# Setting up Makie on Mac

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/setting-up-makie-on-mac/62991>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Tags:** makie\
**Created:** [June 16, 2021, 6:14am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/setting-up-makie-on-mac/62991 "2021-06-16T06:14:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 11\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Rajith\_Vidanaarachch](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/rajith_vidanaarachch/32/25962_2.png) [@Rajith\_Vidanaarachch](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Rajith_Vidanaarachch)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2021, 6:14am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/setting-up-makie-on-mac/62991/1 "2021-06-16T06:14:31Z")

</div>

I had the same problem as this guy ([https://discourse.julialang.org/t/no-backend-available-glmakie-cairomakie-wglmakie/62984](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/no-backend-available-glmakie-cairomakie-wglmakie/62984)) with Makie, so I decided to try just GLMakie to figure out what’s going on.

These are my steps, and relevant outputs in the order I performed those. (I’m on a 2016 MBP, with macOS Catalina)

1. `pkg> add GLMakie`  
Precompiles successfully.

2. `pkg> test Makie`

```julia
     Testing GLMakie
┌ Warning: Could not use exact versions of packages in manifest, re-resolving
└ @ Pkg.Operations /Users/julia/buildbot/worker/package_macos64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.6/Pkg/src/Operations.jl:1526
ERROR: expected package `ReferenceTests [d37af2e0]` to be registered

```

1. `pkg> add ReferenceTests`  
success.

2. `pkg> test ReferenceTests`  
some deprecated warnings and this is the summary.

```julia
Test Summary: | Pass Error Total
ReferenceTests | 46 1 47
  io2str | 7 7
  withcolor | 3 3
  string as txt | 11 11
  string as unknown file type | 1 1
  images as txt using ImageInTerminal | 2 2
  plain ansi string | 2 2
  string as SHA | 3 3
  images as SHA | 2 2
  images as PNG | 4 4
  Plots as PNG images | 1 1
  DataFrame as CSV | 2 2
  Create new .csv | 2 2
  Create new .png | 2 2
  Create new .txt | 2 2
  Create new image as txt | 2 2
ERROR: LoadError: Some tests did not pass: 46 passed, 0 failed, 1 errored, 0 broken.
in expression starting at /Users/rajith/.julia/packages/ReferenceTests/1I8Dn/test/runtests.jl:21
ERROR: Package ReferenceTests errored during testing

```

1. `pkg> test GLMakie`  
same output as (3)

2. `pkg> st ReferenceTests`  
` [324d217c] ReferenceTests v0.9.7`

At this point, I’m not sure what to do next

1. However I ran the following code segment on Juno (Atom)

```julia
using GLMakie

inline!(false)

scene = Scene()

points = [Point2f0(cos(t), sin(t)) for t in LinRange(0, 2pi, 20)]
colors = 1:20
scatter!(scene, points, color = colors, markersize = 15)

```

everything ran without any issues, however, the output is only a white canvas (displayed at the line `scene = Scene()` ).

1. I read somewhere that I may need to build `GLMakie`, so I did that by `pkg> build GLMakie`

```julia
    Building ModernGL → `~/.julia/scratchspaces/44cfe95a-1eb2-52ea-b672-e2afdf69b78f/326957556e9cc9253615114c04bb0096a2a69bb8/build.log`
Precompiling project...
  2 dependencies successfully precompiled in 9 seconds (155 already precompiled)

```

1. Trying code in (7) again. - same result.

I should note that `scatter!(...)` returns `Scatter{Tuple{Vector{Point{2, Float32}}}}`, while the documentation at [https://juliahub.com/docs/AbstractPlotting/6fydZ/0.14.1/basic-tutorial.html](https://juliahub.com/docs/AbstractPlotting/6fydZ/0.14.1/basic-tutorial.html) states the following:

```julia
Scene (960px, 540px):
  2 Plots:
    ├ Combined{AbstractPlotting.axis2d,Tuple{Tuple{Tuple{Float32,Float32},Tuple{Float32,Float32}}}}
    └ Combined{AbstractPlotting.scatter,Tuple{Array{Point{2,Float32},1}}}
  1 Child Scene:
    └ Scene (960px, 540px)

```

which I do not get.

I’m unsure how to proceed from here. Could someone please give a hint on what I can try next.

Thank you!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lazarusA](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/lazarusa/32/6571_2.png) [@lazarusA](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/lazarusA)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2021, 3:55pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/setting-up-makie-on-mac/62991/3 "2021-06-16T15:55:12Z")

</div>

you are not up to date with the syntax. Plus, the documentation link that your are using is outdated. You should use this one.

[http://makie.juliaplots.org/dev/](http://makie.juliaplots.org/dev/)  
or  
[http://makie.juliaplots.org/stable/](http://makie.juliaplots.org/stable/)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mpeters2](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mpeters2/32/202247_2.png) [@mpeters2](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mpeters2)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2023, 1:24pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/setting-up-makie-on-mac/62991/4 "2023-10-04T13:24:28Z")

</div>

Was this ever resolved? I’m having the same problem getting GLMakie to work (and no, those links do not help).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lazarusA](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/lazarusa/32/6571_2.png) [@lazarusA](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/lazarusA)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2023, 2:17pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/setting-up-makie-on-mac/62991/5 "2023-10-04T14:17:05Z")

</div>

what do you get if you do:  
`in terminal`

```julia
> mkdir test_glmakie
> cd test_glmakie
> julia
] activate .
pkg> add GLMakie
julia> using GLMakie
julia> lines(1:10) # enter

```

??

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mpeters2](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mpeters2/32/202247_2.png) [@mpeters2](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mpeters2)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2023, 6:29pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/setting-up-makie-on-mac/62991/6 "2023-10-04T18:29:40Z")

</div>

That worked after typing it into the MacOS terminal (I had been using the VScode terminal). And when I run that line of code, a window pops up showing a simple line graph.

However, if I run “test GLMakie”, I get an error:

`ERROR: expected package `ReferenceTests [d37af2e0]` to be registered.`

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sdanisch](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sdanisch/32/1406_2.png) [@sdanisch](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sdanisch)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2023, 6:40pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/setting-up-makie-on-mac/62991/7 "2023-10-04T18:40:13Z")

</div>

Yeah tests aren’t working that easily locally without dev’ing Makie.  
I think it’s totally fine not run them 😉

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ufechner7](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ufechner7/32/51363_2.png) [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2023, 11:25pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/setting-up-makie-on-mac/62991/8 "2023-10-04T23:25:43Z")

</div>

> [@sdanisch](#):
>
> Yeah tests aren’t working that easily locally without dev’ing Makie.

Why? They should.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ufechner7](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ufechner7/32/51363_2.png) [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 2023, 11:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/setting-up-makie-on-mac/62991/9 "2023-10-04T23:30:30Z")

</div>

> [@mpeters2](#):
>
> I had been using the VScode terminal

I never use that. In vscode I always use a bash terminal and start julia with `julia --project` in that terminal. The vscode terminal is slowish and you never really know what it is really doing, e.g. which julia parameter it uses.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sdanisch](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sdanisch/32/1406_2.png) [@sdanisch](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sdanisch)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2023, 6:21am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/setting-up-makie-on-mac/62991/10 "2023-10-05T06:21:10Z")

</div>

Because it hasn’t been a priority! This is the first time in years someone running into it, so it certainly doesn’t look like something that should be high up my priority list.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Nathan\_Boyer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/nathan_boyer/32/14825_2.png) [@Nathan\_Boyer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Nathan_Boyer)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2023, 11:46am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/setting-up-makie-on-mac/62991/11 "2023-10-05T11:46:07Z")

</div>

> [@ufechner7](#):
>
> t. In vscode I always use a bash terminal

I don’t think that’s generally advised.

> `Julia: Start REPL` (shortcut `Alt + J` then `Alt + O`) - this is different from opening a VSCode _terminal_ and launching Julia manually from there, because the integrated Julia REPL allows you to send code from files to the REPL directly.

[https://modernjuliaworkflows.github.io/pages/writing/writing/#running\_code](https://modernjuliaworkflows.github.io/pages/writing/writing/#running_code)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ufechner7](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ufechner7/32/51363_2.png) [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2023, 12:12pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/setting-up-makie-on-mac/62991/12 "2023-10-05T12:12:14Z")

</div>

Well, everything has advantages and disadvantages. You just need to find a workflow that works for you. I can only say that opening a VSCode terminal and launching Julia manually is faster and gives more reliable and reproducible results. The other way gives extra features. Your choice…