No ports reported on macos ventura 13.1 apple silicon arduino 2.0.3 unless rosetta is installed

[nickdesaulniers]

Describe the problem

Apple Silicon-based machines (M1, M2 CPUs) are able to run applications built for x86 host thanks to the Rosetta 2 binary translator.

Rosetta 2 is not installed by default, but when an x86 application is started on an Apple Silicon-based machine, macOS displays a dialog offering the installation to the user:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211861

Since native Apple Silicon builds have better performance, Arduino produced the first Arduino IDE 2.x build for this target and published it in December. Unlike the x86 build of Arduino IDE 2.x, starting the Apple Silicon build does not result in the Rosetta 2 installation dialog. Even though Rosetta 2 is not needed by the Arduino IDE application itself, the IDE uses a wide array of additional tools. Many of these are not available in an Apple Silicon build:

• serial-discovery
• serial-monitor
• GCC
• AVRDUDE
• ...

🐛 These tools produce an error when Arduino IDE attempts to execute them:

bad CPU type in executable

This produces an array of symptoms. For example, no serial ports are discovered (due to not having a functional serial-discovery tool).

To reproduce

1. Download the Apple Silicon build of Arduino IDE:
   https://www.arduino.cc/en/software
2. Start Arduino IDE on an Apple Silicon machine that does not have Rosetta 2 installed.

🐛 No Rosetta 2 installation prompt is shown.
🐛 All x86 targeted tools fail to execute.
🐛 The IDE displays a variety of symptoms, including no ports listed, failed compilation ...

Expected behavior

The dependency on Rosetta 2 is communicated to the user.

Arduino IDE version

2.0.3

Operating system

macOS

Operating system version

Ventura

Additional context

Fix

1. Open your Applications folder in Finder.
2. Open the Utilities folder.
3. Double-click on "Terminal".
4. Type the following command in the Terminal window:

   softwareupdate --install-rosetta
   

5. Accept the license agreement.
6. Wait for the installation to finish.

Additional reports

• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/bad-cpu-type-in-executable-compile-error/1064440
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/24-mac-m1-bad-cpu-type-in-executable/1071674
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/one-mac-sees-my-arduinos-the-other-doesnt/1076201/9
• No Ports Recognized with IDE 2.0.3 ARM64 build (Apple M1) on Mac Ventura #1796 (unconfirmed)

Issue checklist

• I searched for previous reports in the issue tracker
• I verified the problem still occurs when using the latest nightly build
• My report contains all necessary details

[nickdesaulniers]

I've also played with System Settings (macos) > Privacy & Security > Allow Accessories to Connect.

For "Ask Every Time" I do get a promt each time I plug in my device. If I accept then open Arduino IDE it makes no difference. The option "Always" doesn't seem to make a difference either.

[nickdesaulniers]

Ok, so we were able to resolve the forum thread (at least my issue). So it looks like if you run a binary compiled for x86_64-apple-darwin on apple silicon which expects aarch64-apple-darwin (err, maybe aarch64e, which is their own ABI for BTI/PAC IIRC), then you will not get a prompt to install rosetta. You need to manually install rosetta, which can be done from the command line via softwareupdate --install-rosetta.

So I guess it's a matter of contacting expressif or whomever to provide cross compilers for aarch64e-apple-darwin hosts in their board manager files. Not sure how pervasive this is, but perhaps the arduino ide could trigger the rosetta install for the time being? That would have been nice.

[nickdesaulniers]

Sorry, it's arduino-fwuploader that's first failing (see the forum post for the stack trace) which is a node.js app, IIUC.

[nickdesaulniers]

Not sure where the source for arduino-ide-extension are to report the issue to.

arduino-ide/electron-app/package.json

Line 24 in 197cea2

"arduino-ide-extension": "2.0.4"

https://www.npmjs.com/search?q=arduino-ide-extension

[nickdesaulniers]

(The forum is blocking me from responding on thread: An error occurred: We're sorry, but new users are temporarily limited to 3 replies in the same topic.)

Perhaps if the Arduino IDE is looking at stderr of the subprocesses it invokes, it might be able to notice the bad CPU type in executable string (or 214 return code) and prompt the user to install rosetta.

man errno shows that 86 EBADARCH is used on macos. I forgot to check $? when running, but I'd guess the return code would have been 128+86==214?

I've also "contacted my vendor" to ask about macos support.
espressif/crosstool-NG#39

[nickdesaulniers]

Looks like a dup of #1796.

[army11b1980]

Very much looking forward to a resolution for this issue.
Apple M1
OS Ventura
IDE 2.0.3 for Mac
Rosetta 2 installed
!!Bad CPU Type!!

[per1234]

@army11b1980 resolve the issue by installing Rosetta 2:

1. Open your Applications folder in Finder.
2. Open the Utilities folder.
3. Double-click on "Terminal".
4. Type the following command in the Terminal window:

   softwareupdate --install-rosetta
   

5. Accept the license agreement.
6. Wait for the installation to finish.

The error will no longer occur.

[army11b1980]

@per1234 I have Rosetta 2 installed. I still have this error.

[per1234]

@army11b1980 please post the full and exact output that contains the "Bad CPU Type" error.

[army11b1980]

@per1234
Failed uploading: cannot execute upload tool: fork/exec /Users/michaelsmacstudio/Library/Arduino15/packages/arduino/tools/avrdude/6.3.0-arduino9/bin/avrdude: bad CPU type in executable

[per1234]

/Users/michaelsmacstudio/Library/Arduino15/packages/arduino/tools/avrdude/6.3.0-arduino9/bin/avrdude: bad CPU type in executable

OK, this is a completely different problem that happens to produce the same error message. The problem here is you are using a very old version of AVRDUDE from when Arduino only distributed 32-bit macOS builds of that tool. Support for 32-bit applications was dropped in macOS 10.15 Catalina:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208436

So when you attempt to run a 32-bit application you get this "bad CPU type in executable" error.

Since your problem is unrelated to the subject of this bug report, and is also not related to the codebase hosted in this repository, it will not be appropriate to continue the discussion here. But if you make a post on the Arduino Forum, I'll be happy to provide you with assistance in solving the problem:

https://forum.arduino.cc/c/using-arduino/installation-troubleshooting/18

[per1234]

Closing as resolved to the extent that is feasible through the addition of a dedicated article in the Arduino Help Center:

https://support.arduino.cc/hc/en-us/articles/7765785712156-Error-bad-CPU-type-in-executable-on-macOS

I have been closely monitoring GitHub and Arduino Forum for reports and fortunately it seems to not affect many users. So hopefully that will be sufficient. I also hope that Apple might eventually enhance the user experience under these conditions with something similar to the Rosetta installation offer dialog that shows when starting an x86 application.