Troubleshooting on macOS

Your saves live in ~/Library/Application Support/FasterThanLight.

Library is hidden by default

Open your home folder in Finder and press Cmd + Shift + . to show hidden files, or press Cmd + Shift + G and paste the path.

Coming from the old wrapper?

The wrapper saved to ~/Documents/My Games/FTL Faster Than Light instead. If your progress looks missing afterwards, see migrating your saves before treating it as corruption.

macOS blocked the app

Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to the bottom, and click Open Anyway. On older macOS versions, right-click the app and choose Open.

The game will not start after a manual install

You almost certainly skipped the signing step. Run it again:

1. Open Terminal.

2. Paste this in, then press the space bar:

   codesign -f -s - --timestamp=none --all-architectures --deep

3. Drag FTL.app from Finder into the Terminal window. Its full path is filled in for you, so there is nothing to type.

4. Press Return.

Launch the app directly

Starting FTL through Steam bypasses the patched app bundle. Open FTL.app yourself.

The game crashes before loading Multiverse

Make sure you are on the latest Hyperspace. The Multiverse installer is frequently behind, and this is by far the most common cause.

If you are on a laptop with both integrated and dedicated graphics, try forcing FTL onto one or the other.

If neither applies, your save file is corrupt, see below.

The game hangs while loading Multiverse

It stops on the last E of the Multiverse logo, or the screen freezes while the music keeps playing. Both mean the same thing: your save file is corrupt, see below.

Clearing a corrupt save, on Steam

On Steam, start here. Steam Cloud is usually what corrupted the save in the first place. Turning it off and backing up the original Vanilla FTL save is the only way to prevent it from happening again.

Right-click FTL: Faster Than Light in your library and open Properties.

Show me how to open Properties

Under General, untick Keep game saves in the Steam Cloud. Turn off Steam Cloud first. It restores outdated saves with broken state, which can keep Hyperspace from launching and will undo any save fix you try later.

Show me the checkbox

Then under Updates, set automatic updates to Only update this game when I launch it.

Steam will undo your install

If Steam updates FTL it replaces the patched game files, and Hyperspace stops loading.

Your saves live in ~/Library/Application Support/FasterThanLight.

Library is hidden by default

Open your home folder in Finder and press Cmd + Shift + . to show hidden files, or press Cmd + Shift + G and paste the path.

Rename FasterThanLight to FasterThanLight-backup, then launch FTL. The game makes a fresh folder, and your original saves stay in the backup if you ever want them back.

Do this once, right after turning Steam Cloud off. Cloud sync leaves behind a save that Hyperspace cannot read, which freezes the game at the end of the loading bar.

Repairing a corrupt save by hand

Slower than starting clean, but it keeps your progress. On Steam, turn Steam Cloud off first, as above, or it will corrupt the save again.

1. Open your save folder and locate hs_mv_prof.sav and hs_mv_version.sav.

2. Delete hs_mv_version.sav.

3. Move hs_mv_prof.sav somewhere else. Do not delete it.

4. Launch the game, let it reach the main menu, then quit.

5. Move your original hs_mv_prof.sav back, replacing the one the game just made.

Still stuck? Ask in the Hyperspace channels on the Multiverse Discord.

macOS problems also have their own channel there: #mac-support. Say which macOS version you are on, whether you used the installer or installed by hand, and where you bought FTL.