It froze on mine as well and i cant even play the cell stage cuz my creature is not visible!!!

worked fine for me
imac 640 gigs 4 gig ram 3.63 mhz
no problems

This patch is a joke, just like the rest of EA's ridiculous customer support system. It's all insane, you can never get any answers with them!

I tried to patch and the patch installer hangs at 90%... then I get a beach ball. So I force quit and try launching the game- it end up freezing or crashing or hanging up at seemingly random intervals, rendering the game pretty much unplayable. So, I spent 47 minutes on hold with EA phone support, who told me to uninstall Spore. I did it, and again the patch f**ked up and I'm left with a dead game.

I hate you EA... I hate you so much sometimes.

yes, i have had the same thing happen to my mac. the patching locks up my computer and won't allow me to do anything. I have to do a complete reboot. This sucks for $49.95!

I patched my spore game but now I have a game with no sound. I am not the only one. I payed over $80.00 for a game that has no sound!! What also bothers me is that Spore is not running native on my machine. I am basically playing an emulator!!
That is not cool... If EA wants to place games on MAC they need to be designed that way! Blizzard does this with very little problem.

I've been in a shaky relationship with EA for a while, but this may be the last straw.

I have windows xp and when i download the update it works fine but when i install it the computer freezes up and i have to force shutdown

I keep getting the message that says
Unhandled page fault on read access to XXXXXXXXXXXX
at address 0x009527ea.
(The first one is always different)
Then it asks me if I want to debug it, Yes or No?
I click yes then it shuts down the game.

I need help PLZ!!!!!

The same thing happened to me when i tried to patch. The installer hung at 90% and had to force quit. Now the game freezes up and I'm unable to play. If EA does not fix this, I'm seriously gonna be pissed cause i don't want to use another install because of the stupid DRM.

I'm not much of a gamer and have so far loved SPORE but this update is the most troublesome software update I've encountered in my 7+ years of using a Mac. I am registered, logged in, and have the necessary EA update software, it downloads the patch says that is installing then launches a dialogue box that tells me that files have been modified and I have to reinstall. (On a game with DRM points! argh) I have NEVER HAD TO REINSTALL a program on a Mac. Ever. Needless to say after reading other posts I am not re-installing, I will never buy software from EA again.

The download got to 95% then went down to 90% ten quit and mad the game unusable (The game cannot find the necessary data to run) Reinstallation may be necessary. Thanks alot EA you screwed it up again

I am having the same problem with mine as well. Gets to about 95% done, then freezes on the installer. This is completely ridiculous for a software patch to be so broken it can't finish itself. There is no reason why this should be happening, what - so - ever.

I'm not sure if the patch has installed or not. I don't ever recall being prompted to install the patch - maybe it happened just after I bought the game and I didn't realize. Anyway - My Spore has stopped working. Get an error 'Exception Raised' when trying to start game. I have over 80 hours of game play and now its just stopped working. Logged a call with EA - no response. Loads of people seem to have this problem. It's the only game I have ever installed on my Mac and only game I have ever bought from EA. NOT IMPRESSED.

spore cell stage - creature is not visible when i start up too. i thought i was the only one going crazy. emailed EA support and they told me to free up all my ram and shut down all sorts of programs running in the background that normally came with my computer. so stupid. i just bought a new macbook with 2 GIG ram and 2.4 gHz processor... why do i have to free up my memory for this?

I'm running XP on a Dell inspiron 530.
The unpatched game worked perfectly except for some planets taking
a while to texture/color themselves in in the solar sytem view.

patch one worked fine.
patch two crashes spore in space stage on entering a planets atmosphere
and sometimes causes a total PC crash/freeze

this is the first software that has managed to crash my stable computer.

I also get that same screen that asks me if i want to debug. I've tried both answers and they both shut down the game. So far it's been a bad start. Someone please help!

just wait 30 minutes or so when the patsch says that it is forzen. it worked for me. then the game will start. the next problem is how to get my soubd back :P

During the first install I was asked to update and it crashed. I reinstalled and choose not to update and it ran that evening. Now a week later it won't start. It keeps unexpectedly quitting. Go to the Spore site for support, what a joke. Be patient for and update but they had not problem selling a buggy product. I don't even see any explanation of the problem I am experiencing. I am running this on a MacBook Air.

My CPU stats:
MacPro tower
Two Dual-Core Intel Xeon Processors - 2.66 GHz
6Gb RAM, 1Tb total HD capacity
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT
OSX (10.5.5)

The problem: On launching SPORE, the screen shows the white SPORE splash window, then the monitor goes black per normal, then after a few seconds, snaps back to the desktop with a diaglog box captioned as follows:

Exception raised

Unhandled page fault on write access to 0x00000018 at address 0x00ac51f1.
Do you wish to debug it? (Yes/no)

Clicking on either yes or no bombs SPORE and dumps me back into the Finder.

When the 2nd patch was released the new patch/update did download and went through the installation process flawlessly, but did not correct the problem. The same error dialog box comes up and SPORE bombs. I have not reinstalled because I am afraid of wiping out my star empire (occupying nearly one whole arm of the SPORE galaxy - watch out GROX!) of over 100 hours of game play.

I decided to bite the bullet, uninstall & reinstall SPORE (wiping out my star empire in the process). The install went fine. I then launched and let the 1st update download and install. Then the 2nd update attempted to run, but it froze before the download even began... so I force quit and relaunched SPORE, and the 2nd update started downloading. The update completes, and the white/gray SPORE splash screen come us, black screen... and just when the EA spash screen should come up, the finder comes back and the same dialog box appears with the same error after reinstalling.

This has to be, hands down, the WORST piece of software ever written for the Mac, and I've been a Mac user since they came out on the market in 1984! The Mac/OSX programmers at EA could definitely learn a lot fromthe folks at Blizzard. Even Google could teach you how to program the Mac - just look at Google Sketchup Pro for the Mac!!!

So far I've purchased over $100 worth of non-functional software from a company whom obviously doesn't care if their product even works, so long as the revenue stream keep flowing. I'll never buy a EA product again, and am serious considering putting together another class action lawsuit against EA.

After I downloaded the patch I can not play my game anymore. I never had any problems before. I'm in space stage and I had just found earth and saved before I downloaded the patch. Now the game crashes after 1 or 2 minutes and I get a message saying unhandled page fault on write access to 0x000000something.. do you wish to debug it? (yes or no, nothing helps). I've restarted the game 5 times now and the same thing happens. Is it because of the patch or is there some kind of bug when getting to earth?

I have a macbook Pro and was getting the "RAISED EXCEPTION" problem and had no sound before that. I reinstalled 4 times with no change. Super frustrating.

Here is what I did:
1. I went to this location:"UsersYourUserNameLibraryPreferences" on my macbook Pro.

2. I dragged the "SPORE Preferences" folder out onto the desktop (so I could put it back if I needed to).

3. I then started up Spore like normal (Application folder/Spore)

4. It asked me for my serial number which I put in.

5. It then asked me if I wanted to update. I pressed "No."

6. It took a moment, but the game started up WITH SOUND!

7. Now I play!

-------------------
I tried just removing the Game0 folder/stars.db down in my saved games and it did NOT fix the problem.

Thanks, JJ. I followed your recommendations and now my KID can play HIS game again. The game ran fine for me but my son (who bought it) couldn't play the game. I'm not sure EA is on the path to success. With this game, they've alienated another member of their core audience. This is sad.

I've been having trouble with my game so I tried this, but now none of my saved games are showing up in the main menu. I know they never got deleted, I just dragged the SPORE preferences folder onto the desktop. It seems that all my saved data is gone. How do you fix this?

I had the exact same issue. Trying to reinstall noe but ordered online so don't have media (didn't keep the original .dmg file) - this means another 4GB download! I hope a reinstall works. Prior to the patch
Spore had stopped working (wouldn't open), haven't been able to play for 2 months, total waste of time and money. EA support seems to pretend this issue doesn't exist on their website too, frustrating and unacceptable.

I had 10 gb left on my hard drive, I repeatedly attempted to download and install the patch and now i have 256 mb left and the update didn't work. what awful crap, how to get rid of this??

Mine donwloads just fine but then before installing it does some sort of file check and guess what? It seems to be downloading PC files? It gets stuck trying to verify an exe file. Macs don't usually know what to do with exe files. Where has my MAC PATCH gone??

(here's a screenshot)
http://twitpic.com/pizs

Listen. I bought the expensive version of Spore hoping I would get the best flawless option for my mac notebook how can it be that I pay $80 for a game that offers nothign but deception? Mr. Right.....you and your team are wrong if you cheat us with something still not perfect when you say this game is the best of the best, Not anymore with me. I am out.

I have a Mac—the same thing happens to me. When I start the game, it asks if I want to download the patch. I download it, but then it says it wasn't able to download. I just gave up and tried to play the game, but my cell was not visible, there was just water. I tried a few times but the same thing happened! What should I do?

"I have a Mac—the same thing happens to me. When I start the game, it asks if I want to download the patch. I download it, but then it says it wasn't able to download. I just gave up and tried to play the game, but my cell was not visible, there was just water. I tried a few times but the same thing happened! What should I do?"

Yeh i have the EXACT same problem! Could someone please help! I really want to play this game.

So, I downloaded this game from EA not noticing it was only a PC download. My fault. I went through all the crap with customer service and eventually got them to tell me i could have my money back. I havent gotten it yet but well see. Then i went to gametree and downloaded it there. It took about 8 hours to download and i finally went to install it and everything worked out okay. Then i started the game and it asked me to dwnload the upgrade and patch, I did so and then it told me to download another so i did that too. Well it froze at about 90% the first time then the second time i walked away to let it finish and i had some window up saying i needed to reinstall so i did. I started the game again and it kept asking if i wanted to download the patch over and over. I thought i already did it do i pushed no cause i didnt want to go through that again. Well it doesnt pop up anymore and iver started playing and it works just fine EXCEPT i cannot see my character when i try to build it. Its so annoying. Im building these ugly characters with 10,000 eyes blind and i cant get the freaking eyes off. I feel like i need that patch to make it work but i dont know if i want to download it cause it screws everything up i hear. What do i do? i thing my graphics card is not supported but why cant i play the entire game but not see that one build a creature screen. Its the stupidest thing ever. And if youre going to make a new game, make it work on new computers like my macbook.

My problem was that the creature creator was black. So I tried to download the patch. At first the patch would download, then say something about modified files. I reinstalled. Then it would only get to varying degrees of download before shutting down, finally it downloaded. Then it was stuck at 95% patching for 10 minutes then had an error. I can't believe with all of the problems, all the threads about problems on spore help, that EA refuses to allevieate any of the problems. It really is annoying to pay so much for so little.

Alright, I have Spore and am running it on a Macbook Pro and couldn't get the updater to even start so this is what I did:

1) go to: /Applications/SPORE/
2) right click on the spore app and select "Show Package Contents"
3) go to Contents/MacOS
4) doubleclick tgUpdate

console then opens the updater and it installs and runs without a problem and sound!

I was shocked to see this thing started in October 2008!
I googled my problem, and apparently, it has been around for ages. And it got worse, Galactic Adventures won't start ether! Over €100 spend on a game with extra's, and the game company does not feel the need to help out their Mac user base, nor to inform them seriously about what is going wrong. Shame on EA!! Shame!
Mark

Spore running on MAC is awesome but there used to be lot of issue.

Installed/patched/running great on 2009 iMac and 2006 iMac.

Noticed during the first "Update available, install?" prompt, that it "appears" to hang around 90% with the beachball of doom. But after taking a shower/getting a sandwich, the first big update verifies and literally rewrites the entire package files. Just takes a long time. Also, after the first big patch, the later patches actually display a second progress bar, showing you what it's actually overwriting.

Runs like a dream on the '09 Mac (ATI HD4850 vid card, 4gb RAM). Runs a bit choppy, but absolutely playable on the '06 iMac (128 MB ATI X1600 vid card, 4gb RAM (only 3gb recognized)).

Still sad Sims 2 broke with OS 10.4.11.