I recently purchased a new iMac (my old PPC G5 iMac died) and have been trying to get SheepShaver working again on this new Intel i5 iMac (10.7.3).
I used to have SS working on my PPC iMac running OS 8, which was awesome. But since trying to get it running on my new mac, I've run into a very basic problem. I download SS, drop the new world ROM file into it and SS just will not start at all. Is there something I'm missing? It is in it's own folder with the keycodes and I have a generic Mac OS 9 install disc ready to go, but the SS app doesn't seem to realise there's a ROM file in the same folder. I've renamed it Mac OS ROM with no file extension and still nothing.

Help?

- Which SheepShaver build did you download? The 11 February 2012 build?
- The SheepShaver application and the 'Mac OS ROM' rom file are indeed together in the same folder?
- When you try to launch SheepShaver, are there any SheepShaver related messages in Console?

One possible cause of your problem:
Setting up your new iMac, did you migrate your user data from your old Mac? If so, you will have migrated the old (invisible) prefs file with it. Run both scripts that are included in the SheepShaver download to clear the old prefs and nvram files and then try again setting up SheepShaver following our setup guide.

I downloaded the very latest 11 February 2012 build from Emaculation. The ROM and the SS file are both in a folder I called SheepShaver.
I ran both the scripts that came with SS, but to no avail.
Here are the error messages I've pulled from the console:
12-03-30 8:50:18.912 PM SheepShaver: CPSGetCurrentProcess(): This call is deprecated and should not be called anymore.
12-03-30 8:50:18.912 PM SheepShaver: CPSSetForegroundOperationState(): This call is deprecated and should not be called anymore.
12-03-30 8:50:19.165 PM [0x0-0x2c72c7].SheepShaver: SheepShaver V2.3 by Christian Bauer and Mar"c" Hellwig
12-03-30 8:50:19.165 PM [0x0-0x2c72c7].SheepShaver: ERROR: Cannot open ROM file.


Should I try and find a new ROM file?

You can try another ROM. Alternatively, you might want to hex edit it to shrink it down to exactly 4MB or however big it's supposed to be. It's possible that the ROM has garbage at the very beginning, which can prevent the ROM from working correctly.

Before doing anything though, you might want to look at exactly what the problem is. It can also be that the ROM isn't compatible with Sheepshaver.

Possible causes:

- Something is wrong with the rom file, download a new copy. (The new world rom from redundant robot should be fine.)
- The name of the rom file is not exactly "Mac OS ROM". (Could be a space somewhere too many or missing. An did you check in Finder Info for the file that it does not have a hidden file name extension?)
- As I wrote above, you could have an old prefs file in your Home folder. Use the script to delete it.

Solved!!

I neglected to check the info panel, I found that the file extension was still intact. With that removed, the window came up properly.
Thanks!