HISE build fails on MacOS - Proper protocols and recommended Xcode versions

[HISEnberg]

Hi everyone,

I just received a new Mac for work (M2 Pro, Sonoma 14.3) but am experiencing challenges in building HISE on my system (both from the Master and Develop branches). I started by building on the latest version of Xcode (15.2). The build of HISE was successful but each time I try to compile my plugin I receive some error of Cycle in dependencies (Error build failed on Mac).

Digging into the issue a bit further I noticed many HISE users experiencing similar issues with Xcode 15 (Warning Xcode 15). The recommendation seems to be using a different versions of Xcode (like Xcode 14.3.1, following @DanH 's example in the previous post). However, each time I open the Projucer I receive the warning that "The path to your JUCE folder is incorrect", even if I try manually setting them in the global path. Furthermore, when building the project in Xcode the build consistently fails and cannot locate the modules.

I thought this might be related to a security protocol on mac since I receive endless popups of "Projucer.app would like to access files in your Documents folder.". I followed this
JUCE forum of changing my security settings and "Automatically manage signing" but still no dice (I am guessing that Xcode 14 is not supported on Sonoma? )

I am curious if anyone else is experiencing similar issues still and what your recommendations/solutions around this issue are. Is there a solution for Xcode 15 HISE-builds?

On a side note, I see that IPP is no longer supported for MacOS. I noticed in this post (example) that vDSP is recommended. I am just curious if anyone can explain the proper protocol for including this library in the HISE build?

[Oli Ullmann]

@HISEnberg
I am also always shown that my JUCE path is not correct. However, I can still compile HISE. Have you tried to compile HISE despite the error message?

[HISEnberg]

@Oli-Ullmann Yes sorry if that was not clear. When I compile the build fails as there is no connection to any of the modules files included in the project. This specifically only happens on any versions of Xcode less than 15. I am not sure if it is a security trigger which is blocking access to them (since it seems to look in the right location) or some incompatibility issue of Xcode 14 with Sonoma. I understand though, when I am on PC I typically ignore these issues and have no problem building in VisualStudio.

[Oli Ullmann]

@HISEnberg
Ah ok, I see. Sorry, but I don't have a solution for that right now. I'll keep my fingers crossed that you can solve the problem quickly!

[HISEnberg]

@Christoph-Hart , any chance you are able to recall how you resolved this?
(Xcode 15)

[Christoph Hart]

@aaronventure discovered that it's the plugin copy step that's causing the issue. I've disabled the copy step on Sonoma now so that it compiles without having to modify the Projucer file.

[DanH]

@Christoph-Hart so Xcode 15 is good to go?

[Christoph Hart]

@DanH yes. You just need to copy the plugin files manually to the plugin folders. Apple.

[DanH]

@Christoph-Hart from the release folder you mean? that's fine!

[Christoph Hart]

@DanH yes.

[d.healey]

@Christoph-Hart I prefer that actually, it always annoys me when I go to the folder to get the binary and all I find is a symlink.

[Christoph Hart]

@d-healey in CI mode (when exporting with the export_ci command) it skipped this step too (so you can grab the compiled binaries as a relative path from your installer script within your project folder).

[DanH]

@d-healey @Christoph-Hart I also prefer this

[HISEnberg]

@Christoph-Hart My man that is amazing thank you for taking that issue on and resolving it so quickly! My team really appreciates your dedication on resolving these issues for us.

I am a bit ignorant when it comes to Mac OS, but does anyone know where I can find the plugin files (.au, .vst, etc.)? The compiler seems to work and I see the build folder inside Binaries>Build>MacOSX but can't find the actual files. I know Im overlooking something simple but I don't develop on mac too often. (EDIT: They showed up in Release subfolder, for some reason it took a couple tries for them to show up there).

Lastly, anyone with experiencing building HISE with the vDSP library (or another FFT that is not Intel's IPP) I would love to know how you went about it (my project contains convolution so I am sure this will help optimize performance)! I can also make a separate post about this topic.

[d.healey]

@HISEnberg You don't need to do anything special on Mac regarding FFT, as far as I'm aware it will automatically use Apple's FFT thingy that comes with xcode.

[HISEnberg]

@d-healey Thanks for clarifying!

[clevername27]

@HISEnberg Just general advice on anyone starting with HISE and building on macOS: Don't change anything in the configuration. Compile the default project EXACTLY as it comes, and it will compile (other than the X15 issue, though that's resolved now.).

[HISEnberg]

@clevername27 Thank you for the tip! Can confirm that Xcode15 is compiling just fine in AU and VST formats.