getting (old) iPatch patches to work in Leopard

There are some no dvd or hardware check disabling patches for Mac OS X games that aren’t working anymore in Leopard, crashing on start if not launched with rosetta and failing the verification of SHA1 checksums for the files to be patched even if they are the correct version. Some examples for this issue are the patches for Civilization IV and Call of Duty 2 for Mac OS X released by… (argh i have to check this at home).

As I found out, in order to fix them download iPatch 3.7.1 from http://www.ipatch.org/US/index.html and then explore the package’s content. You will find under /Contents/Resources an app called iPatcher, explore that file’s content again by right clicking and find a nice unix executable-style file named, you’ll never guess it, ipatcher under /Contents/MacOS/. You’ll need to copy this file over to the /Contents/MacOS folder inside the patch application package, overwriting the old ipatcher (size 204 or 208 kb) with the new one (size 212kb).

Now launch the game patcher thus modified and voilá, it will happily patch away.

Thanks to the author of those patches whose name i will add here in a couple of hours.

36 thoughts on “getting (old) iPatch patches to work in Leopard

  1. Well,the new ipatch’s execute file is named IPATCH and the olds is named IPATCHER.AND IT DOESNT WORK.DIDNT TRY TO RENAME IT

  2. hi, when exploring the contents of the iPatch package (app) from the iPatch3.7.1.dmg, you need to navigate to Contents/Resources/iPatcher which is another app package. Explore the contents of that one and you’ll find the ipatcher file you need by going to Contents/MacOS.

    The problem you encountered happens because you did go to /Contents/MacOS of the iPatch app package which was on the dmg.

    hope this helps.

  3. Hi — took your advice and looked into the patch for Knights of the Old Republic.. to get it to play no-cd on leopard. Under resources, the patch didn’t have the ipatch.. it only had it under contents/macos. suggestions?

  4. Hi Sarah, the file under /contents/MacOS in the crack app package should be named “ipatcher”.
    The resources folder you mention is in the iPatcher 3.7.1 package, the one you need to explore in order to get the new ipatcher to copy over the old ipatcher in the crack app package. Hope this helps, let me know if not.

  5. thank you soooooo much!!

    i did the same thing sdf did but i got it figured out after a while

    now i can play kotor

    thanks again

  6. it wont let me move the iPatcher file…says that MacOS cannot be modified? suggestions?

  7. I found the ipatcher unix file. but it won’t let me put it back into the original contents/macOS folder. am i missing something? help would be greatly appreciated.

  8. so for original… you select ipatch.app
    for checksum you select contents/resources/ipatcher/contents/macos/ipather
    what do u select for modified…?
    im having trouble replacing the old ipatcher in the crack with the new one

  9. crack works fine with phikappa´s instruction BUT: app crashes while running when i try to store shots….everytime….any idea? sys: leopard
    thanx

  10. sebastien, make sure that you have write permissions on the crack app package. are you trying to modify it while the file is on a DMG image?

    wilson: retrace the instructions carefully. all you need is the original crack application and the iPatcher app. You need to replace the ipatcher file you can find in the crack with the one you find inside another app package that is inside the iPatcher app

    bugusnot: maybe the game you patched is not compatible with Leopard… that could always be the case.

  11. I followed all instructions, but in the ipatch/contents/macos folder the executable is called “ipatch”
    In the ipatcher/contents/macos folder the executable is “ipatcher”
    When you copy from one folder to the other, nothing is replaced, it merely has two unix executables now “ipatch” and “ipatcher”. Do I have to rename one of them to make the overwrite work? If so, which one? Or do I just delete the original “ipatch” executable, and put the “ipatcher” executable in there and call it a day?

  12. I do not even know how to explore the downloaded iPatch, and I cannot find the iPatcher app at all under contents/MacOS or contents/resources. any help?

  13. Scratch that, I figured out how to get to the ipatch file in the download, but I cannot find it in the actual game folder, for KOTOR. Can anybody help me out with that?

  14. Okay, so I found the iPatcher file in the crack, and replaced it with the one from the download. When I try running the crack with the new file, it says “select kotor app” and when I do it says it cannot be used on that file. What did I do wrong?

  15. OMG I got it! I just need to read more carefully when it is so damn late. I was trying to update the wrong file. Okay, thanks!

  16. I’m a mac newb running snow leopard. I’m not able to patch kotor with its no cd updater. Can you help me with this by uploading the patch? thanks

  17. hey im trying to crack kotor and the ipatch thing comes up and says kotor updater and it tells me to click the drop down box and i go to click the patch and it says that “you cant apply this patch on this file!” what do i do/

  18. I DID EVERYTHING YOU SAID AND I HAVE AN ERROR THAT SAYS “FILE CANNOT BE PATCHED” CAN I GET SOME HELP..THE GAME IS CIVILIZATION 4..

  19. I DID EVERYTHING YOU SAID AND I HAVE AN ERROR THAT SAYS “CANNOT APPLY PATCH ON THIS FILE” CAN I GET SOME HELP..THE GAME IS CIVILIZATION 4..

  20. Hey I made the adjustment based on your instructions just today and it worked great. Thank you for your time and dedication.

  21. you sir, have made my year…I could never get kotor to work on my mac after I lost the cd. I got a crack and that didn’t work until now. awesome!!!!

  22. Hi, I’m trying to get this working for Knights of the Old Republic on my Macbook (Snow Leopard). Can you run this through step-by-step? It doesn’t seem to work for me. I put the “iPatch” application on my desktop after extracting it from the DMG, right-clicked and said “look at package contents”, and took the iPatcher from Contents/Resources/iPatcher. Then, I went into the Knights of the Old Republic folder to the “KOTOR 1.0.3D NoDVD UBCrack”, right-clicked it, pressed “show package contents”, went to MacOS, and I put the iPatcher there. However, it’s still not launching. It will open and immediately close after. Can I get some help, please? Thanks for the patience, I am DYING to play this!

  23. Hi, I’m trying to get this working for Knights of the Old Republic on my Macbook (Snow Leopard). Can you run this through step-by-step? It doesn’t seem to work for me. I put the “iPatch” application on my desktop after extracting it from the DMG, right-clicked and said “look at package contents”, and took the iPatcher from Contents/Resources/iPatcher. Then, I went into the Knights of the Old Republic folder to the “KOTOR 1.0.3D NoDVD UBCrack”, right-clicked it, pressed “show package contents”, went to MacOS, and I put the iPatcher there. However, it’s still not launching. It will open and immediately close after. Can I get some help, please? Thanks for the patience, I am DYING to play this!

  24. NEVERMIND! Got it. I didn’t explore twice. Thank you thank you. You are a GENIUS!

  25. Hey. So I was getting an error message that Civilization cannot be opened because of a problem when I ran the crack package. After replacing the ipatcher as you mentioned, when I double click on the crack package nothing happens. Any suggestions?
    Thanks!

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