Red Alert 3 (Mac) Activation Failed Solution

I just got a digital copy from gametreeonline.com. Dragged the app to /Applications, updated to newest version and fired it up. And Boo ! “Activation Failed, check your internet connection” blah blah.

After messing around for an hour, I found the solution. Not only you need “administrative privileges” as described in ReadMe, you have to actually be root to run this thing ! So that’s it, login as root, or open a terminal and run

sudo /Applications/Command\ and\ Conquer\ -\ Red\ Alert\ 3.app/Contents/MacOS/CNCRA3-launcher

. The problem was caused by SecuROM which needs to do its dirty stuff with root privilege.

5 Comments

1. ryumu* — April 8, 2009 @ 4:49 pm

   I can’t activate..
   Were you able to play by the solution?

2. anon — April 9, 2009 @ 4:14 am

   Wow, I was about to buy this game online, but SecuROM is nasty stuff. I’ll be skipping this purchase for sure.

3. softboysxp — April 9, 2009 @ 2:14 pm

   Yeah I can play it now

   you can try login to root and activate the game

4. ryumu* — April 9, 2009 @ 6:26 pm

   >you can try login to root and activate the game
   i’m tried it. but i can’t activate

5. nerdii — April 21, 2009 @ 7:43 am

   I have to same problem as well.
   I tried the solution, but still can’t activate.

   EA told me to do a disk scan with Disk Utility and repair the disk.

   Don’t know if it works, coz I dun have the MacOS X installation disk on hand right now.

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