Add-On outdated / incompatible with Archicad version - How to debug?

[stahL]

Hello,

I'm struggling  to find a good approach to solving this problem:

Our Add-On suddenly stopped working for some Intel Mac users. They get an error saying that the Archicad version is not compatible with the Add-On.

This happens with AC28 and AC29.
They are using Sequoia 15.7.3, while our Intel Mac is stuck on Ventura 13.7.8 (our 2017 MacBook no longer receives updates).

I tested it on our MacBook with the same Archicad version (latest IDC version), and it works there.

I am using the deployment targets specified in the archicad-addon-cmake Git repository:

Archicad Deployment target

Archicad 29	11.0
Archicad 28	11.0
Archicad 27	10.15
Archicad 26	10.15
Archicad 25	10.15
Archicad 24	10.13
Archicad 23	10.12

So for AC29:

set(CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET "11.0")
set(CMAKE_XCODE_ATTRIBUTE_MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET ${CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET})

How would I go about finding the reason for this error and fixing it?

This is not the first time I’ve run into this kind of issue (also on Windows), and it’s always painful to track down the exact reason behind it.

Do we developers have any tools to get more detailed information about this?

It’s always difficult to figure out what the actual issue is (wrong MSVC version, missing VC++ Redistributable, DLL problem, etc.).

Any hints, debugging strategies, or tools that could help narrow down the actual compatibility issue would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!
Jonas Stahl

Operating system used: Mac Intel-based Sequoia 15.7.3

[BerndSchwarzenbacher]

Hi Jonas,

Yeah, those issues are annoying. Also had a fair share of them myself.

Some ideas:

• My first guess would be the code signature since it runs on your machine but not theirs. Although it's less likely since they were able to use it before right?

• Check your code signing with

  • > spctl -a -t install -vvv my.bundle

  • > codesign -dv --verbose=4 my.bundle

  • Also worth running these on your installer/.dmg/.pkg depending on how exactly you are distributing the Add-On and how you sign
• Do you make universal builds or separate builds for intel & arm? Maybe worth trying a split build/universal build on the customers machine.
• Do you set "MACOSX_BUNDLE_INFO_PLIST"? you can also check the packaged `Info.plist` in your created bundle in my.bundle/Info.plist`
• Never properly used it, but I think you could check available versions of libraries that are needed with `otool -L my.bundle/Contents/MacOS/my-binary`

Hope that helps a bit. If I have more ideas I'll add them later.
Let us know what worked in the end 🙂

Best,
Bernd

[stahL]

Hey Bernd,
thanks for answering.

Some more info:

• It´s not the signing, since the same bundle etc worked like a year ago and also on other machines.
• We make seperat builds, since we use pdal for libraries and struggled with setting up crosscompiling on mac.
• Yes MACOSX_BUNDLE_INFO_PLIST is set
• I will try the otool command on the customers mac and compare with my local output

Thank you, for all the help 🙂

Best, 
Jonas 

[Ralph Wessel]

@BerndSchwarzenbacher  is probably on the right track with checking dependencies with otool, but you should also make sure you are using the most recent devkit versions and that everyone is using the latest AC installation. We've had some customers who could not load our add-ons because they were using an older version of Archicad. For example, not all AC28 devkits are compatible with all versions of Archicad 28 (particularly if you have started using GSIDs).