Problem with running FDS5 in Mac OSX

[S Maxwell]

I am having a problem running the FDS and SmokeView programs on my
Mac, and after reading both the User Guide and the Technical Reference
Guide i still can't see where i am going wrong.

I am very new to both programs, but i have used them on my windows
based PC at work, so i assumed the Mac version would run on my laptop
in a similar fashion - unfortunately this is not the case. Even when i
try to run the example files i get the following error message:

"Cannot find 32 or 64 bit FDS binary in /Applications/NIST/FDS5/bin"

I am sure there is a simple step that i have missed which is causing
this problem, hopefully someone can point me in the right direction. I
also thought it may be a hardware problem, but i'm using a new(ish)
MacBook Pro and even though the software is very demanding i would be
surprised if this is the case (certainly since my work computer can
run the example files no problem)

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Stuart Maxwell

[Kristopher Overholt]

Make sure you are using the latest bundle from the FDS-SMV downloads page. And make sure that you placed the FDS/FDS5 folder in /Applications for the launcher to work.

I made a short quickstart screencast which shows how to install the FDS bundle on Mac OS X, how to create a link to the launcher, and how to launch FDS or SMV files:

http://www.koverholt.com/FDS/fds_mac_quickstart.swf

--
Kristopher James Overholt
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Fire Protection Engineering Graduate Student
President, SFPE WPI Student Chapter
Mobile: 832.247.7507

[Stuart Maxwell]

I've followed the steps shown in the webcast and it seems to work
fine. I now have a problem with the output file - I am getting the
message saying:

*** Input archive file: couch.zip

*** Running Input File: couch.fds

But it doesn't go any further than this, instead it creates another
zip file in the examples directory, with the same name as the input
file (ie. room_fire.zip). When i open this it only contains another
".fds" file - not the smv file etc. i need.

Any ideas why this is happening?

[Kristopher Overholt]

The launcher makes a new directory for the output files, zips the original input file up for record keeping, and then runs FDS. It takes a few seconds to start, but it should give you the FDS simulation info in the window.

What happens if you type "/Applications/FDS/FDS5/bin/fds5_intel_osx_32" into Terminal (without quotes)? You should get version info for FDS if the binary is located in the correct place, and if you put the FDS (not FDS5) folder in /Applications as in the screencast, then this should be the case.

[Stuart Maxwell]

When i type "/Applications/FDS/FDS5/bin/fds5_intel_osx_32" into
Terminal I get a "bus error"

Only advice i could find on the apple support website was to delete
any other applications i had with the word "terminal" in the name,
which wasn't the case

Ever encountered this problem?

[Kristopher Overholt]

This indicates a problem with your Mac running FDS, not with the
launcher. You should open an issue on the issue tracker so the
developers can get more specifics and system information.