Compilation fails on macOS machine: "ctags: bad CPU type in executable"

[hgrecco]

Describe the problem

Cannot Verify/Compile even simple examples (AnalogReadSerial.ino). ctags: bad CPU type in executable in macOS with

To reproduce

Just run the any example.

Using board 'uno' from platform in folder: /Users/grecco/Library/Arduino15/packages/arduino/hardware/avr/1.8.3
Using core 'arduino' from platform in folder: /Users/grecco/Library/Arduino15/packages/arduino/hardware/avr/1.8.3
Detecting libraries used...
/Users/grecco/Library/Arduino15/packages/arduino/tools/avr-gcc/7.3.0-atmel3.6.1-arduino7/bin/avr-g++ -c -g -Os -w -std=gnu++11 -fpermissive -fno-exceptions -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fno-threadsafe-statics -Wno-error=narrowing -flto -w -x c++ -E -CC -mmcu=atmega328p -DF_CPU=16000000L -DARDUINO=10607 -DARDUINO_AVR_UNO -DARDUINO_ARCH_AVR -I/Users/grecco/Library/Arduino15/packages/arduino/hardware/avr/1.8.3/cores/arduino -I/Users/grecco/Library/Arduino15/packages/arduino/hardware/avr/1.8.3/variants/standard /var/folders/xj/xsrq0ml15_q98sq78466mbwr000bjr/T/arduino-sketch-ECD2946323C50FF71A5DD32C03F77EE8/sketch/AnalogReadSerial.ino.cpp -o /dev/null
Generating function prototypes...
/Users/grecco/Library/Arduino15/packages/arduino/tools/avr-gcc/7.3.0-atmel3.6.1-arduino7/bin/avr-g++ -c -g -Os -w -std=gnu++11 -fpermissive -fno-exceptions -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fno-threadsafe-statics -Wno-error=narrowing -flto -w -x c++ -E -CC -mmcu=atmega328p -DF_CPU=16000000L -DARDUINO=10607 -DARDUINO_AVR_UNO -DARDUINO_ARCH_AVR -I/Users/grecco/Library/Arduino15/packages/arduino/hardware/avr/1.8.3/cores/arduino -I/Users/grecco/Library/Arduino15/packages/arduino/hardware/avr/1.8.3/variants/standard /var/folders/xj/xsrq0ml15_q98sq78466mbwr000bjr/T/arduino-sketch-ECD2946323C50FF71A5DD32C03F77EE8/sketch/AnalogReadSerial.ino.cpp -o /var/folders/xj/xsrq0ml15_q98sq78466mbwr000bjr/T/arduino-sketch-ECD2946323C50FF71A5DD32C03F77EE8/preproc/ctags_target_for_gcc_minus_e.cpp
/Users/grecco/Library/Arduino15/packages/builtin/tools/ctags/5.8-arduino11/ctags -u --language-force=c++ -f - --c++-kinds=svpf --fields=KSTtzns --line-directives /var/folders/xj/xsrq0ml15_q98sq78466mbwr000bjr/T/arduino-sketch-ECD2946323C50FF71A5DD32C03F77EE8/preproc/ctags_target_for_gcc_minus_e.cpp
Compilation error: Error: 2 UNKNOWN: fork/exec /Users/grecco/Library/Arduino15/packages/builtin/tools/ctags/5.8-arduino11/ctags: bad CPU type in executable

Expected behavior

It should compile.

Arduino IDE version

2.0.0-beta.7

Operating system

macOS

Operating system version

Big Sur (11.4)

Additional context

I also have Arduino 1.8.13 installed and there it works fine. It seems to be using a different toolchain located in:

/Applications/Arduino.app/Contents/Java/tools-builder/ctags/5.8-arduino11/ctags

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

[per1234]

Thanks for your report @hgrecco. Although Arduino IDE 2.x is a native Apple Silicon application, it uses various helper tools and some of these tools are only available in "Intel" (x86) builds. One such tool is ctags.

Apple has created a "binary translator" named Rosetta 2 that allows x86 applications to run on Apple Silicon machines. So the problem can be solved by simply installing Rosetta 2. You can do that by following these instructions:

https://support.apple.com/102527

We are tracking the need to produce native Apple Silicon builds of ctags to avoid the need for Rosetta 2 here: arduino/ctags#20. The infrastructure is already present in Arduino IDE to automatically install the Apple Silicon build of the the helper tools if available, so no work is needed in this repository in order to resolve this deficiency. For this reason, and since the deficiency is already being tracked in the relevant repository, I'll go ahead and close this issue.

[ccashman]

So the problem can be solved by simply installing Rosetta 2.

The problem of running the Arduino IDE 2.x can be worked around by installing Rosetta 2. The actual problem described here — ctags not natively compiling for Apple Silicon — cannot be worked around by installing Rosetta.

Even for running Arduino IDE 2.x, there’s no assurance that Rosetta is a long-term workaround. Apple has not committed to Rosetta as a permanent feature of macOS, and if we look to the original version, Rosetta 1 only had a lifespan of about five years (2006-2011) before it was removed from the OS.