xcrun popup after selecting a board or opening a sketch

[albmef]

Describe the problem

I get an unexpected popup just after selecting a board:

The "xcrun" command requires the command line developer tools. Would you like to install the tools now?

Choose Install to download and install the command line developer tools now.

To reproduce

1. Select Tools > Board > Arduino AVR Boards > Arduino Uno from the Arduino IDE menus.
   ⓘ I have also reproduced it with ESP32 and ESP8266 boards selected.
2. The popup will now appear. Click the "Cancel" button.
3. Open an example (e.g., File > Examples > 01.Basics > Blink).
4. The popup will now appear. Click the "Cancel" button.
5. Select Sketch > Verify/Compile from the Arduino IDE menus.

🐛 The compilation passes without errors, so the popup is urging the user to install something that is not necessary.

Expected behavior

No popup for unnecessary installation of Xcode tools.

Arduino IDE version

2.0.4-nightly-20230119

Operating system

macOS

Operating system version

Ventura 13.1

Additional context

I won't install the bloated Xcode toolchain.

Additional Reports

• The "xcrun" command requires the command line developer tools #1956
• xcrun popup after selecting a board or opening a sketch #1822 (comment)
• xcrun popup after selecting a board or opening a sketch #1822 (comment)
• xcrun popup after selecting a board or opening a sketch #1822 (comment)
• xcrun popup after selecting a board or opening a sketch #1822 (comment)
• xcrun popup after selecting a board or opening a sketch #1822 (comment)
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/xcrun-command-popup/1042971/1
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/xcrun-command-popup/1042971/15
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/xcrun-command-popup/1042971/16
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/xcrun-command-popup/1042971/17
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/xcrun-command-popup/1042971/18
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/xcrun-command-popup/1042971/19
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/xcrun-command-popup/1042971/22
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/ide-asking-for-xcrun-download/1157513
• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/esp32-cam-on-mac-ide-2-3-2-gives-xcode-error/1289981

Related

• https://forum.arduino.cc/t/compilation-error-nano-esp32/1175467

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

[Mahiuha]

The error message "xcrun not installed" suggests that the Xcode Command Line Tools are not installed on your Macbook Pro. These tools are required for certain command-line tools that are used by the Arduino IDE, such as the avr-gcc compiler.

You can try installing the Xcode Command Line Tools by running the following command in Terminal:

xcode-select --install

Alternatively, you can try installing the Command Line Tools for Xcode manually from the Apple Developer website.

It is also possible that the version of the Arduino IDE you are using is looking for a specific version of the Xcode Command Line Tools that is not compatible with the version you have installed. Updating or downgrading the version of the Arduino IDE could help. It is also possible to use alternative toolchains such as avr-gcc, binutils-avr, avr-libc,etc.. which are not dependent on xcode and can be installed via package managers like Homebrew or Macports.

[albmef]

Dear Joseph
before answering to you i performed some test at my side.
i opened a blinky example and i was able to compile and upload the sketch to both a genuine arduino uno R3 board and a genuine LOLIN D1 mini board (ESP8266), without the need of installing xcode CLI tools on my mac. this confirms that xcode CLI tools are not mandatory for using the IDE with these two targets.
if needed i could test with genuine raspberry pi PICO boards. let me know if you are interrested in the results

best regards,
Alban

[musinou]

I gave an Arduino workshop and 3 out of 8 participants had this issue after installing Arduino for the first time. One had still the issue with a 1.8 install after he had installed version 2.0.3. None of the participant had xcode installed.

[Mahiuha]

Dear Joseph before answering to you i performed some test at my side. i opened a blinky example and i was able to compile and upload the sketch to both a genuine arduino uno R3 board and a genuine LOLIN D1 mini board (ESP8266), without the need of installing xcode CLI tools on my mac. this confirms that xcode CLI tools are not mandatory for using the IDE with these two targets. if needed i could test with genuine raspberry pi PICO boards. let me know if you are interrested in the results

best regards, Alban

It sounds like the issue you are experiencing is related to the xcrun command and may be specific to certain boards or configurations. The fact that you were able to successfully compile and upload a sketch to both an Arduino Uno R3 and a LOLIN D1 mini board without installing the Xcode Command Line Tools suggests that the issue may be specific to the board or configuration you are using. If you are interested in testing with genuine Raspberry Pi PICO boards, it may be helpful to share the results of those tests with the community to further investigate the issue.

[md9mx]

I get this pop-up too (macOS Ventura 13.2.1).
It occurs whenever I open the IDE, and periodically after that. I haven't been able to determine a cause - it doesn't necessarily happen when changing board as described in the original report.
The IDE compiles & uploads (and otherwise works) perfectly as far as I can tell without installation of the tools.

[WestfW]

I get this as well, running catalina on a MacBook Air, and IDE 2.0.4, with only the AVR and Arduino SAMD boards installed.

It is NOT ACCEPTABLE for the Arduino IDE to require installation of 12G+ of XCode! (Especially since the main functionality seems to work fine if the request for installation is canceled.)

(It looks like the actual use of xcrun might be buried somewhere deep inside of Eclipse itself; you can find a bunch of questions about people trying to do various things with Eclipse and getting this pop-up. Usually it's an actual user error and the answer is to install XCode, but there shouldn't be any reason for the Arduino IDE to need anything in XCode. Being a stand-alone app is part of the whole point of Arduino!)

[WestfW]

I've been doing some poking, since I have access to several varieties of Mac, with and without XCode installed.
First of all, xcrun is a utility whose purpose is to find XCode-related applications even if they are installed in strange places.
The man page is here: https://www.manpagez.com/man/1/xcrun/

xcrun seems to be quite overzealous; execute a command like "xcrun ls" from a Terminal window, and you'll get an error message that Xcode isn't installed, followed by the same popup window. :-( (even though "ls" is clearly present without XCode.)

xcrun is a utility in /usr/bin/xcrun

I tried installing a /usr/local/xcrun that was a shell script that logged the arguments, and this stopped the popups from Arduino without seeming to damage anything, but it didn't result in any useful log messages (I'm not surprised. Presumable xcrun is exec()ed, and can't be a shell script, so it just fails.) Using an actual binary with logging capability will take me a while, since I don't actually know how to write Mac applications. (Maybe plain unix/C will work?)

There are a couple of open source implementations of xcrun.

I don't see any logging of the current errors in any of the usual places, and can't tell if setting xcrun_logging in the environment actually does anything useful (perhaps I'm doing it wrong.)

Hypothesis; something in the IDE is using xcrun when it should just be using exec.
Interestingly, I can't find any occurrence of xcrun in the source code in either the Arduino code or Thea. I couldn't figure out how eclipse source code is arranged, so I gave up before that :-(

[davidson-ben]

I'm having this same issue on MacBook Pro. Is there any update or fix to this that has been found yet? Looks like this chain has been stagnant for awhile, but not closed yet. Is the only work around to click 'cancel' each time it pops up? Quite annoying if you are using the application often...

[dstulken]

Same issue here. Fresh install of Arduino IDE 2.1.0, on a fairly fresh install of MacOS Ventura 13.4.1 on an Intel Mac mini.

I got the message after installing the ESP32 board set. After declining the popup, I see this message in the console:

xcode-select: note: No developer tools were found, requesting install.
If developer tools are located at a non-default location on disk, use sudo xcode-select --switch path/to/Xcode.app to specify the Xcode that you wish to use for command line developer tools, and cancel the installation dialog.
See man xcode-select for more details.

exit status 1

Compilation error: exit status 1

And in the case of ESP32 targets, the compilation cannot continue. The popup itself informs that the "python3" command is what requires the command line developer tools to be installed.

It looks like installing the Xcode command line tools is actually called out at the very bottom of Espressif's Arduino installation instructions:
https://docs.espressif.com/projects/arduino-esp32/en/latest/installing.html

[MickeyGentry]

Seems like there is no solution to this yet, correct?

[sgreensides]

Brand new MacBook Pro
tried to use python3 and got very nearly the same result as in a very similar popup and the message:
python3
xcode-select: note: No developer tools were found, requesting install.
If developer tools are located at a non-default location on disk, use sudo xcode-select --switch path/to/Xcode.app to specify the Xcode that you wish to use for command line developer tools, and cancel the installation dialog.
See man xcode-select for more details.