Unable to Build for MacOS Big Sur from Windows

Unity Engine
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1

I’m currently trying to build for MacOS Big Sur, and having lots of difficulties. Target Macs are Intel, not m1.

Here’s what we’ve tried so far.
Our primary dev machines are windows and primary engine version is 2019.4.14 LTS
Built for MacOS, runs fine on Catalina. When running on BigSur, we see a “unable to open application” error.

Copied over project and built it on Unity 2020.2.1f1 on the Intel + Apple silicon, as well as intel only option option and saw the same error.

Perusing some forums, I ran across this:

First command says no such app found.

I tried an Unity Cloud Build for MacOSX Universal, and that actually worked! However, the build was buggy. Lightbakes were all screwed, seeing errors that we didn’t have before, so I don’t want to use this option.

So… is there any way I can make Mono builds work for macos Big Sur or solve that app can’t be found issue.

2

Your images are broken. Looks like they link to your internal slack?

3

That’s odd. They showed up when I was editing the message…
Well here they are:

Image 1
6691258--767596--screenshot_2020-12-30_at_06.29.35.png
and image 2

6691258--767599--image (2).png
6691258--767599--image (2).png995×516 38.1 KB

4

“First command says no such app found.”

Can you show the terminal erroring out like that? Is the specified path correct?

5

That’s correct. This command was run from the right folder:

6691297--767602--Screenshot 2020-12-30 at 06.28.03.png
6691297--767602--Screenshot 2020-12-30 at 06.28.03.png1426×64 38.6 KB

6

Perhaps the file name is different? Did you try doing “ls -la intelOnly2020Build.app/Contents/MacOS”?

7

I am getting similar reports about big sur owners not being able to run the build after I upgraded from 2020.1 to 2020.2

8

Update: In my case the player solved it by reenabling “open using Rosetta” setting on Steam: No longer runs on Mac OS Big Sur after Update :: Bloody Rally Show General Discussions

9

Which version of 2020.2 are you on? Any chance “steam_api.bundle” doesn’t support Apple silicon natively and only has an x64 slice? That would cause it to not load when the application is running on Apple silicon hardware natively.

10

2020.2.0f1. Judging from the log in the steam community thread, it definitely does not support Apple silicon natively. Question is why Steam didn’t automatically detect this.

11

My guess is that you exported the game as “Intel 64-bit + Apple silicon”, so it tried running it natively because the executable was universal and it probably doesn’t look at the plugins.

12

It seems to be the case! Maybe because “Intel 64-bit + Apple silicon” seems to be set as default architecture since 2020.2? I build from editor script, so never really check the build settings window.

Also if it helps anyone, after the upgrade there was a Steamworks.NET issue where steam_api.bundle was not copied over the the build (I am building OSX app from Windows, in case it matters). A partial workaround is described here: Issue with OSX builds in Unity 2020.2 (steam_api.bundle does not get copied to .app plugins) · Issue #393 · rlabrecque/Steamworks.NET · GitHub
Still haven’t figured out the exact cause why running a build creates an override with steam_api.bundle set to Intel-64bit, but now I think these could be related.

13

If a plugin is configured as “Intel 64-bit only” and you’re building for “Intel 64-bit + Apple silicon”, it will not get copied over. And yeah, “Intel 64-bit + Apple silicon” is the default now so that games work on the new hardware natively.

14

See this comment: Issue with OSX builds in Unity 2020.2 (steam_api.bundle does not get copied to .app plugins) · Issue #393 · rlabrecque/Steamworks.NET · GitHub
It actually was copied over when building with “Intel 64-bit + Apple silicon” (due to AnyCPU setting?)

15

Yup, if a plugin is configured as AnyCPU, it will get copied to all builds no matter what architecture you target with your build.