The latest version of FieldWorks is Windows-only.
FieldWorks 9.0 was released on Linux as a flatpak package available here. No new FieldWorks versions will be released on Linux due to the complexity of the technology and our limited developer resources.
FieldWorks can be made to run on Mac and Linux using a Windows virtual machine.
On a Mac, one free virtualization option is to use UTM with Windows 11. See this video for how to run FieldWorks and other SIL software with UTM on a Mac.
The first thing to do is to check the MD5 hash tag associated with the download package. This will verify that the download completed successfully. The MD5 hash codes associated with the downloads packages are available on the download page. You can use a free tool such as
MD5 Hash Generator or
WinMD5Free to verify the hash tag against the downloaded file. If the download is incorrect, try downloading it again. If it still doesn’t work, try reinstalling.
It’s possible that something in the Windows settings files has gotten messed up. To fix this, in Windows Explorer, go to %UserProfile%\AppData\Local\SIL. Delete anything to do with FieldWorks, Language Explorer and SIL FieldWorks. Then restart FieldWorks. Hopefully that will get things going again.
It looks like an error has gotten into your data. You should be able to correct the problem by running the Find and Fix Data utility.
To run this utility:
- Open your project and make a backup. Then close your project. If you can’t open your project, save off the project directory as a backup and delete any occurrences of a file with the .lock extension in the project directory if one exists.
- Open a project *other* than the one you want to fix.
- Go to Tools → Utilities and check “Find and Fix errors etc.” Click “Run checked Utilities Now.”
- Check the project you want to fix in the list of projects that appears. Click “Fix Links.”
- If any errors are found, you will get a report of the changes.
- Click “OK” or press Enter and you should be good to go.
Try rebooting your machine. That often fixes unusual problems.
The project directory should be named the same as your project. Beginning in version 7 of FLEx, you can see its location by looking in FLEx under File → Project Management → Project Locations and Sharing. In version 9 of FLEx, you can see its location by looking in FLEx under File → Project Management → Project Locations.
The default location is C:\ProgramData\SIL\FieldWorks\Projects.
In XP, the default location is C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SIL\FieldWorks\Projects
If you use the Reset button in the Pathway Configuration tool, it is supposed to fix the problems. If not, you could try making sure everything is clean by uninstalling and making sure the two folders are gone:
C:\Program Files (x86)\SIL\Pathway
and
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\SIL\Pathway (where username is replaced with your user name)
Then reinstall Pathway and it should work.
Verify that the backup file is using the same model as the version of FieldWorks. For example, trying to restore a backup made in version 9 when using FieldWorks 8.
Most commonly this error occurs if the writing systems used by the data you are importing are not in the FLEx project you are trying to import into. If that is the problem, add the writing systems and it should work.
No, unfortunately, FieldWorks only works on the Windows and Linux operating systems. However, you can run it in a virtual machine on a Mac.
- There are three choices for virtual machine software: VirtualBox, VMware, and Parallels. VirtualBox is free; the other two cost something.
- In order to run Windows on your virtual machine, you will need to buy a Windows license from Microsoft.
- Focal and Bionic Ubuntu are supported in FieldWorks and these operating systems are available free on the web. Wasta-Linux is a distribution of Ubuntu that has been customized for language work. The SIL Linux repository is included and standard SIL fonts have been added, so that SIL applications are ready for installation from the Software Center. For more information see the Wasta-Linux FAQ page.
- Once you have set up your virtual machine, install FieldWorks just as if you were on a Windows (or Linux) machine. You are basically running Windows (or Linux) inside your Mac.