Building for MacOS gives error: qt.qpa.plugin: Could not find the Qt platform plugin "cocoa" in ""

[coryclemens]

Trying to work toward contributing to this project because it is a problem I have wanted to solve for a long time.. though, when following instructions on Compiling, I:

1. Download XCode
2. Install qt@5 via homebrew (it installs it to /opt/homebrew/opt/qt@5) - I also run the brew link command here
3. After all the building, attempt to execute ./Release/Jamulus.app/Contents/MacOS/Jamulus

And get the following error:
- allocated port number: 22134
qt.qpa.plugin: Could not find the Qt platform plugin "cocoa" in "/opt/homebrew/opt/qt@5/plugins/platforms"
This application failed to start because no Qt platform plugin could be initialized. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

zsh: abort ./Jamulus

I tried setting some ~/.zshrc paths , specifically
export QT_QPA_PLATFORM_PLUGIN_PATH=/opt/homebrew/opt/qt@5/plugins/platforms
export QT_PLUGIN_PATH=/opt/homebrew/opt/qt@5/plugins/

But to no luck. I looked this issue up online and none of the solutions have worked.

[coryclemens]

Apparently Qt 5.15.x not supported on Apple M1/M2 silicon arm64... if anyone has developed on this platform please get in touch with me, I would love to have some technical support setting up an environment for this.

[ann0see]

Hi!
Thanks for reaching out. This is in fact a known issue (#3078). You need to run macdeployqt and probably use Qt6.
Have a look at how the CI works: https://github.com/jamulussoftware/jamulus/blob/main/.github/autobuild/mac.sh

This reminds me that we need to update the docs for macOS.

[coryclemens]

Resolved this by installing Qt6, following the advice here Discussion 3240 to build for arm64 only, and then running macdeployqt on Release/Jamulus.app before executing ./Jamulus

[ann0see]

That's great!