Disk Space is Critically Low Issue
 

Hi people,

I'm having problems running a kid's learning software(JumpStart 5th Grade 2001) that runs on classic.

I'm on a PB 15" Alu Mac OSX 10.3.3.

Everytime i run the app, classic starts and then a a black screen appears with a pop up that says:
"Disk Space is Critically Low. Please free up some space and restart"

And i have 35gb of free space!

Well i figured maybe the space its referring to is the Applications(Mac OS 9) folder space so i cleared the folder until few stuff remained but the same error message appeared, even after a restart.

Had been trying for hours.

Oh and i ran something from the JumpStart CD(a testpaper which only runs on classic) and it worked just fine.

Please help guys, its getting frustrating.

The amount of data in the folder doesn't have anything to do with the issue.

The true litmus test is if you can start Classic by itself. Make sure Classic is not running, hit the System Preferences, and start Classic up. Get the message again?

No problems starting Classic all by itself.

Then, if the app is being run off the hard drive, I suspect the problem is with the application itself. The is probably one of the handfull of applications that doesn't run properly in Classic. I don't think that there will be anything you can do about it without contacting the software company for a fix, or buying an updated version (assuming it has been updated for OS X).

Tried a few methods.

1)Restart Mac OSX 10.3.3 then start classic from system preferences then start Jumpstart
2)Restart Mac OSX then start JumpStart (automatically starts classic)
3)Already in Mac OSX, classic started, at system preferences restart classic then run JumpStart
4)Already in Mac OSX, classic started, stopped classic and start it again then run JumpStart

All 4 methods had same result, the error message above.

This is terrible. I found this under support on JumpStart's website.

But that's G3s and System 8.1....

To think its printed Mac compatible on the retail box(no shame) not to mention these guys are from Vivendi Universal which is quite a respectable company. Its just weird that the testpaper on the CD works but not the app.

PROBLEM:
My Macintosh says disk space is critically low, when the HD has several GB of space available.


SOLUTION:
This has occurred since 1999 on some G3 systems using System 8.1. It is caused by Apple's use of HFS Plus or NTFS formatting. Some customers have reported that reformatting the drive to SCSI Standard fixed it, but that is not an option for most users. Therefore we have no viable solution at this time.

Since when did Apple use NTFS??

Yep, there you go.
Just about every Mac that's rolled off production since 2000 has shipped with HFS+.
No fix, no work around, no solution. :(

Surfed more of the site.

Guess what! The software i got was released only in Mar 2003.
So that support thread might have referred to older software.

And check out the system requirements.

System Requirements

Macintosh® Workstation
PowerMac G3 266MHz or faster
OS 9.2.1, 10.1.5, 10.2.3
64 MB of RAM (128 MB RAM for 10.1.2 and up)
16x CD-ROM drive
16 - Bit color

UNLESS THIS IS ALL A SCAM!! notice 10.2.3 isn't that jaguar??

Below is the product link:
http://www.vugames.com/product.do?gamePlatformId=418

You said you had version "2001".
Only Microsoft releases "dated" versions of software 2 years after their date.

Sounds like you need to purchase a newer version.
Or
Contact their tech support.

Hmm got the Retail box off the shelf just a few months back haven't been able to use it since then because of the error.

I only said its 2001 because that's what's written as the name of the CD when i insert it.

Just did a check using cmd+I for the installer file found on CD.

It says 19 March 2003 so it can't be that i've got an old version.

Not sure why the CD is still named JumpStart 5th Grade 2001 CD though.

You're wasting your time, otherwise.

Will do.

Thanks yellow.

Sending them an email now.

Hi Almist,
I have a few different Jumpstart programs working on 10.2.8 at my school, but don't have a 10.3.3 machine to test it on. Correct if I'm wrong, but does the Jumpstart program only do a limited install and you have to have the cd in the drive for it to work? One of the things I had to do was not install it in the Applications(OS 9) folder. A few programs that have to read or write back to the application's folder have problems because of permissions of the Applications(OS 9) folder. I don't know if this will work for you, but it may be worth a try.

Hi reeserv,

Not sure if its on limited install cos the installation does not show such a choice. But it sure looks like it with only 2.1MB of files in the folder that was installed.

And yes, i do have to use the cd to start the app.

Tried installing it on other folders (tried a few) same error message.

Its getting painful to know i can only run this on a PC .....

You could try creating a small disk image from which to run the application. If the problem is really with HFS plus, reformatting the image as HFS (standard) should work.

Hi huskerchad,

I'm a newbie with Macs, just 5 months old, could u tell me how the above is done step by step.

Sure. You said you are using panther, so the sequence would be as follows. Open Disk Utility (it is in /Applications/Utilities). Along the top row of icons, click "New Image". The default values should be fine, but you can adjust the size downward if you want. Give this a name and save it somewhere on your hard drive. Let's say you call it "test.dmg".

Notice that "test.dmg" now appears in the lower-left portion of the disk utility window, along with a volume called "test" that has been mounted on the desktop.

Click on the mounted volume in disk utility (it will be inset hierarchically from the actual name of the image file). Click "Erase" in the tab panel that appears. Set the "Volume Format" to 'Mac OS Standard" and then click the erase button.

You should now have a mac os standard disk mounted on your desktop. Try installing the application there.

It's still possible the application won't work, but this is something to try.

Tried but it still has the same error message.

Tried using Mac OS Extended also. Still does not work.

People from JumpStart got back to me but sigh... still no solution.

Reply from Knowledge Adventure Technical Support:
Thank you for contacting Vivendi Universal Game's technical support. In efforts
resolve the issue that you are having, please follow these instructions.
I am sorry but we do not have a fix for this error message.
If difficulty persists, please call our technical support center at 310-649-8010
between the hours of 8:00 AM and 4:45 PM Pacific Standard Time for assistance.
Sincerely
David Bartholomew
Get a 15% discount on any of our current titles! Call toll free 800-545-7677 and
ask for extension 8127. Tell her I sent you!

It seems to me that they owe you a refund. From the way it sounds, they did no testing at all of this product on a Macintosh.

I liked huskerchad's idea, but I think for it would work, one would have to be able to tell the application to store its preferences, cache, data files, etc on the disk image, and the disk image itself would have to be quite large.

Any solutions yet?
 

I just purchased JumpStart Phonics. Reading the package it seemed to meet my Macs' specifications ideally. Wrong.

First I put it into my G3 800mhz iBook running 10.3.5 (640mb RAM). Running it from the CD ROM, or hard disk (or variety of disk images) produces the "disk space critically low" error. Booting into OS 9 makes no difference.

Now here's the strange part. If I put the CD into my G4 800mhz Quicksilver (1gb RAM), also running 10.3.5, the program runs fine, either from the HD or CD-ROM. I have no idea why. JumpStart also works fine in a 1ghz G4 eMac with 640mb of RAM. The only problem is, I need this program on my laptop -- not my desktop.

Maybe I will play with SheepShaver tomorrow and see what happens. If anyone has any ideas, please throw them my way. It really irritates me that the company seems to have done NO extensive testing of this software on Macs, and refuses to acknowledge it's a real problem. I'm only theorizing that this could be a problem with portables; if that's the case, then what might the next experimental step be?

No answers to offer, just an observation that Almist had further correspondence with the company with no joy:
http://www.spymac.com/forums/showthr...threadid=71868

A solution but sad one at that
 

Hi guys,

Its been quite a while since i posted this.

I have come to terms with it and guess what, my solution if you call it one
is to run Virtual PC 6.1 to run my JumpStart apps.

Never really liked running VPC but because of JumpStart I did not have a choice. Runs real slow but bearable for my kids.

Danny

I'm going to experiment some more today. There is some reason it's working on some of my machines and not others, and I just can't accept that it's because of a G3 CPU, or any of the ludicrous explanations the company is giving. I sent them an E-Mail by the way, which may or may not generate a response.

Also, does anyone else find it deceptive they list this program as OS X compatible when it just runs in classic? There's plenty of people without classic installed in their OS X installations that would be in for a shock once arriving at home.

After hours of experimentation I may be making some progress. I found that the program will run if I put my PowerMac in target disk mode, and boot the iBook from it. This kind of rules out the whole G3/HFS+ issue; it has nothing to do with that.

It may have something to do with portables though, specifically their 4200 RPM hard drive, or possible software for energy saving. You can follow along with what I've done so far over here.

JumpStart actually runs well with Win98SE in VPC -- but I'm determined to get this little program working natively.

You should run the "Console" app and look for any error messages that might be relevant.

Console doesn't say anything, probably because this is an OS 9 app. My next step is to see what may be different about the OS 9 system folders on the PowerMac and iBook. What's confusing is I believe the OS 9 system folders for both systems were copied from the same location, and should be identical. I'll check it out tomorrow.

BTW: Is there a good program that could help me compare the contents of the two folders to find missing or additional files between the two?

if you are not afraid of the terminal, try:
cheers, pink

I compared the two folders with diff, and the only thing different was the MacOS ROM file. Right now, I'm acting on someone else's suggestion to defragment the hard disk. If that doesn't work, I'll try copying my PowerMac's System 9 folder to the iBook, even if diff doesn't see any differences.

More Strangeness
 

I defragmented, then used Disk Warrior to repair the directory, and also repaired file permissions afterward. That didn't work.

I copied the System 9 folder from my PowerMac to the iBook, and then started classic using that folder. Still didn't work.

I'm still thinking this is some weird issue where this program hates my iBook's 4200 RPM drive, so I copied the iBook's System 9 folder to an external 7200 RPM firewire drive, and then started classic from that drive's System 9 folder. Sure enough, the program launched flawlessly!

Still not a viable solution though, since I can't lug a firewire drive with me. What if the bare essentials of OS 9 were put into a ram disk somehow, and then classic started from it? That could be an option, though it's really not very intuitive.

There has to be some way to hack around this.

I have gotten a few OS 9 only programs to work by installing in them in the /Users/Shared folder. That's why in my earlier post I thought it was a permissions problem. The user not being able to read/write back to the application's folder when it was in the Applications (OS 9) folder or at the root level of the HD.

This program doesn't write to the applications folder; in fact, it doesn't even need to be installed on the HD to launch. It only leaves a few files (depending on how many players there are in the game) in a folder within the System 9 preferences folder.

Everything is really pointing to this being some kind of weird drive speed issue, especially since Almist is having the same problem on his PowerBook.

I forgot to mention Vivendi Universal responded to me today. Aside from a list of template answers (like make sure the CD is clean, disable extensions, etc) they noted that they do not test their products on laptops.

Right now I'm trying to see if it's possible to open the application file with a hex editor and somehow bypass whatever is causing this check to occur. I'm not too savvy when it comes to 'cracking' things though, so I don't know how it will turn out.

The first thing I would do is determine whether that message (about disk space) is coming directly from the application or if it is coming from a system library used by the application. You might be able to determine this by using '/usr/bin/strings' on the application executable and grepping for the exact error message you see. Or you could do a grep through all of the system libraries for that message.

I found the error message inside the application file. The file is only about 1mb, so if anyone else would like to take a look at it I'm willing to send it.

Wow, all I can say about this company is avoid them. They make no attempt whatsoever to figure out what the problem is. They sent me an E-Mail suggesting I just send the CD back for a replacement; when I explained to them this is not going to resolve anything, they sent me this E-Mail back.

Reinstall Windows? I've already tried that? Are they even reading anything I'm sending to them? It looks like they're sending any old response just to get rid of me. Anyway, here is my last response to them -- which hopefully relates the frustration anyone who's experienced this problem feels.