Solution to "Cannot map RAM: File already exists"

About SheepShaver, a PPC Mac emulator for Windows, MacOS X, and Linux that can run System 7.5.3 to MacOS 9.0.4.

Moderators: Cat_7, Ronald P. Regensburg, ClockWise

nstrudwick
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Post by nstrudwick »

I'd just like to add a twist to this. I'd had SS running fine under 10.5.6 on my Quad G5 until two days ago, when I installed a new 1TB hard disc. I cloned the old disc onto the new one, and everything has run perfectly since then EXCEPT SS.

I have not noticed any permissions issues either. However, this error is the one I'm seeing in the log.

I note that I am in group staff, and that staff has R/O access to SS. So before I start messing around with groups and permissions, which seem fine to me as a non-expert (although we had a right game when moving from Tiger), is this going to solve my problem and cause any other problems?

Just looking for reassurance before hitting the button!

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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

You should not make any changes to group or permissions, you are are in group staff and that is how it should be in Leopard.

The "solution" mentioned at the beginning of this thread is only possibly valid after migrating from Tiger or Panther which will result in 'user name' being in group 'user name', the correct group set-up in Tiger and Panther.

You could try what is reported most as a working solution (also in this thread): Download and (re-)install the latest 10.5.x Combo-updater.

The 10.5.7 update is expected to be released soon. You can then use the full combo-updater instead of the update through Software Update.
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Post by nstrudwick »

I did see that but assumed that as I hadn't touched the system since before the cloning that it didn't apply.

But it did. I applied it and it worked. Many thanks.

I had previous only applied the incremental update. So we have 10.5.6 and SS working, then moving it to a different disc doesn't work, and then reapplying 10.5.6 works.

Interesting. Cheers

Nigel
vincifr
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Just a suggestion

Post by vincifr »

I have the cannot map ram problem on my main pc: MacPro Intel 8core, MacOSX 10.5.7.
I read a lot of forum around the web, none of the suggestion posted worked for me (i also had to re-install everything with the "unknown" user issue!).
I made a try:
i moved the sheepshaver executable outside from the app package, and tested a sequence of launches, sometimes using the provided script to zap (erase) the pram.

So:
When the ram was previously erased, the message in the terminal was:

ERROR: Cannot map RAM: No such file or directory.


If i performed other launches without erasing the pram, the message was:

ERROR: Cannot map RAM: File exists.


I don't know if my post can help. Sorry for my poor english, hello from italy
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

I think you may be onto something, although I do not know yet what it is.

I deleted my existing ~/.sheepshaver_nvram file and now I am completely unable to use SheepShaver, not with any version or with any GUI or Prefs application or with any ROM file or with any system image that worked fine before. The error message in Console is different: "ERROR: Cannot open ROM file." This is weird, because I get a SheepShaver window with floppy icon and blinking question mark, which normally means that SheepShaver did open a ROM file and cannot find a suitable boot disk.

I have no time at this moment to investigate this further, I will look into it later. In the meantime, I am unable to use SheepShaver. :cry:
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Post by nstrudwick »

I notice that the previous poster mentioned system 10.5.7 (which I hadn't realised had been released). Having had the interesting experience noted above, is the upgrade a factor? The answer I assume is no, and I certainly want to upgrade but I'm a little hesitant as SS is working at the moment!!
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Post by Cat_7 »

On 10.5.7, if I zap pram from the old GUI, and I have the path to the HD image not fully entered (like what is the case when you used the built-in preferences editor), I can't run SheepShaver from the old GUI. I get the question mark. Running it straight from the program icon gives no problem.

However, if I use the old prefs GUI to set the full path to the disk image, and zap pram, I can run SheepShaver from the GUI with no problem .


Best,
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vincifr
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Post by vincifr »

MacOSX 10.5.7 released today (i think); but i have the same problem with sheepshaver from the beginning (10.5.3 pre-installed, i presume).

One of my tries was to buy and install Leopard 10.5.6 (no luck).

In my macmini intel core duo (10.5.6), no problem, sheepshaver works as expected.
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Post by nstrudwick »

I took the plunge and can report that it works OK with 10.5.7 on my G5 Quad. To be safe I used the combo and not incremental updater. It took three restarts for the desktop to come up without hanging, but that's a common occurrence, as I've reported in this forum before. Good luck!
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

The problem I had this morning is probably not related to the subject of this site. After hours of trying different ways to provoke the issue I will try to explain what happened and when it happens.

I have 5 setups with SheepShaver, 9.0.4, 8.6 and 8.5.1 will run with both a new world rom (from the ROM Update 1.0) and a old world rom, and 8.1 and 7.5.5 will only run with the old world rom.

The problem that occurred when it occurred (about the 'when' later) was that at launch of SheepShaver with an image file as startup volume, the System Folder on that volume was turned into a unblessed state and thus made that volume unusable as startup volume. With a system CD as startup volume the CD was ejected.

It happens after deleting the nvram file, but only under certain conditions. It appeared to be unrelated to how the nvram file was removed or deleted, unrelated to whether or not full paths or just file names where used in the prefs file.

It never happened with 8.1 or 7.5.5 and the oldworld rom, regardless the name of the rom file and it never happened with 9.0.4, 8.6 or 8.5.1 and the new world rom file, regardless the name of the rom file.

I could only make it happen with 9.0.4, 8.6 and 8.5.1 with the oldworld rom, but not if that rom file was named "Mac OS ROM".

I could restore the volumes to be bootable by mounting as secondary volume and blessing the System Folder (opening and closing the folder to restore the System Folder icon). The 9.0.4, 8.6 and 8.5.1 would then startup fine with the new world rom, but still not with the old world rom. The System Folder would again become 'unblessed'. Only after booting once with the oldworld rom renamed as Mac OS ROM, the systems would boot fine again with the old world rom regardless the rom file name.

(You may think that I did not always have the correct file name of the to be used rom file entered in prefs, but I checked and rechecked that each time.)

Now all setups run again fine as before and I will stop investigating this strange problem further. It is something to remember when someone encounters a similar problem.

Early this morning I applied the 10.5.7 Combo updater. Went smooth as always. I do not think it is specifically related to this problem.

Let us return to the "Cannot map RAM" problem.
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

vincifr wrote:MacOSX 10.5.7 released today (i think); but i have the same problem with sheepshaver from the beginning (10.5.3 pre-installed, i presume).

One of my tries was to buy and install Leopard 10.5.6 (no luck).

In my macmini intel core duo (10.5.6), no problem, sheepshaver works as expected.
Did you try to download and install the full 10.5.7 Combo Updater? Installing a full 10.5.x Combo Update (not the smaller update from System Update) is the most frequently mentioned solution to the problem. You can install the Combo 10.5.7 update over your existing 10.5.7 system.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/a ... pdate.html
vincifr
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Post by vincifr »

I applied the combo update (10.5.7) and previous combo updates weeks ago. I also re-formatted hard drive, installed a retail 10.5.6.
No luck.
I read (i think) and tested all suggestions and workaround, but no luck (sometimes, BAD luck, need to reinstall macos...).

I am a realbasic developer, maybe i should try to learn and perform a compiling of sheepshaver from source code, this is the only try i missed -anyone tried this before?
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Post by Cat_7 »

You assume the problem could be machine specific and solvable by a local compile?
I always compile my own builds, but then I don't have the said problem. Never had, and it also never occured with builds from others.

You could give it a try, so we know more.

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vincifr
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Post by vincifr »

I will try as soos as possible.
I have no experience in this field, could you tell me what i need (xcode apple?) and a link with some (hopefully not so hard) instruction for compiling sheepshaver myself?
thanks in advance.
(yes, i do think the problem is machine specific, or OS problem but related to a specific machine, sadly... mine! ehe)
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

This is how I built SheepShaver for Tiger and Leopard. I built in Tiger on Intel and on PPC and combined the two builds into one UB build using the lipo command. I had Xcode 2.5 installed on both machines, but I am not certain it is needed.

Code: Select all

mkdir SheepShaverBuild
cd SheepShaverBuild

cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.cebix.net:/home/cvs/cebix login

(password: "anoncvs")

cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.cebix.net:/home/cvs/cebix checkout BasiliskII
cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.cebix.net:/home/cvs/cebix checkout SheepShaver


mkdir SDL
cd SDL
svn checkout http://svn.libsdl.org/tags/SDL/release-1.2.10
cd release-1.2.10
./autogen.sh
./configure --disable-shared --prefix=`pwd`
make
make install

PATH=`pwd`/bin:$PATH
export PATH
cd ../..

cd SheepShaver
make links

cd src/Unix
./autogen.sh --disable-vosf --enable-sdl-static --enable-sdl-video

make
make SheepShaver_app
Edit: Note that some anti-virus applications (Intego VirusBarrier) consider Intel-only versions of SheepShaver and BasiliskII to be (infected by) a virus.

Edit 2: Building this way under Leopard results in an application that quits on launch.
Last edited by Ronald P. Regensburg on Fri May 15, 2009 11:32 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

vincifr wrote:I applied the combo update (10.5.7) and previous combo updates weeks ago.
One user noticed that installing the combo update did not resolve the issue on his computer when the update was done while booted from another volume, but did solve the problem when the update was done while booted from the system the update was applied to.
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

I tried to build SheepShaver in Leopard on Intel but ended up with an application that quits on launch. Changes that are supposed to enable building in Leopard were added to CVS, but it does not work on my machine.

See also:
http://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5409
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/foru ... lisk-devel
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Post by vincifr »

the updates for my macpro (10.5.7 and others, previously) were always applied booting from the system to update.
I don't know if partitions on drive are relevant for the problem:
i have two hard disks in my mac,
the bootable one was whole before (now it is partitioned for a linux installation) but the same problem (cannot map ram) was and is present, no difference.
do you know if it is possible to install sheepshaver for windows or linux, to see if it works?
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

Well, you can try. The "Cannot map RAM" error only happens in MacOSX (and only on a minority of seemingly unrelated machines).

There is one thing you could try that has not been tried before. You could try to run the UB as PPC version under Rosetta:

Select the SheepShaver.app icon in the Finder, hit command-I to view Finder Info on the file. Check "Open using Rosetta" and close the info window. Now try again to launch SheepShaver.
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Post by vincifr »

that is a try i think i have done (read somewhere the same suggestion), no result. but because i am not certain (i forgot), i will try again monday at work.

my macmini intel core duo has the same OS and applications installed of macpro (less ram of course, 1gb vs 4gb), here sheepshaver works very well (macos 8.1).

does it exist (sorry for bothering you) sheepshaver running in X11?
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

I think it is possible to compile SheepShaver for X11, but I do not know how. Maybe others know.

In the meantime I thought of something else to try. If the problem is related to writing the .sheepshaver_nvram file, maybe copying a working .sheepshaver_nvram file can solve the issue.

I have here my nvram file (made visible by removing the dot and zipped):
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ronaldpr/sheepsha ... _nvram.zip

- Make sure you are logged in to your Mac as the user that uses SheepShaver.
- Download and unzip the archive and place the "sheepshaver_nvram" file on your desktop.
- Open Terminal and type:

Code: Select all

cp $HOME/Desktop/sheepshaver_nvram $HOME/.sheepshaver_nvram
You will have my ".sheepshaver_nvram" copied to your home folder. (If the file exists, the cp command will overwrite it.)

Can you launch SheepShaver now?
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Post by vincifr »

many thanks, i will try this.
i can also try with the .sheepshaver_nvram working in my mac mini (i have an utility that shows invisible files on macosx).

i will let you know.
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Post by vincifr »

Try n.1 - Opening using rosetta: no luck (i remember i tried this days ago)

Try n.2 - Copying working .sheepshaver_nvram to home directory: no luck.

(i think these are tries n.19887546546 ehe)
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

Well, what else can we try?

I always wondered why the combo update, even without updating to a next version, solves the problem on many otherwise normally working machines. A characteristic occurrence with the combo update is the double startup immediately following the update. I think the system uses that to delete and newly build some cache files.

Maybe using a troubleshooting utility that deletes all sorts of cache files could achieve a similar effect?
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Post by Cat_7 »

The double startup is meant to replace files that were in use during the update. There is a script created in /Library that shows what will happen at first start after an update. Some updates don't require that double start.

Cleaning and rebuilding e.g. the kextcache is done by starting with the -f parameter. That can be performed at any start-up so no double start would be required.

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