I’ve been attempting to package the Unreal Launcher application and the /Users/Shared/UnrealEngine folder to easily deploy UE4 to one of my colleges Mac based classrooms. Essentially, the package copies the Epic Games Launcher to /Applications and also copies the /Users/Shared/UnrealEngine folder but I’ve run into an issue where the launcher works, detects the engine, begins to verify it but then fails for unknown reasons. I feel like I’m missing something key.
I’ve read the instructions at but the section regarding Engine Updates only has instructions for Windows installations of the Unreal Launcher and UE4. Are there OS X specific instructions I’m missing somewhere else that I could be pointed to?
Hi rpunsbe,
Sorry for the late reply, can you provide us with the logs from a launcher running on one of the deployed macs.
Instructions on how to can be found here
Lets back up a bit as I’ve changed my testing methodology. Following the instructions on the Academic Installations wiki (which woefully leave out a lot of OS X specific information) my experience is not matching that documentations description. If you still want a log file I can get it to you but right now I feel like there is a disconnect between what the current documentation details and the actual experience, at least when running the launcher and engine on OS X.
Let’s start with the basics - manual installation. Here’s where I’m at right now:
- Under an administrative account I’ve installed the Epic launcher, logged into the launcher with an Epic account, and downloaded the latest engine.
- I then log out of the administrative account and then into a non-administrative account and run the Epic launcher.
- It asks me to log in, I select Go Offline.
- Under the Unreal Engine tab of the launcher, the engine I installed in step 1 is not listed. Instead, I am prompted to Sign in, which the wiki instructions state should not be happening.
Hey Rpunsbe,
The issue you described seems to be down to the launcher not having the engine manifests accessible on the second user account.
These can be found at: ~/Library/Application Support/Epic/EpicGamesLauncher/Data
Moving these to the new user account fixed the issue for me and the engines were detected correctly.
Thanks again Barnabas.
After reading your description and looking at my test machine I have it working now under different users. However, I also noticed the location you cited is slightly inaccurate.
The engine manifest isn’t being stored in /Library/Application Support/Epic/EpicGamesLauncher/Data (which would be a read-able location for all users and would make sense for the launcher to use).
Instead, the Epic data folders, including the manifest, are actually being created in the user library (~/Library/ instead of /Library/) which explains why no other users can see it.
Is this by design or did someone accidentally think they were storing the manifest in /Library/ when in reality they were storing it strictly in the library of the user that downloaded the engine? It seems like the manifest is something you would want available system wide so any user is able to launch the Engine when given access to the Epic Games Launcher.
Incidentally, it would be really good to have all of this documented in the Academic Installation documentation Epic provides (linked in my original post). The manifest files and their locations are documented for the Windows OS but not OS X in it. It would have been really helpful if I had that information from the start.
Thats great news, I am glad to have helped.
Good catch with the file location. I’ve corrected my original post so as not to confuse other users.
I am unsure of the history of the file location, I believe it was an informed decision at the time.
We currently have an initiative to relocate and update our documentation, so I will make sure we include the additional information from this thread in there.