Qt WebEngine still unsupported on Windows for ARM on 6.8+
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I've started to port my Qt x64 app to ARM64 and checked that the new Qt 6.8 version has Windows for ARM "fully supported."
"Developing for Windows on Arm is now fully supported, enabling users to target the new Microsoft CoPilot+ PCs launched this year. Your desktop application can be deployed to macOS 15, and also Linux desktops on Arm. This completes support in Qt for the Arm architecture across all device categories, from embedded to mobile and desktop." (https://www.qt.io/blog/qt-6.8-released)
However, attempting to build my Qt app, I notice all the WebEngine, WebView, WebChannel, and related components are all missing - headers, binaries, libraries, etc. This is strange, because the Qt installer has an option for installing Qt WebView for ARM, but does not actually install any of it. Looking further, there are no available builds published for Qt on ARM. Nobody seems to have noticed this yet after me scouring the internet , so I am making this forum post.
Looking further online, I see in the Qt6.2 release notes (dated Sep. 2021) Windows ARM was first added but does not support WebEngine because it was "missing official support for Chromium". https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/whatsnew62.html
However, for 3 years since that release notes was published Chrome and Chromium have been officially supported on Windows ARM. Porting QtWebEngine should be trivial now. Does anyone know any remedies or more information? This seems to be very neglected topic, I've looked everywhere for any information!
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Hi and welcome to devnet,
Did you already check the bug report system about this matter ?
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@SGaist Yes, I have looked, there is nothing there, like I said nobody seems to have mentioned this whatsoever. I have no idea how to create a ticket or otherwise so I am writing this here for any future developers to review and/or for some Qt developer to fix.
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is is strange, because the Qt installer has an option for installing Qt WebView
QWebView is not Qt WebEngine. Do you see an equivalent of this?
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@ChrisW67 No, there is no equivalent of this on either Windows installer, ARM or x64.
In ARM, the option is gone completely.
On the x64 installer, the option exists, but no "Desktop" option (Universal x64/ARM64).
I believe this may be different if you are on the Linux installer since Qt actually distributes ARM WebEngine binaries for Linux.
I have scoured download.qt.io for any available Windows ARM binaries of QtWebEngine to no avail. I have looked all over the Qt bug tracker for any outstanding bugs related to QtWebEngine on Windows ARM, but all are either very old (7+yr) or closed bugs. There are no outstanding bugs. My theory is that Qt WebEngine works fine on ARM, given that Chromium has been working fine on ARM for the past 3yr (and I just got done compiling an app using CEF on ARM which works fine.) Someone just has to enable it in the CI and has forgotten to. I don't think there's any real reason preventing QtWebEngine to be on ARM. I've tried compiling it myself on my ARM device but failed because I don't have sufficient disk space, so if anyone else wants to try.
FWIW: Qt WebEngine is already supported on Apple Silicon and Linux ARM devices. I don't think there's any real issue preventing Qt to publish WebEngine builds for ARM besides perhaps someone forgetting to enable it in the CI since Qt 6.8 which had full Windows ARM support was released only a couple months back . I can't find any more on that though. (Also, this is now the top thing that comes up when you Google QtWebEngine support on Windows ARM, previous to this post nothing ever came up across multiple pages of Google, showing that this is a neglected topic that was maybe forgotten about.)
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UPDATE: After much looking I have found why QtWebEngine is not on Windows ARM.
https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtwebengine/+/600853
This has been pending since October but seems will be merged soon pending tests of other builds. Unfortunate that it took this long to find, but this is it. To any future ARM developers who are pulling their hair out frustated like I did, here is the answer :)
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@fundamentalcupcake thanks for that. did you manage to get a crosscompile going by applying that patch? this is on my list of things.