Malformed Qt Creator macOS app bundle

Valentin Gorelov

Hi,

I am trying to build both Qt and Qt Creator from source on macOS.

I use this script:

#!/usr/bin/env zsh
set -euo pipefail

cd /Users/valentingorelov/Projects/qt

# Cleanup
rm -rf build_qt install_qt build_qtcreator install_qtcreator

# Configure the repositories. Qt is cloned to qt6, Qt Creator is cloned to qtcreator
cd qt6
git checkout origin/6.12
./init-repository -f
cd ../qtcreator
git checkout origin/master
git submodule update --init --recursive
cd ..

# Build and install Qt
mkdir build_qt
mkdir install_qt
cd build_qt
../qt6/configure -prefix ../install_qt
cmake --build . --parallel
cmake --install .
cd ..

# Build and install Qt Creator
mkdir build_qtcreator
mkdir install_qtcreator
cd build_qtcreator
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=../install_qtcreator -G Ninja "-DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=../install_qt;../libclang" ../qtcreator
cmake --build . --parallel
cmake --install .

The script terminates without errors, but when I try to launch the resulting app bundle from the build_qtcreator directory I get this error:


Date/Time:           2026-10-11 14:40:43.2431 +0200
Launch Time:         2026-10-11 14:40:43.1895 +0200
Hardware Model:      MacBookAir10,1
OS Version:          macOS 26.7.1 (25G241)
Release Type:        User

Crash Reporter Key:  0980C452-E1C7-0B4E-507F-6794A52967DE
Incident Identifier: 3DAD80B4-19A8-464E-8CA8-D6F9EEFD361C

Sleep/Wake UUID:       A15FBBB5-E6C1-45CA-9870-E4EA8EF1C5D3

Time Awake Since Boot: 490000 seconds
Time Since Wake:       4155 seconds

System Integrity Protection: disabled

Triggered by Thread: 0

Exception Type:    EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)
Exception Codes:   0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000

Termination Reason:  Namespace DYLD, Code 1, Library missing
Library not loaded: @rpath/QtPrintSupport.framework/Versions/A/QtPrintSupport
Referenced from: <F520E49F-D6CA-3AF2-8788-C895E0BFAA6D> /Users/USER/*/Qt Creator.app/Contents/MacOS/Qt Creator
Reason: tried: '/Users/valentingorelov/Projects/qt/install_qtcreator/Qt Creator.app/Contents/Frameworks/QtPrintSupport.framework/Versions/A/QtPrintSupport' (no such file), '/Users/valentingorelov/Projects/qt/install_qtcreator/Qt Creator.app/Contents/PlugIns/qtcreator/QtPrintSupport.framework/Versions/A/QtPrintSupport' (no such file), '/Users/valentingorelov/Projects/qt/install_qtcreator/Qt Creator.app/Contents/Frameworks/QtPrintSupport.framework/Versions/A/QtPrintSupport' (no such file), '/Users/valentingorelov/Projects/qt/install_qtcreator/Qt Creator.app/Contents/PlugIns/qtcreator/QtPrintSupport.framework/Versions/A/QtPrintSupport' (no such file)
(terminated at launch; ignore backtrace)

Apparently, Qt frameworks are not included into the bundle for some reason.

Axel Spoerl

The app bundle is missing QtPrintSupport.framework, so deployment/bundling didn't succeed. Can you please verify that QtPrintSupport.framework was actually built and installed into install_qt. If it exists?

Valentin Gorelov

It is built and installed here:
/Users/valentingorelov/Projects/qt/install_qt/lib/QtPrintSupport.framework

But this framework is not the only problem. If I copy it manually into the app bundle, I start to get errors about other frameworks.

I tried to build Qt Creator with the Qt from homebrew
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/qt/6.11.2/
and it worked.

The homebrew version of Qt has a /opt/homebrew/Cellar/qt/6.11.2/Frameworks/ dir, but the version built from source does not (there is no /Users/valentingorelov/Projects/qt/install_qt/Frameworks).

SGaist

Hi,

Do you have a debug build of Qt ?

Valentin Gorelov

@SGaist said in Malformed Qt Creator macOS app bundle:

Hi,

Do you have a debug build of Qt ?

The script uses

../qt6/configure -prefix ../install_qt

command to configure the Qt build. I am following the instructions from this page: https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/macos-building.html

I suppose the default is the Release build since I see these messages:

-- Configuring submodule 'qtbase'
-- [QtBase] Setting build type to 'Release' as none was specified.