When starting StarCraft (original, not remastered or cartoon), the game loads the cinematic.
After the cinematic, I get the Mac pinwheel and the game is frozen. The only way to exit is to force quit. I’m unable to modify any StarCraft settings.
Version: 10.14.6 (18G6032) (Mojave)
MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2019)
2.6 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB
Hey, sly! Thanks for including the specs here 
Would you happen to have recently update to the new Catalina version 10.15.7? If so, did it work in the previous update?
Thanks Caterpepi! I am still on 10.14. Should I try to upgrade?
I found these messages in Macintosh HD ▸ Users ▸ (my-username) ▸ Library ▸ Application Support ▸ Blizzard ▸ StarCraft
It coincides with the pinwheel in StarCraft.
[2][AsyncStreamer]2020-09-30T10:28:38 {6639148} [INFO] - Retrying download: E-key c0e8753748a16ad8c3c2448e7c10068e, span {offset=0,size=4096}
[2][AsyncStreamer]2020-09-30T10:28:38 {6639148} [INFO] - Retrying download: E-key c0e8753748a16ad8c3c2448e7c10068e, span {offset=4096,size=127565}
[2][AsyncStreamer]2020-09-30T10:28:38 {6639148} [INFO] - Retrying download: E-key c0e8753748a16ad8c3c2448e7c10068e, span {offset=131661,size=131072}
[2][AsyncStreamer]2020-09-30T10:28:38 {6639148} [INFO] - Retrying download: E-key c0e8753748a16ad8c3c2448e7c10068e, span {offset=262733,size=107750}
[3][Decoder]2020-09-30T10:28:38 {6639148} [WARNING] - frame header mismatch (bad BLTE file)
[3][Decoder]2020-09-30T10:28:38 {6639148} [WARNING] - bad frame header for E-key 2086119a4897ccf72cfcb81081385b25
[2][EncodingHandler]2020-09-30T10:28:38 {6639148} [INFO] - scanning E-key 2086119a4897ccf72cfcb81081385b25 (C-key 58d229fc11f4035be254d59604757307, {offset=0,size=62924}) for bad data
[3][Decoder]2020-09-30T10:28:38 {6639148} [WARNING] - frame header mismatch (bad BLTE file)
[3][Decoder]2020-09-30T10:28:38 {6639148} [WARNING] - bad frame header for E-key 2086119a4897ccf72cfcb81081385b25
[3][EncodingHandler]2020-09-30T10:28:38 {6639148} [WARNING] - failed to initialize decoder for E-key 2086119a4897ccf72cfcb81081385b25: E_DATA_ERROR; invalidating entire file
[2][analytic]level=INFO|subsystem=EncodingHandler|action=make_non_resident|key=2086119a4897ccf72cfcb81081385b25
[2][AsyncStreamer]2020-09-30T10:28:38 {6639148} [INFO] - Retrying download: E-key 2086119a4897ccf72cfcb81081385b25, span {offset=0,size=4096}
That file basically gets spammed with those logs whenever I start StarCraft… I will try letting the client run for a while to see what happens.
Update: After like 5 minutes it is working I think? I can see the menu screen now.
Hey, sly! Thank you for the details here. There’s no need to upgrade, I was just seeing if there may have been any trends with the latest MacOS Catalina release.
Update: After like 5 minutes it is working I think? I can see the menu screen now.
Does it work now or does waiting 5 minutes after it launches seem to help with the issue?
Yes, it works now. It’s almost as if the initial installation failed, and during the StarCraft bootup the first time, it needed to re-download a bunch of files.
There was no notification that it was downloading additional files, it just hung there for 5-10 minutes.
To clarify, now it always loads pretty much straight away, but yeah the first time it took 5-10 minutes and just showed a blank screen with a Mac spinner.