[Xavier Bonet]

Hello, @Tim Reynolds. In my last post above you’ll find step-by-step detailed instructions to solving this issue. And considering the security update is culprit in your case as well, in theory you should be able to solve it just as I did, and have no further trouble. I didn’t restore from Time Machine but I guess it should restore the MobileDevice.framework to one that plays well with C4D.

If you guys have problems getting a “good” copy of the framework perhaps I can upload here the one I used which worked for me. I’ll need to check and see if that’s allowed.

Good luck!

…So this is how I managed to bungle it up today.

[Xavier Bonet]

Hi, guys! I’m so thrilled to be able to come back and say that finally I managed to resolve the issue! And even more thrilled that I wasn’t forced to upgrade OS, as I haven’t had time to thoroughly research the consequences of Mojave or Catalina…

Anyway, I thank you all very much for your input! It’s been a very tense couple of days but all’s well that ends well, I guess. This is what finally worked for me:

I had already tried some of the things you recommended and then tried the ones I hadn’t but to no avail. In the end, the fix was getting rid of the offending framework, but with a twist. I’ll explain in detail:

Last night, when I opened the executable directly I got the Terminal window with the list of precesses, and everything was fine except for the error I mentioned in a previous post, which pointed toward the MobileDevie.framework. There were no signs at the end; the process simply stopped and exited, but there was no other mention of anything weird. So I had to assume this was the issue.

As I pointed out, after extensive research my conclusion was that there had been a change that had occurred when I tried to upgrade the iOS on my iPhone, which had forced me to also upgrade iTunes and, as Maxon have pointed out to @Brian Jones, do a security update. Based on all this and thanks to @Brian Jones’ post on what Maxon had told him I was 99% sure the only way to fix the issue was to get rid of that framework or substitute it with that of my other MBPro which had had no such upgrade or update.

However, the issue was that my Mac simply wouldn’t allow me to rename, swap or delete the framework. Thanks to @Sam Treadway’s guide in point 3 on how to get my Mac to grant me control in order to get rid of these files, I was able to do just that. However, I found that just renaming (or getting rid of) the actual MobileDevice executable wasn’t enough, as rebooting didn’t create a new one and then the error just changed to not being able to find the executable instead of not being able to find a symbol within it. So I got rid of the entire MobileDevice.framework (i.e. the file that’s in the PrivateFrameworks folder) and I brought in the MobileDevice.framework from my other computer that had had no upgrade or update, as I said.

And that did the trick!

So, to recap, step by step: How to get C4D to work again if you have updated iTunes etc.?

1) Go into /Applications/MAXON/Cinema 4D R19/Cinema 4D.app/Contents/MacOS/ and open the Cinema 4D executable. This will open it up in a Terminal window and make sure the problem is in fact something to do with the MobileDevice.framework.

2) Get the entire MobileDevice.framework from another Mac (that’s running the same OS, and hasn’t been updated or that can run C4D without a problem) or from your TimeMachine backup made before updating. You can find it in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/

3) Shutdown your Mac and turn it back on while pressing the CMD+R keys on your integrated keyboard. When the Apple logo appears you can release the keys. This will open Recovery Mode.

4) Recovery Mode will prompt you to choose your preferred language: do so. Then go to the top bar, go to Utilities > Terminal.

5) In the Terminal window type: “csrutil disable” (without the quotation marks) and press Return.

6) A confirmation will appear: “Successfully disabled System Integrity Protection. Please restart the machine for the changes to take effect.” Do so: restart your computer and let the OS load normally.

7) Now you can into you /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ and move out or erase the MobileDevice.framework and in its place paste the MobileDevice.framework you retrieved from the working computer or OS backup

8) Restart your computer and go back into Recovery Mode, open up the Terminal and type: “csrutil enable” (without the quotation marks) and press Return. This will re-enable System Integrity Protection.

9) Restart and let the OS load as usual and ???? you should now be able to launch C4D once again!

10) If everything goes according, permanently erase the old framework you deleted or moved out of its place and don’t update iTunes or run security updates until you are ready to upgrade your entire OS—or at least without having a working copy of MobileDevice.framework at hand and being prepared to repeat these steps to save your life!

Having said all this, I must admit I’m somewhat disappointed at Maxon that they’ve made their software dependant on a Private framework, which is supposed to be “private” and for Apple’s use, which means that any change to it will possibly make their software unusable, as it surely did in this case. I still don’t understand why C4D needs to have anything to do with the Mobile Device framework… but perhaps all I’m doing is showing how little I know about the matter.

Anyway, once again thanks a million for your help, guys! And I hope this post might help out someone else and spare him/her several headaches!

[Xavier Bonet]

Ok. I got it back to being a Unix Executable File after some research online on how to manage that:
sudo chmod +x "/Applications/MAXON/Cinema 4D R19/Cinema 4D.app/Contents/MacOS/Cinema 4D"
(It seems pretty obvious now ????)

So now the only thing I have to find out is how to deal with the MobileDevice.framework if my Mac won’t allow me to change it, move it or delete it! But it seems to work right outta the box for everyone else, so I can’t find any info on that…

[Xavier Bonet]

Hi. Thanks for your input.

That first option seems to have actually made things worse… It now directly says “The application ‘Cinema 4D’ can’t be opened’, and the Cinema 4D.app/Contents/MacOS/Cinema 4D executable file is now no longer an executable, and when it opens (now in TextEdit) it displays gobbledygook instead of opening up in Terminal and displaying the processes… I’m really out of my depth here, so I don’t know if I can revert this or if there’s another step I’m missing…

On the other hand, the second option has the same result as trying to change the permissions through Get info, it tells me “Operation not permitted”… For some reason my Mac just doesn’t want to allow me to either delete that framework or give myself permission to do so. My account does have Administrator privileges, so I don’t know what’s going on.

I’ve also tried finally installing R20 (I was putting it off because I had no time to install it and migrate everything… but now I’m stalled anyway) and the result is the same as trying to re-install R19: I click the installer, it bounces an icon once on the dock, and then it fizzes out, doing nothing. So I must assume it too tries to use that corrupt framework. (Plus, this just proves to me that it has nothing to do with the C4D executable, as the same thing happens with both the R19 and R20 installation executables, too.)

[Xavier Bonet]

I think the issue lies here:

WARNING: Could not load dll. Error code: dlopen(/Applications/MAXON/Cinema 4D R19/corelibs/c4dplugin.xlib, 6): Symbol not found: _xpc_file_transfer_create_with_path
Referenced from: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileDevice.framework/Versions/A/MobileDevice
Expected in: /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileDevice.framework/Versions/A/MobileDevice. (file:///Applications/MAXON/Cinema 4D R19/corelibs/c4dplugin.xlib) [osx_dll.cpp(89)] [general.cpp(266)]

After several hours’ research… ????… I think I’ve pinpointed the issue: apparently it has to do with the fact I was prompted to update iTunes when I was trying to update my iPhone and that resulted in a corruption of the MobileDevice Unix Executable file in System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileDevice.framework/Versions/A/. At least that’s the most plausible explanation I found online. However, I can’t actually solve it, as the steps everyone says one should follow include deleting these files and my Mac won’t allow me to do so, as it says they’re needed for the OS to work properly… So that gets me nowhere. I’ve tried reinstalling iTunes, even downgrading (it didn’t let me) but nothing has changed: C4D still won’t open at all.

[Xavier Bonet]

As a matter of fact, yesterday I had to update my iPhone by connecting it to my Mac. I hadn’t thought of that because C4D was working fine today; but the truth is last night I didn’t shutdown my Mac, only put it in Sleep mode… So I think C4D the first time I exited C4D was today. Which could explain why (if the issue actually is, as you say, from the iPhone update) it not launching occurred only just now.

BTW, this is what I’m finding in the Console as I try to launch:

default 00:55:00.150705 +0200 kernel [CINEMA 4D pid:796 mux-aware] starting, non-mux-aware app count 0, switch-state 0 IG FBs 1 EG FBs 0:0 power-state 6 3D idle HDA idle
default 00:55:00.231767 +0200 kernel [CINEMA 4D pid 796 mux-aware] exiting, non-mux-aware app count 0, runtime: 0:00:00.081

Don’t know if that can help find the issue.

I too tried to launch C4D on my PC (which is only my rendering machine) and there was no issue there. So it’s only limited to my Mac and the fact that you mention you too had to update your phone (added to the fact that I NEVER update my phone using my MBPro, and I believe this is the first time I’ve done that) makes me think that’s the common variable…

[Xavier Bonet]

Hum! You’re absolutely right. Having got rid of the Compositing Tag the “natural” state of the becomes as dark as the shadows.
I can see an obligatory workaround coming!
I guess I could get rid of the bg and turn the floor into a transparent shadow receiver (to receive the Ambient Occlusion shadows, really). Then in AE I can throw a solid of the color I want behind everything. And to replicate the bright circle on the floor (which is now a bg solid in AE) I can export a still of the light doing it’s thing and casting all other objets’s shadows on a plain white floor (all of the objects hidden from the camera)… that way, the I have a matte layer that I can then composite in AE through add, thereby adding brightness to the solid where the light would hit on the floor.
Does it sound too convoluted? Is there an easier way of working around what you’ve found?
Thanks for the input!

[Xavier Bonet]

Yup, you’re right! Perhaps posting the scene will be the easiest way to go about it! ☺️

Here’s the basic scene:
13398_lightissue.c4d.zip

The floor lamp should “turn on” starting on frame 15 (it’s intensity goes from 0-100% in 3 frames).

Thanks in advance for your input!

[Xavier Bonet]

Never mind! In the end I was able to manage it but differently from what’s shown here. Instead of placing the dynamics tag on the parent null, I placed it on the actual object inside and that did the trick. I.e., the baking has to happen on the object that actually has the dynamics tag on it. If I try to bake objects that are children of an object with the dynamics tag on it, it doesn’t work for me, for some reason… perhaps it might work if I set “Inherit Tag” to “Apply Tag to Children”. But then that’s not what I’m looking for for this particular animation.

[Xavier Bonet]

Hi! Thanks for the response. I already turned in the project but any help will be greta for the future.
Unfortunately, the way you advise is basically what I’m stuck doing now… but you must understand that these special characters aren’t the exception in Spanish and French, i.e. it’s not like they seldom occur… in fact, in both languages (especially in Spanish) the special characters á é í ó ú are rather common… which makes looking through all of the characters to find which are in a different format very time-consuming and impractical.
You must remember that the special characters are the ones with regular format, so I can’t even narrow my search by searching only for those characters that are in italics or bold. Instead, I have to search for ALL of the instances of these characters in the entire 300-page document, which often means thousands of instances!
I’m sure there must be a way of doing it that takes into consideration format… if not the fact that that character is in a different format from that of its surrounding characters, at least to search for a special character within a word that is in italics or bold.