on ARM, and Zulu 8 and Oracle 20 threw a "Could not find or load main class" error.

Is Minion's source code released under a permissive license? Maybe some of us dev-beta dummies could try updating it for Sonoma.

Minion runs on macOS 14 ("Sonoma") by using the "Minion by JAVA" method outlined in the Troubleshooting guide.
Using the steps below I got it to run on my M1.

1. Download and install the latest version of Minion.
   -->https://minion.mmoui.com/?download
2. Download and install JRE (Get the "macOS ARM64" version if you are on Apple Silicon).
   -->https://www.java.com/download/manual.jsp
3. Set JAVA_HOME in Terminal:
   
   Code:

   ---

   export JAVA_HOME='/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home'

   ---

4. Run Minion directly from Terminal:
   
   Code:

   ---

   java -jar /Applications/Minion.app/Contents/Java/Minion-jfx.jar

   ---

5. Profit!

EDIT: I did not clean out my ~/.minion folder or any config files. And Minion was working just fine on macOS 13.x without any extra steps needed.

Unfortunately, it did not help:

Hm, working for me on my M1. I see some errors in Terminal when running "java -jar /Applications/Minion.app/Contents/Java/Minion-jfx.jar" to launch Minion but the App starts up fine (the Dock icon is a folder icon instead of the regular Minion App icon though)

I am not able to launch Minion by double clicking the Minion.app, only the Java method works for me.

What does "java -version" print when you run it in Terminal? Should be something like this:
@Edem: Delete your minion.log file, then start Minion using the Java method, then post the contents of the minion.log file (or attach it). Mine looks quite different than what you posted.

Minion stopped working on MacOS Sonoma :(
 

I have the same problems described here and using the above methods launching via java did not work...

I'd try cleaning out all Java/JDK/JRE installations, removing Minion, and also renaming your "~/.minion" directory to something like "~/.minion.bak" so you have a clean starting point. Then reinstall everything as described. I have outlined the steps in more detail below and also ran through all the steps myself again.

My device: M1 Pro MacBook running macOS 14.0

The steps:

1. Delete "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin"
2. Delete Contents of "/Library/Java/Extensions" and "/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines"
3. Rename "/Users/<USERNAME>/.minion" to "/Users/<USERNAME>/.minion.bak" (you will have to make hidden folders visible in Finder first: CMD+Shift+.)
4. Delete "/Applications/Minion.app"
5. Download and install the latest version of Minion for macOS (NOTE: I did NOT download the Java version!)
   -->https://minion.mmoui.com/?download
6. Download and install JRE (Get the "macOS ARM64" version if you are on Apple Silicon like me)
   -->This will install JRE to "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin"
   -->https://www.java.com/download/manual.jsp (Java 8 Update 381 at the time of writing)
7. Set JAVA_HOME in Terminal:
   
   Code:

   ---

   export JAVA_HOME='/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home'

   ---

8. Running "java -version" in Terminal should look like this now:
   
   Code:

   ---

   redacted@Random-MBP ~ % java -version
java version "1.8.0_381"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_381-b09)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.381-b09, mixed mode)

   ---

9. Now run Minion from Terminal using Java for the first time:
   
   Code:

   ---

   java -jar /Applications/Minion.app/Contents/Java/Minion-jfx.jar

   ---

10. On first launch it will ask you to update. Click on the button "Update Now! (Restart)"
11. Minion will attempt to relaunch itself after the update NOT using the Java method causing a pop-up to appear saying that the app cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified. Click on the button "Cancel" and ignore the message.
12. Run Minion from Terminal using Java again:
    
    Code:

    ---

    java -jar /Applications/Minion.app/Contents/Java/Minion-jfx.jar

    ---

13. Select games (only ESO for me) and volumes to scan (only "/Volumes/Macintosh HD" for me)
14. Answer any "Terminal wants to access XYZ" messages with "OK".
15. Tell Minion where your addon folder is ("/Users/<USERNAME>/Documents/Elder Scrolls Online/live/AddOns/" for me)
16. At this point I had to relaunch Minion (using Java) again because it would not display my addons at first. After relaunching it everything worked as expected. If you see your game twice in Minion (like I did) simply remove one.

If Minion won't run on your machine after following the steps above then you can still attach your minion.log file here. Otherwise I am at a loss. Hope this helps.

It worked!!!
 

Thank you so much for this detailed explanation! It worked! Still have to launch minion via terminal from now, but I'm setting up an Alfred automation to run the terminal script via a shortcut so not much trouble. Hope the developers would update the app to work normally soon :)

Maybe the more detailed steps in #10 work for you too?

Shortcut
 

i created a shortcut that does it for me atlest.
but minion and java ARM x64 must be installed to get it to work.

Minion Shortcut

This actually worked for me. Thanks a lot!
:banana:

This is very useful. Using it too now, thank you!

Glad to hear it!:banana:

I've been having issues ever since updating to Sonoma, and then I found this thread - nothing worked until I used the actual Oracle Java 1.8. So, something to note, you *must* use the Oracle version of Java, otherwise I just got the "main class not found" error when usin Zulu.

Nothing in this thread works for me on the latest Sonoma 14.1. I had to boot up Minion on a Windows PC, copy over my Mac's Documents\Elder Scrolls Online folder, update addons, then copy the result back to my Mac.

Did you follow all steps outlined in Post #10 including removing all other versions of Java? (like AdoptOpenJDK/Adoptium, Zulu etc.) - You have to use Oracle's Java Runtime for Minion to work!

I can confirm it's working on Sonoma 14.1 with Oracle's Java 8 Update 391.

Thank you very much, #10 works. :)
And the shortcut is awesome and very helpful. :)

Is there a reason that there's no updated version of Minion that just works? ^^

OK, I finally figured out what was going on.

It turns out that the JAR file available on Minion's website is extremely out of date, and running it actually hurts compatibility with certain JREs on MacOS. The fully patched, latest version of Minion-jfx.jar has much better (but not perfect) compatibility with recent and open source Java runtimes on MacOS, as long as they have a working copy of JavaFX.

Before, I was using sdkman to manage JRE installs in my home folder and avoid having a system-level JRE, plus I didn't want to have all the Java applet browser extension and self-updater nonsense that Oracle ships.

I still want to run my system without Oracle JRE installed system-wide, so here's what I did:

1. Follow instructions in the previous post (the one you quoted) to install Oracle JRE (grr...), and use it to launch the ancient version of Minion on the website.

2. Minion will start successfully, and ask to patch. Accept the patch/update. This will modify Minion-jfx.jar. As of this writing, the sha256sum of the latest Minion JAR is e0706efb4c039964b6250cdcce6a1cab291d03d8ef270aa1158d22625fe2cca1. If I had a direct download link to this file, we could skip step 1 and 2 entirely, but I didn't bother to get the link yet.

3. Launch the Oracle JRE installer again, and it will give you an option to Remove. Go ahead and get rid of that thing.

4. Go to https://sdkman.io/ and follow instructions to install sdkman in your home folder.

5. Run: sdk install java 11.0.21.fx-librca

The above command will install the "Liberica" OpenJDK build, version 11, with JavaFX built-in, into your home directory in the ~/.sdkman folder. Java 11 is still an older runtime, but it is still an LTS, and much newer than Java 8. Besides, the Liberica Java 8 with JavaFX still doesn't work with the patched Minion for some reason, but Java 11 does.

I already went through the trouble of testing Java 17 and Java 21 (the two newest LTS releases) with patched Minion. They don't work due to some incompatible change in JavaFX. So the newest LTS version supported seems to be Java 11.

When SDKman installs Java, you get an option whether you want to make it your default Java. If you intend to have a newer Java runtime (whether system-wide or from sdkman) as your default, just say "no".

6. If you chose not to make Liberica Java 11 your default Java, run this: sdk use java 11.0.21.fx-librca

This will temporarily make your current shell use Liberica Java 11.

7. Now just run: java -jar Minion-jfx.jar

This will start up Minion and it will work normally without generating any exceptions.

In theory, someone could take the latest version of Minion's JAR, the latest version of the Liberica Java 11 runtime with JavaFX, bundle the two together into an app bundle, and provide a direct download that will just work. Another option would be, if Minion ever works with Java version 17 or later, GraalVM can compile a native Mac binary of Minion (no .jar at all!). But these projects would require additional work.

As far as I am aware, Minion is closed source, proprietary software. The devs of mmoui/esoui retain copyright and control over the code. It is possible to modify the code without having the source, but it isn't recommended, and would not be a friendly or ethical way of working with the development team who built Minion.

In order for Minion to be well-maintained by others outside the original Minion dev team, its source code would need to be released under an open source license. This would help Minion to survive whether or not the developers continue to invest resources into the tool.

Of course, the backend for these websites is still maintained and kept online by a related development team, if not in fact the same team. They could decide to take their chips and go home at any time. Since Minion depends on downloading files hosted here, it sort of makes sense to link together the tool and the site. If the site dies, Minion the program is useless.

On the other hand, there is another modding community that provides a download service, but also makes their client open source. They are a larger operation that actively generates income from people paying to use the service, and they host mods for more games (and more mods in total). I don't think they really do anything for Elder Scrolls Online specifically, but their client is definitely in better hands because it is open source, even though it's connected to a proprietary service backend. That community's name is NexusMods.

The reason I don't use NexusMods personally is that Minion has a lot of addons that are only hosted here, and not on NexusMods. I am also an addon author, and I only host them here.

Oh, yeah: NexusMods' Vortex only works on Windows. So it wouldn't help us Mac users even if it had all the ESO addons. ;)

--------

IMO, the long term solution for mod hosting should come in the form of a cross-platform client that uses Bittorrent on the backend to download mods. This allows everyone to "crowd source" the bandwidth to distribute the mods. There could still be a centralized website and repository for the mods, but the website would not have to really serve very much content with the community hosting a lot of it. Alternatively, they could have an HTTP "mirror" system similar to apache.org where cooperative mirrors can host cryptographically verified versions of the mods.

Still, Minion is pretty good for right now. My main suggestion is that they update the JAR on the download site to be the latest version of the tool, to improve out of the box Java compatibility.

Great that you figured out a way to run Minion without Oracle's Java!

I went ahead and installed Liberica using Homebrew (as outlined here at Bellsoft) using the package "liberica-jre11-full" (as listed here on Github) und also removed Oracle's Java (see instructions here) and Minion is working. I see some errors in Terminal but that doesn't seem to prevent Minion from running or updating addons so far.

The download link is: https://cdn.mmoui.com/minion/v3/Minion3.0.11-java.zip (I just replaced the version number in the Java download link taken from Minion's download page) which ships the file with the sha256sum you posted.

One step closer to "In theory, someone could take the latest version of Minion's JAR, the latest version of the Liberica Java 11 runtime with JavaFX, bundle the two together into an app bundle, and provide a direct download that will just work." ? --- I am not sure if the devs would appreciate somebody else doing this and posting it on the forum with an external download link... """Someone""" could come up with a script that pulls together all required files though ;-)

Thanks for summarizing this Coorbin, very appreciated.

Beside the infos provided already many devs here decided NOT to release the addons on multile pages as updating them on 1 page is time consuming enough already, + supporting it via esoui.com & official ESO forums.

To all: Please keep in mind this is done in our free time without any rewards or financial compensation.
Some ppl donate ingame gold or buy us a coffee, some say thank you (which often is enough;)) but most just ask for "a fix" or "make it work"... Well, that said: Having 1 reliable source for the addons is enough, and this is and will be Esoui.com.

Nexus Mods can be used for many other games but do not expect any dev or staff here to support that, thanks for your understanding.

any update?
 

Any update on this topic? Still minion crashes on the first click.

The solution is here in the comments. You just need to read them.

Here is an attempt to distill the instructions:

1. Download this and unzip it to a directory: https://cdn.mmoui.com/minion/v3/Minion3.0.11-java.zip

2. Open a Terminal on your Mac

3. Run these commands:

curl -s "https://get.sdkman.io" | bash
source "$HOME/.sdkman/bin/sdkman-init.sh"
sdk install java 11.0.21.fx-librca

4. If prompted to make this your default Java, type "y" and hit enter

5. In the terminal, use the cd command to go to the folder where you extracted Minion

6. Run: java -jar Minion-jfx.jar

Alternatively, if you have no other Java runtime on your system, you can download Liberica as your system Java: go to https://bell-sw.com/pages/downloads/ and download the "Full JDK" for the appropriate Mac architecture (ARM64 for Apple Silicon; the other for Intel), install the software using the .dmg or .pkg like normal, then you might be able to double-click the Minion-jfx.jar in your Finder to run it.

Either way, there is no simple "download the Minion app bundle and double click it" way to successfully start Minion right now.

a million thanks!
 

Thank you SO SO much for that shortcut. Managed to install the Java thing but the console part was out of my league. Here I just press play on your shortcut and Minion is up and running and my add-ons are finally up to date! Thank you again!

Still stuck with no minion
 

I'm not proficient enough to set up the JAVA on terminal workaround on my M1 mini, has anyone been in contact wih emoji.com to ask if that dev team will update orig Minion for us?

Thanks! It worked!
 

Hi! I came here all the way to comment this worked for me! I didn't even have an account on the forum lol

Today is the 13th of March 2024. Minion was working last time. I probably updated my macOS in the meantime. After doing this method above, Minion did open. (It was not opening)

Thanks! :)

Edit: Minion devs, please update Minion to work with latest macOS. Thank you! <3

Out of curiosity, if someone would write a free crossplatform addon manager (based on, like, Electron instead of Java), that uses the esoui backend api (for getting the addon list/details/download URLs), giving proper credits, would you be against that?

Not my decision, it's esoui/mmoui staff that needs to answer this.
But I think it was answered in the past already that it's nothing that's actually working , nor planned to work (maybe wrong about that, so please ask Dolby and/or Cairenn).

MAC: Wait for Sonoma 14.4.1 or 14.5 (Ugh)
 

Apple let some debug code leak into Sonoma 14.4.

If you access memory that is not mapped, you should receive a "Segmentation Violation" or SIGSEGV exception. There is code in the JVM that expects this error, intercepts the SIGSEGV, and loada additional code as needed.

Someone at Apple was testing and changed the SIGSEGV to SIGKILL. SIGSEGV can be intercepted and handled. SIGKILL cannot and immediately stops the process. It was probably changed to test some particular issue.

Unfortunately the SIGKILL was left in place and now accessing unallocated memory kills the process. This breaks the Java JVM running Minion and a number of other java-powered applications.

There is no workaround. We need to wait for Apple to release 14.4.1 or 14.5.
Oh, and Elder Scrolls since Daggerfall.

Source: I've been working with Unix since 1984, java since 1996, Linux since 2001, and Apple since 2012.

14.4.1 didn't fix running directly on Mac version