Trying to build julia locally after latest macOS Tahoe update: `lld: error: malformed sdk version`

NHDaly · December 18, 2025, 6:34pm

Has anyone else seen an error like this? I think it probably started after updating to the latest macOS.

Struggling to build julia from source on my mac.
It works fine at first, but fails right at the end of precompiling the stdlibs:

    LINK usr/lib/julia/sys.dylib
ld: warning: reexported library with install name '@rpath/libunwind.1.dylib' found at '/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/lib/libunwind.1.0.dylib' couldn't be matched with any parent library and will be linked directly
    JULIA stdlib/release.image
Precompiling for 2 compilation configurations...
lld: error: malformed sdk version: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0/108
Task failed ProcessFailedException(Base.Process[Process(setenv(`/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/tools/lld -flavor darwin -arch arm64 -undefined dynamic_lookup -platform_version macos 26.2 '' '' -dylib -o /Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/share/julia/compiled/v1.14/UUIDs/jl_y0zbf3 -force_load /Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/share/julia/compiled/v1.14/UUIDs/jl_ihCkpQ -L/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/lib/julia -L/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/lib -ljulia -ljulia-internal`,["TERM=xterm-256color", "CPPFLAGS=-I/opt/homebrew/opt/openjdk/include", "ADOTDIR=/Users/nathandaly/.antigen", "OPENBLAS_MAIN_FREE=1", "MANPATH=/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/share/man:/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/usr/share/man:/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/share/man:/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/share/man::/usr/local/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/local/share/man:", "MMTK_BUILD=release", "SHELL=/bin/zsh", "LC_ALL=C", "SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.vus4KOCs5K/Listeners", "MallocNanoZone=0", "BUILDROOT=/Users/nathandaly/src/julia", "JULIA_SSL_CA_ROOTS_PATH=", "__CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING=0x1F5:0x0:0x0", "_ANTIGEN_LOG_PATH=/Users/nathandaly/.antigen/antigen.log", "VSCODE_GIT_ASKPASS_MAIN=/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/extensions/git/dist/askpass-main.js", "CLAUDE_CODE_SSE_PORT=32852", "JULIA_DEPOT_PATH=/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/share/julia", "JULIA_LOAD_PATH=@stdlib:/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/stdlib", "TMPDIR=/var/folders/nw/lxdth34x7s57tqdbp26xmscr0000gn/T/", "HOMEBREW_CELLAR=/opt/homebrew/Cellar", "_ZCACHE_BUNDLES_PATH=/Users/nathandaly/.antigen/.cache/.zcache-bundles", "VSCODE_PROFILE_INITIALIZED=1", "ENABLE_GDBLISTENER=0", "PYDEVD_DISABLE_FILE_VALIDATION=1", "__CFBundleIdentifier=com.microsoft.VSCode", "RAICLOUD_ENV=latest", "MFLAGS=-sj", "HOMEBREW_REPOSITORY=/opt/homebrew", "VSCODE_DEBUGPY_ADAPTER_ENDPOINTS=/Users/nathandaly/.vscode/extensions/ms-python.debugpy-2025.10.0-darwin-arm64/.noConfigDebugAdapterEndpoints/endpoint-104d2ad6e1c87964.txt", "SAVEHIST=2147483648", "PATH=/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/tools:/Users/nathandaly/.juliaup/bin:/Applications/SnowSQL.app/Contents/MacOS:/opt/homebrew/bin:/opt/homebrew/sbin:/Users/nathandaly/Library/Application Support/Code/User/globalStorage/github.copilot-chat/debugCommand:/Users/nathandaly/Library/Application Support/Code/User/globalStorage/github.copilot-chat/copilotCli:/usr/local/bin:/System/Cryptexes/App/usr/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/var/run/com.apple.security.cryptexd/codex.system/bootstrap/usr/local/bin:/var/run/com.apple.security.cryptexd/codex.system/bootstrap/usr/bin:/var/run/com.apple.security.cryptexd/codex.system/bootstrap/usr/appleinternal/bin:/opt/pmk/env/global/bin:/Library/Apple/usr/bin:/usr/local/share/dotnet:~/.dotnet/tools:/Users/nathandaly/.juliaup/bin:/Users/nathandaly/.cargo/bin:/Applications/SnowSQL.app/Contents/MacOS:/Users/nathandaly/dotfiles/nhdaly/scripts:/Users/nathandaly/bin:/Users/nathandaly/go/bin:/Users/nathandaly/.vscode/extensions/ms-python.debugpy-2025.10.0-darwin-arm64/bundled/scripts/noConfigScripts:/Users/nathandaly/go/bin", "VSCODE_GIT_ASKPASS_EXTRA_ARGS=", "_ZCACHE_PAYLOAD_PATH=/Users/nathandaly/.antigen/.cache/.zcache-payload", "EDITOR=vim", "_ZCACHE_EXTENSION_CLEAN_FUNCTIONS=true", "DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH=/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/lib/julia:/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/lib:/Users/nathandaly/lib:/usr/local/lib:/lib:/usr/lib", "COLORTERM=truecolor", "LOGNAME=nathandaly", "CLICOLOR=1", "VSCODE_GIT_IPC_HANDLE=/var/folders/nw/lxdth34x7s57tqdbp26xmscr0000gn/T/vscode-git-5e5f70533d.sock", "INFOPATH=/opt/homebrew/share/info:/opt/homebrew/share/info:", "_ZCACHE_PATH=/Users/nathandaly/.antigen/.cache", "TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION=1.107.0", "JULIA_CPU_TARGET=sysimage", "PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR=/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/lib/pkgconfig", "JULIA_FALLBACK_REPL=true", "HISTSIZE=2147483648", "ANTIGEN_COMPDUMPFILE=/Users/nathandaly/.zcompdump", "USER=nathandaly", "MMTK_JULIA_DIR=../mmtk-julia", "XPC_FLAGS=0x0", "LSCOLORS=Gxfxcxdxbxegedabagacad", "PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/lib/pkgconfig", "COMMAND_MODE=unix2003", "MAKELEVEL=2", "BUNDLED_DEBUGPY_PATH=/Users/nathandaly/.vscode/extensions/ms-python.debugpy-2025.10.0-darwin-arm64/bundled/libs/debugpy", "XPC_SERVICE_NAME=0", "SHLVL=2", "MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=11.0", "ENABLE_IDE_INTEGRATION=true", "GIT_ASKPASS=/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/extensions/git/dist/askpass.sh", "SECURITYSESSIONID=186c3", "PAGER=less", "MMTK_PLAN=Immix ", "TERM_PROGRAM=vscode", "PWD=/Users/nathandaly/src/julia", "VSCODE_INJECTION=1", "HOMEBREW_PREFIX=/opt/homebrew", "OPENBLAS_DEFAULT_NUM_THREADS=1", "VSCODE_PYTHON_AUTOACTIVATE_GUARD=1", "MAKEFLAGS=sj", "USER_ZDOTDIR=/Users/nathandaly", "LaunchInstanceID=C91AABA6-9044-4E1B-9586-A673FF8352F7", "ANTIGEN_DEFAULT_REPO_URL=https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh.git", "HOME=/Users/nathandaly", "VSCODE_GIT_ASKPASS_NODE=/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Frameworks/Code Helper (Plugin).app/Contents/MacOS/Code Helper (Plugin)", "OSLogRateLimit=64", "_=/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/bin/julia", "RAICLOUD_PREFIX=nhd", "LS_COLORS=di=1;36:ln=35:so=32:pi=33:ex=31:bd=34;46:cd=34;43:su=30;41:sg=30;46:tw=30;42:ow=30;43", "LANG=C", "LESS=-R"]), ProcessExited(1))])
lld: error: malformed sdk version: 
lld: error: malformed sdk version: 
lld: error: malformed sdk version: 
lld: error: malformed sdk version: 
lld: error: malformed sdk version: 
lld: error: malformed sdk version: 
lld: error: malformed sdk version: 
ERROR: Precompiling packages  ╺━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0/108
  ◑ dSFMT_jll -g2 -O3
  ◑ dSFMT_jll -g2 --check-bounds=yes -O3
Task failed ProcessFailedException(Base.Process[Process(setenv(`/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/tools/lld -flavor darwin -arch arm64 -undefined dynamic_lookup -platform_version macos 26.2 '' '' -dylib -o /Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/share/julia/compiled/v1.14/dSFMT_jll/jl_5m7lIW -force_load /Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/share/julia/compiled/v1.14/dSFMT_jll/jl_HZJdtw -L/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/lib/julia -L/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/lib -ljulia -ljulia-internal`,["TERM=xterm-256color", "CPPFLAGS=-I/opt/homebrew/opt/openjdk/include", "ADOTDIR=/Users/nathandaly/.antigen", "OPENBLAS_MAIN_FREE=1", "MANPATH=/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/share/man:/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/usr/share/man:/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/share/man:/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/share/man::/usr/local/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/local/share/man:", "MMTK_BUILD=release", "SHELL=/bin/zsh", "LC_ALL=C", "SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.vus4KOCs5K/Listeners", "MallocNanoZone=0", "BUILDROOT=/Users/nathandaly/src/julia", "JULIA_SSL_CA_ROOTS_PATH=", "__CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING=0x1F5:0x0:0x0", "_ANTIGEN_LOG_PATH=/Users/nathandaly/.antigen/antigen.log", "VSCODE_GIT_ASKPASS_MAIN=/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/extensions/git/dist/askpass-main.js", "CLAUDE_CODE_SSE_PORT=32852", "JULIA_DEPOT_PATH=/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/share/julia", "JULIA_LOAD_PATH=@stdlib:/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/stdlib", "TMPDIR=/var/folders/nw/lxdth34x7s57tqdbp26xmscr0000gn/T/", "HOMEBREW_CELLAR=/opt/homebrew/Cellar", "_ZCACHE_BUNDLES_PATH=/Users/nathandaly/.antigen/.cache/.zcache-bundles", "VSCODE_PROFILE_INITIALIZED=1", "ENABLE_GDBLISTENER=0", "PYDEVD_DISABLE_FILE_VALIDATION=1", "__CFBundleIdentifier=com.microsoft.VSCode", "RAICLOUD_ENV=latest", "MFLAGS=-sj", "HOMEBREW_REPOSITORY=/opt/homebrew", "VSCODE_DEBUGPY_ADAPTER_ENDPOINTS=/Users/nathandaly/.vscode/extensions/ms-python.debugpy-2025.10.0-darwin-arm64/.noConfigDebugAdapterEndpoints/endpoint-104d2ad6e1c87964.txt", "SAVEHIST=2147483648", "PATH=/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/tools:/Users/nathandaly/.juliaup/bin:/Applications/SnowSQL.app/Contents/MacOS:/opt/homebrew/bin:/opt/homebrew/sbin:/Users/nathandaly/Library/Application Support/Code/User/globalStorage/github.copilot-chat/debugCommand:/Users/nathandaly/Library/Application Support/Code/User/globalStorage/github.copilot-chat/copilotCli:/usr/local/bin:/System/Cryptexes/App/usr/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/var/run/com.apple.security.cryptexd/codex.system/bootstrap/usr/local/bin:/var/run/com.apple.security.cryptexd/codex.system/bootstrap/usr/bin:/var/run/com.apple.security.cryptexd/codex.system/bootstrap/usr/appleinternal/bin:/opt/pmk/env/global/bin:/Library/Apple/usr/bin:/usr/local/share/dotnet:~/.dotnet/tools:/Users/nathandaly/.juliaup/bin:/Users/nathandaly/.cargo/bin:/Applications/SnowSQL.app/Contents/MacOS:/Users/nathandaly/dotfiles/nhdaly/scripts:/Users/nathandaly/bin:/Users/nathandaly/go/bin:/Users/nathandaly/.vscode/extensions/ms-python.debugpy-2025.10.0-darwin-arm64/bundled/scripts/noConfigScripts:/Users/nathandaly/go/bin", "VSCODE_GIT_ASKPASS_EXTRA_ARGS=", "_ZCACHE_PAYLOAD_PATH=/Users/nathandaly/.antigen/.cache/.zcache-payload", "EDITOR=vim", "_ZCACHE_EXTENSION_CLEAN_FUNCTIONS=true", "DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH=/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/lib/julia:/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/lib:/Users/nathandaly/lib:/usr/local/lib:/lib:/usr/lib", "COLORTERM=truecolor", "LOGNAME=nathandaly", "CLICOLOR=1", "VSCODE_GIT_IPC_HANDLE=/var/folders/nw/lxdth34x7s57tqdbp26xmscr0000gn/T/vscode-git-5e5f70533d.sock", "INFOPATH=/opt/homebrew/share/info:/opt/homebrew/share/info:", "_ZCACHE_PATH=/Users/nathandaly/.antigen/.cache", "TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION=1.107.0", "JULIA_CPU_TARGET=sysimage", "PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR=/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/lib/pkgconfig", "JULIA_FALLBACK_REPL=true", "HISTSIZE=2147483648", "ANTIGEN_COMPDUMPFILE=/Users/nathandaly/.zcompdump", "USER=nathandaly", "MMTK_JULIA_DIR=../mmtk-julia", "XPC_FLAGS=0x0", "LSCOLORS=Gxfxcxdxbxegedabagacad", "PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/lib/pkgconfig", "COMMAND_MODE=unix2003", "MAKELEVEL=2", "BUNDLED_DEBUGPY_PATH=/Users/nathandaly/.vscode/extensions/ms-python.debugpy-2025.10.0-darwin-arm64/bundled/libs/debugpy", "XPC_SERVICE_NAME=0", "SHLVL=2", "MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=11.0", "ENABLE_IDE_INTEGRATION=true", "GIT_ASKPASS=/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/extensions/git/dist/askpass.sh", "SECURITYSESSIONID=186c3", "PAGER=less", "MMTK_PLAN=Immix ", "TERM_PROGRAM=vscode", "PWD=/Users/nathandaly/src/julia", "VSCODE_INJECTION=1", "HOMEBREW_PREFIX=/opt/homebrew", "OPENBLAS_DEFAULT_NUM_THREADS=1", "VSCODE_PYTHON_AUTOACTIVATE_GUARD=1", "MAKEFLAGS=sj", "USER_ZDOTDIR=/Users/nathandaly", "LaunchInstanceID=C91AABA6-9044-4E1B-9586-A673FF8352F7", "ANTIGEN_DEFAULT_REPO_URL=https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh.git", "HOME=/Users/nathandaly", "VSCODE_GIT_ASKPASS_NODE=/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Frameworks/Code Helper (Plugin).app/Contents/MacOS/Code Helper (Plugin)", "OSLogRateLimit=64", "_=/Users/nathandaly/src/julia/usr/bin/julia", "RAICLOUD_PREFIX=nhd", "LS_COLORS=di=1;36:ln=35:so=32:pi=33:ex=31:bd=34;46:cd=34;43:su=30;41:sg=30;46:tw=30;42:ow=30;43", "LANG=C", "LESS=-R"]), ProcessExited(1))])
...
and on and on.

NHDaly · December 18, 2025, 6:46pm

Mosè helped me identify this issue:

shell> xcrun --show-sdk-version
2025-12-18 11:43:54.901 xcodebuild[73409:25275522] Writing error result bundle to /var/folders/nw/lxdth34x7s57tqdbp26xmscr0000gn/T/ResultBundle_2025-18-12_11-43-0054.xcresult
xcodebuild: error: SDK "/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk" cannot be located.
xcrun: error: unable to lookup item 'SDKVersion' in SDK '/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk'

giordano · December 18, 2025, 6:52pm

We debugged this on Slack: the linking arguments are coming from

github.com/JuliaLang/julia

base/linking.jl

3b21c7f60


      
          function ld()
              default_args = ``
              @static if Sys.iswindows()
                  # LLD supports mingw style linking
                  flavor = "gnu"
                  m = Sys.ARCH == :x86_64 ? "i386pep" : "i386pe"
                  default_args = `-m $m -Bdynamic --enable-auto-image-base --allow-multiple-definition --disable-auto-import --disable-runtime-pseudo-reloc`
              elseif Sys.isapple()
                  flavor = "darwin"
                  arch = Sys.ARCH == :aarch64 ? :arm64 : Sys.ARCH
                  default_args = `-arch $arch -undefined dynamic_lookup -platform_version macos $(Base.MACOS_PRODUCT_VERSION) $(Base.MACOS_PLATFORM_VERSION)`
              else
                  flavor = "gnu"
              end
          
              `$(lld()) -flavor $flavor $default_args`
          end
          
          const WHOLE_ARCHIVE = if Sys.isapple()
              "-all_load"
          else

with Base.MACOS_PLATFORM_VERSION being set during build-time

github.com/JuliaLang/julia

base/Makefile

3b21c7f60


      
          	@printf "%s\n" "const INCLUDEDIR = "$(call shell_escape,$(call julia_escape,$(call normalize_path,$(includedir_rel)))) >> $@
          	@printf "%s\n" "const SOURCEDIR = "$(call shell_escape,$(call julia_escape,$(call normalize_path,$(shell echo $(call cygpath_w,$(JULIAHOME)))))) >> $@
          ifeq ($(DARWIN_FRAMEWORK), 1)
          	@printf "%s\n" "const DARWIN_FRAMEWORK = true" >> $@
          	@printf "%s\n" "const DARWIN_FRAMEWORK_NAME = \"$(FRAMEWORK_NAME)\"" >> $@
          else
          	@printf "%s\n" "const DARWIN_FRAMEWORK = false" >> $@
          endif
          ifeq ($(OS), Darwin)
          	@printf "%s\n" "const MACOS_PRODUCT_VERSION = \"$(shell sw_vers -productVersion)\"" >> $@
          	@printf "%s\n" "const MACOS_PLATFORM_VERSION = \"$(shell xcrun --show-sdk-version)\"" >> $@
          endif
          	@printf "%s\n" "const BUILD_TRIPLET = \"$(BB_TRIPLET_LIBGFORTRAN_CXXABI)\"" >> $@
          
          	@# This to ensure that we always rebuild this file, but only when it is modified do we touch build_h.jl,
          	@# ensuring we rebuild the system image as infrequently as possible
          	@if ! cmp -s $@ build_h.jl; then \
          		$(call PRINT_PERL,) \
          		mv $@ build_h.jl; \
          	else \
          		rm -f $@; \

but the command xcrun was messed up after a recent macOS upgrade:

shell> xcrun --show-sdk-version
2025-12-18 11:42:37.901 xcodebuild[69244:25260268] Writing error result bundle to /var/folders/nw/lxdth34x7s57tqdbp26xmscr0000gn/T/ResultBundle_2025-18-12_11-42-0037.xcresult
xcodebuild: error: SDK "/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk" cannot be located.
xcrun: error: unable to lookup item 'SDKVersion' in SDK '/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk'

NHDaly · December 18, 2025, 7:44pm

Good news: Updating XCode through the App Store has fixed this for me!

shell> xcrun --show-sdk-version
26.2

and building julia succeeded now. thanks all

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Trying to build julia locally after latest macOS Tahoe update: `lld: error: malformed sdk version`

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