Qt 6.9.3, 6.10.1 on Mac: QMAKE_APPLE_DEVICE_ARCHS="arm64" but QT_ARCH reports "x86_64"

Violet Giraffe

I'm building for arm64:
/Users/me/Qt/6.10.1/macos/bin/qmake -o Makefile /Users/me/project/lib/lib.pro CONFIG+=debug CONFIG+=qml_debug -spec macx-clang QMAKE_APPLE_DEVICE_ARCHS=arm64

But message($$QT_ARCH) prints "x86_64", why??
MacOS 26.1, the latest Xcode is insalled from App Store, command line tools were updated after updating Xcode.

lipo -info mylib.a says it was actually compiled for x86_64 despite the flag saying arm64, and this flag (-arch arm64) is present on the clang command line.

SGaist

I just created one with a minimal project with a dummy main.cpp and:

TEMPLATE = app
QT += widgets
SOURCES = main.cpp
QMAKE_APPLE_DEVICE_ARCHS = x86_64 arm64

as .pro file content.

The build is screaming at me because the x86_64 symbols are missing so it does work correctly (the architecture missing is expected in my case).
I also tested with that variable removed from the .pro file and set on the command line and it's working as expected as well.
So some things to check:

Do you have QMAKE_APPLE_DEVICE_ARCHS set somewhere in one of your project file ?
Are you doing this call from a clean state (i.e. did you call make distclean before calling qmake?
Do you have some .qmake.stash file lying around that might wreak havock ?

SGaist

Hi,

What architecture is your build machine ?

Violet Giraffe

Hi, happy New Year!
It's M1. I can't build a working app on M1 at all, neither for x64 nor for arm64, and I suspect something is malfunctioning (as opposed to just wrong project settings). It might be new with the recent Xcode update a few weeks ago.

Violet Giraffe

Does anyone have any advice on how to properly select your target architecture with the latest Xcode+macOS+Qt versions?

SGaist

I just created one with a minimal project with a dummy main.cpp and:

TEMPLATE = app
QT += widgets
SOURCES = main.cpp
QMAKE_APPLE_DEVICE_ARCHS = x86_64 arm64

as .pro file content.

The build is screaming at me because the x86_64 symbols are missing so it does work correctly (the architecture missing is expected in my case).
I also tested with that variable removed from the .pro file and set on the command line and it's working as expected as well.
So some things to check:

Do you have QMAKE_APPLE_DEVICE_ARCHS set somewhere in one of your project file ?
Are you doing this call from a clean state (i.e. did you call make distclean before calling qmake?
Do you have some .qmake.stash file lying around that might wreak havock ?

Violet Giraffe

Hi, many thanks for the reply! There were several issues, the main one is that there probably was a second .qmake.stash. I always delete the one in the project root, it's part of all my scripts and command line snippets, but there had to have been another in a sub-prohect(s).
Is there a way to tell Qt not to create these files? These are a CONSTANT cause of headaches and problems that should never exist in the first place.

SGaist

Sorry, I haven't found anything about these being optional..