Maxwell Render | Official public forum

SketchUp's WebDialog is not compatible with Microsoft Silverlight 5.0, when running on Mac OSX. In order to run the plugin on this operating system, it is necessary to make sure you are not running this version of Microsoft Silverlight. Below are instructions on how to ensure that your machine is running Silverlight 4.

1. Open OSX Finder and navigate to Macintosh HD/Library/Internet Plug-Ins.
2. If Silverlight.plugin is present , trash it, empty the Trash, and reboot the machine.
3. Install Microsoft Silverlight 4: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID= ... .0.60310.0

These are the official steps provided by Microsoft. We have seen cases in which they do not work (e.g. after performing them, the Silverlight 4.0 installer complains that a newer version is installed and refuses to complete its own installation), and if that is the case on your machine, please see the third topic on this page for more ideas.

Note that these instructions may also be useful in the case that any unexpected error occurs when you attempt to open the plugin’s Scene Manager or Maxwell Fire windows, even when you have not installed Microsoft Silverlight 5; we have seen cases, mostly on Mac OSX, where Silverlight had become corrupted on the machine, which were fixed by reinstalling, using the above steps.

Technical Info:

This is a complete show-stopper on Mac OSX machines; it appears that the way SketchUp creates its web browser window is inherently incompatible with the Silverlight 5 implementation. Technically, what happens is that code in Silverlight is unable to communicate with JavaScript code running in the browser -- when it attempts to do so, the Silverlight runtime experiences a fatal error. The only solution is to avoid calling between Silverlight and JavaScript; while this prevents the error, it also prevents the UI from being able to communicate with the rest of the plugin.

I often get a dialog pop up about a silverlight update. I always accept and presume it is happening in the background. However due to this warning i checked the plugin it is still at v3. What is the method to update normally, do i need to visit the silverlight website normally ? (i'm on osx lion)

If you want to update to Silverlight 4, you can do that by clicking on one of the links (they are identical) in the original post. However, as stated above, the plugin is built for Silverlight 3, so unless you have a good reason for updating, I would just leave it alone.

Does this mean you will have to rewrite the plugin for OSX for it to work without Silverlight ?

Not sure about that yet, we will have to see if Google can fix the incompatibility on their end or not. On the same machine, the plugin's UI works fine on SL5 in a normal instance of Safari, but not in SketchUp's web dialog, so technically, it can be made to work. I'm working up a simplified repro case that should help them understand the nature of the issue.

Any news on this?
Unfortunately I installed Silverlight 5 on my Mac training Laptop and have no chance to go back to Version4
I proofed the HD and user path for everything includes Silverlight. Microsoft folders, Internet Plugin...
No chance, it always tell me cannot install because of a newer Version already installed.

Hopefully there will be a solution

Yes, and the news is: I am currently rewriting the plugin UI to not use Silverlight. In the meantime, there is no solution, other than to install Silverlight 4. Hopefully you can do that using the tips given in the third item here: http://support.nextlimit.com/display/knfaq/Sketchup

Well it does.
This tip was really useful, because the terminal could not find these hidden files. Macintosh HD/private/var/db/receipts

Thanks Jason!

I'm glad to hear it -- some people have had a lot of trouble with the process; that's where those tips came from. Here on my machine, I actually have both versions installed side by side (for purposes of testing & diagnosis), and can easily switch between them just by dragging the desired Silverlight.plugin into the Internet Plug-Ins folder. But of course, software always works flawlessly on dev machines.

Yep I'm really glad
I call you Jason but meant JD of course...or is Jason part of JD?

Yes, I figured that -- my J is for Jeremy.

Are there any plans to update to Silverlight 5 or dump it altogether?

The plugin works fine with Silverlight 5 -- it's SketchUp (on OSX only) that doesn't. Option B is in progress.