Stuffit unable to determine file format.

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Level 2

216 points

Stuffit unable to determine file format.

I have encountered a bug while playing the Firmament game produced by Cyan.

In an attempt to look at a game file I seem to have converted it into an Adobe document of some sort. This file will not compress using Stuffit, which is "unable to determine the file format". In order for the games provider (Cyan) to help with the problem, they have requested I send them, as an email attachment, the zipped game file. They hint that a valid zippable game file might be "hidden". I am not tech savvy enough to understand this.

I think when I first navigated to the saved game files, that they were in a format different to the Adobe Document format, and that I unwisely chose Adobe acrobat to open the files. Because of this, the files now exist as Adobe files. Can anyone suggest a way in which I can compress the saved game files so that I can send them to Cyan?

iMac (M1, 2021)

Posted on Jan 4, 2024 6:39 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Matti Haveri

Level 7

21,474 points

Jan 4, 2024 10:57 AM in response to Ken W

> zippable game file might be "hidden"

Try to reveal hidden files by Shift-Command-. (that is period at the end -- press those keys again to revert to normal view). Then locate the desired file and remove the period at the start of the filename and maybe put an underscore _ at its place. Then right-click the file and choose "Compress" to zip the file (I guess no one used StuffIt anymore unless needed in vintage systems).

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Answer 2

Jan 4, 2024 11:00 AM in response to Matti Haveri

> zippable game file might be "hidden"

Edit after a quick re-edit was timed out:

Try to reveal hidden files by Shift-Command-. (that is period at the end -- press those keys again to revert to normal view). Then locate the desired file, duplicate it, and remove the period at the start of the filename from the duplicate and maybe put an underscore _ at its place to make it visible at normal view. Then right-click the file and choose "Compress" to zip the file (I guess no one used StuffIt anymore unless needed in vintage systems).

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Answer 3

Jan 5, 2024 2:31 AM in response to Ken W

Yes, it seems there is no hidden file there. Unless Cyan support meant that the ~/Library folder is by default hidden and can be accessed by making it visible by Shift-Command-. or by holding down Option-key when accessing Finder > Go menu.

I'd zip that whole folder and mail it to Cyan support. Or ask Cyan support for more advice.

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Answer 4

Ken W Author

Level 2

216 points

Jan 5, 2024 7:20 AM in response to Matti Haveri

Thanks again for your input. I have literally only just found out that you zip a folder / file by right clicking on it. This was probably so basic a step that 99.9% of the Apple community knew it. But then I am old and tired and that is my only defence!

I have therefore sent the required zipped folder to Cyan help desk and await their reply.

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Answer 5

Kurt Lang

Level 9

72,117 points

Jan 5, 2024 7:34 AM in response to Ken W

Nothing has been converted, and the files in question have nothing to do with Adobe. Epic has saved your saved game states within its Application Support subfolder and given them a generic .sav extension.

All that's happened here is at some point, you installed Adobe software that assigned the .sav extension to itself, so that's the app the OS thinks it belongs to. It doesn't, and never did, but the OS flags it that way because the information in the Launch Services Database says it does.

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Answer 6

Old Toad

Level 10

217,930 points

Jan 4, 2024 10:35 AM in response to Ken W

Where was this file located?

Do you have a Time Machine backup of your drive?

If you do can you recover the file from the backup to compress and sent off?

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Answer 7

Ken W Author

Level 2

216 points

Jan 5, 2024 1:18 AM in response to Old Toad

The folder of saved game files was found at : Users/username/Library/Application Support/Epic/Firmament/Saved. The Cyan help desk has asked me to zip up the complete contents of the Saved folder. I understand (possibly wrongly) that zipping up a file is the same as compressing it and I thought using Stuffit was the way to do this. Anyway, this doesn't work and, as you suggested, I went to my Time machine backups to retrieve the folder from there, but no matter how far back I look, the contents of the Saved folder always present as Adobe documents, the format of which does not seem to be recognised by Stuffit. Perhaps there is another way to zip up the folder contents but my expertise in this field is sadly lacking.

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Answer 8

Ken W Author

Level 2

216 points

Jan 5, 2024 1:31 AM in response to Matti Haveri

I tried using Shift-Command-. and although the list of items I was looking at changed slightly there was no change in the Saved folder at the end of the path Users/username/Library/Application Support/Epic/Firmament/Saved.

I reproduce the screenshot below ( I hope!) so that you can see the appearance of the SaveGames files. For example, Slot1GameState.sav is an Adobe document of 170KB size.

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Stuffit unable to determine file format.

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