This page contains known issues and workarounds related to running Unity and games made in Unity on Apple silicon hardware and/or macOS Big Sur operating system. Note that native Apple silicon support for the player was added in Unity 2020.2.0a21. We plan to release an alpha version of the editor that runs on Apple silicon hardware natively in Q2 2021.
Unity player issues
Fixed issues
Known issue: macOS Apple silicon standalone player builds with Mono scripting backend crash shortly after launching them with this callstack:
* thread #1, queue = 'com.apple.main-thread', stop reason = EXC_BAD_ACCESS (code=1, address=0x0)
* frame #0: 0x0000000196f1e748 libsystem_platform.dylib`_platform_memset_pattern16 + 296
frame #1: 0x00000001228ef448 libmonobdwgc-2.0.dylib`mono_arch_create_sdb_trampoline + 132
frame #2: 0x0000000122891254 libmonobdwgc-2.0.dylib`mini_get_breakpoint_trampoline + 80
frame #3: 0x00000001228e3c40 libmonobdwgc-2.0.dylib`mono_arch_init + 68
frame #4: 0x000000012280d378 libmonobdwgc-2.0.dylib`mini_init + 664
frame #5: 0x0000000100e845b4 UnityPlayer.dylib`InitializeMonoFromMain(dynamic_array<core::basic_string<char, core::StringStorageDefault<char> >, 0ul> const&, core::basic_string<char, core::StringStorageDefault<char> >, core::basic_string<char, core::StringStorageDefault<char> >, int, char const**, bool) + 1260
frame #6: 0x0000000100e901d8 UnityPlayer.dylib`LoadAndInitializeMono(dynamic_array<core::basic_string<char, core::StringStorageDefault<char> >, 0ul> const&, core::basic_string<char, core::StringStorageDefault<char> > const&, core::basic_string<char, core::StringStorageDefault<char> >, core::basic_string<char, core::StringStorageDefault<char> > const&, int, char const**, bool (*)()) + 196
frame #7: 0x0000000101737ba4 UnityPlayer.dylib`LoadScriptingRuntime(core::basic_string<char, core::StringStorageDefault<char> > const&, core::basic_string<char, core::StringStorageDefault<char> > const&, int, char**) + 840
frame #8: 0x0000000101737f04 UnityPlayer.dylib`SetupUnityPlayer(int, char**) + 124
frame #9: 0x0000000101732368 UnityPlayer.dylib`-[PlayerAppDelegate applicationDidFinishLaunching:] + 568
frame #10: 0x0000000197075374 CoreFoundation`__CFNOTIFICATIONCENTER_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER__ + 28
frame #11: 0x000000019711469c CoreFoundation`___CFXRegistrationPost_block_invoke + 52
frame #12: 0x0000000197114608 CoreFoundation`_CFXRegistrationPost + 440
frame #13: 0x000000019704472c CoreFoundation`_CFXNotificationPost + 708
frame #14: 0x0000000197c2281c Foundation`-[NSNotificationCenter postNotificationName:object:userInfo:] + 64
frame #15: 0x0000000199891c24 AppKit`-[NSApplication _postDidFinishNotification] + 340
frame #16: 0x0000000199891948 AppKit`-[NSApplication _sendFinishLaunchingNotification] + 236
frame #17: 0x000000019988eafc AppKit`-[NSApplication(NSAppleEventHandling) _handleAEOpenEvent:] + 580
frame #18: 0x000000019988e6fc AppKit`-[NSApplication(NSAppleEventHandling) _handleCoreEvent:withReplyEvent:] + 780
frame #19: 0x0000000197c4eed0 Foundation`-[NSAppleEventManager dispatchRawAppleEvent:withRawReply:handlerRefCon:] + 344
frame #20: 0x0000000197c4ed08 Foundation`_NSAppleEventManagerGenericHandler + 96
frame #21: 0x000000019d142ca0 AE`___lldb_unnamed_symbol71$AE + 1828
frame #22: 0x000000019d1424fc AE`___lldb_unnamed_symbol70$AE + 44
frame #23: 0x000000019d13afb4 AE`aeProcessAppleEvent + 520
frame #24: 0x000000019f206a14 HIToolbox`AEProcessAppleEvent + 68
frame #25: 0x0000000199888a80 AppKit`_DPSNextEvent + 1664
frame #26: 0x0000000199887148 AppKit`-[NSApplication(NSEvent) _nextEventMatchingEventMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 1300
frame #27: 0x00000001998793d8 AppKit`-[NSApplication run] + 600
frame #28: 0x000000019984bb80 AppKit`NSApplicationMain + 1064
frame #29: 0x0000000101738e78 UnityPlayer.dylib`PlayerMain(int, char const**) + 1004
frame #30: 0x0000000196e7094c libdyld.dylib`start + 4
Issue tracker: Unity Issue Tracker - macOS Apple silicon Standalone player with Mono scripting backend crashes on macOS Big Sur beta 6
Workaround: None at this time. Use IL2CPP scripting backend if you need your builds to run.
Expected resolution: The issue is fixed in 2020.2.0b14 and 2021.1.0a5.
Known issue: macOS Apple silicon standalone player non-development builds don’t launch on Apple silicon hardware. You will be greeted with a dialog like this:
Workaround: This happens because non-development build binary signatures are corrupted. You can re-sign them yourself for now:
codesign -s - -f ./<buildname>.app/Contents/Frameworks/UnityPlayer.dylib
codesign -s - -f ./<buildname>.app/Contents/Frameworks/GameAssembly.dylib // Only on IL2CPP scripting backend
codesign -s - -f ./<buildname>.app/Contents/Frameworks/mono-2.0-bdwgc.dylib // Only on Mono scripting backend
codesign -s - -f ./<buildname>.app/Contents/Frameworks/MonoPosixHelper.dylib // Only on Mono scripting backend
codesign -s - -f ./<buildname>.app/Contents/MacOS/<gamename>
Expected resolution: The issue is fixed in 2020.2.0b14 and 2021.1.0a9.
Known issue: macOS Apple silicon standalone player builds don’t launch on Apple silicon devkits running macOS Big Sur beta 6. You will be greeted with a dialog like this:
Workaround: This happens because Unity’s binaries are not currently signed. You can sign them yourself for now:
codesign -s - -f ./<buildname>.app/Contents/Frameworks/UnityPlayer.dylib
codesign -s - -f ./<buildname>.app/Contents/Frameworks/GameAssembly.dylib // This is only needed if you're using an older version of Xcode 12 beta. You don't need it if you use Xcode 12 beta 6 or newer.
codesign -s - -f ./<buildname>.app/Contents/MacOS/<gamename>
Expected resolution: This is fixed in 2020.2.0b5 for Apple silicon builds and in 2020.2.0b9 for universal builds.
Unity editor issues
Known issue: macOS Big Sur beta 10 and later hangs on Apple silicon hardware when using the Unity editor
Issue tracker: https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/product/unity/issues/guid/1285304/
Workaround: None at this time.
Expected resolution: The fix landed to 2021.1.0a7, 2020.2.0b12, 2020.1.15f1, 2019.4.16f1 and 2018.4.30f1. [Note that there have been initial reports that the fix is only functional on macOS 11.0 and not macOS 11.1 beta. ]( Unity on Apple silicon and Big Sur: Known issues and workarounds page-3#post-6544708)The fix for macOS 11.1 landed to 2021.1.0b2, 2020.2.2f1 and 2019.4.18f1. Since the macOS 11.1 issue is only present when running on the DTK and not the retail hardware, we decided to not backport this fix to 2018.4.
Fixed issues
Known issue: Unity Hub doesn’t work on Apple silicon hardware
Issue tracker: Unity Issue Tracker - Unity Hub doesn't work on Apple silicon devices
Expected resolution: This is fixed in the Unity Hub 2.4.0. You can download it from here: Start Your Creative Projects and Download the Unity Hub | Unity
Known issue: C# compiler crashes in Unity 2020.2 on Apple silicon hardware
Issue tracker: Unity Issue Tracker - C# compiler in Unity editor crashes when running on Apple silicon devices.
Workaround: Use Unity 2020.1 or earlier.
Expected resolution: This was fixed in Unity 2020.2.0a19.
Known issue: Visual Studio for Mac and Visual Studio Code crash on startup on Apple silicon hardware.
Workaround: Use a different code editor. Visual Studio Code has a beta with a fix: Exploration builds for apple silicon · Issue #104780 · microsoft/vscode · GitHub
Expected resolution: Visual Studio for Mac crash was fixed in one of macOS Big Sur beta releases, and Visual Studio code has a beta with Apple silicon support.
Known issue: Building Mac Standalone player with IL2CPP scripting backend fails if you’re running macOS Big Sur
Issue tracker: Unity Issue Tracker - [macOS Big Sur] Unable to build Player when using IL2CPP backend ("l2cppcore.dll did not run properly!")
Workaround: None at this time.
Expected resolution: This is fixed in 2020.2.0a18. We are in process of backporting the fix to all supported Unity releases.
HDRP issues
Known issue: Any existing HDRP package fails to initialize renderer properly under macOS 11.0 due to incorrect version number check.
Workaround: While waiting for official package releases to update for 7.x and beyond, you can apply the fix yourself. The diff can be found at fix Mac platform detection to handle new major version (11.0) properly [skip ci] by aet · Pull Request #1014 · Unity-Technologies/Graphics · GitHub
Expected resolution: Updated HDRP packages will be rolling out in coming weeks.
