“library 'skia' not found” when build for macCatalyst

[theeket]

Description

ld: library 'skia' not found
clang: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)

React Native Skia Version

2.6.2

React Native Version

0.83.x

Using New Architecture

• Enabled

Steps to Reproduce

• install @shopify/react-native-skia
• set :mac_catalyst_enabled => true in Podfile
• build for Mac Catalyst in Xcode
• build failed with library 'skia' not found

Note that build for android and iOS works fine

Snack, Code Example, Screenshot, or Link to Repository

Related Issue

react-native-skia-binaries

[theeket]

This issue is caused by the prebuilt package missing the maccatalyst target.

Although react-native-skia-binaries claims to support Mac Catalyst, the prebuilt release does not actually include Catalyst frameworks.

The workaround is to build Skia from source:

1. Build Skia for Mac Catalyst:

yarn build-skia apple-maccatalyst

2. Manually combine the generated xcframeworks.

The iOS and Mac Catalyst builds are generated separately by default, so you need to merge their Info.plist files and copy the ios-arm64_x86_64-maccatalyst folder into each xcframework alongside the existing iOS targets.

3. Replace the binaries in:

2.6.4 and earlier: node_modules/@shopify/react-native-skia/libs/ios
2.6.5 and later: node_modules/react-native-skia-apple-ios/libs

For 2.6.4 and earlier: Make sure to replace the ios folder whenever react-native-skia is rebuilt after dependency tree changes during install.

For 2.6.5 and later, remove previous copied node_modules/@shopify/react-native-skia/libs/ios and run prebuild again to make pod install copies the latest files (do only once).

Each Info.plist should include an additional entry like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>AvailableLibraries</key>
    <array>
        <dict>
            ...
        </dict>
+       <dict>
+           <key>BinaryPath</key>
+           <string>libskia.a</string>
+           <key>LibraryIdentifier</key>
+           <string>ios-arm64_x86_64-maccatalyst</string>
+           <key>LibraryPath</key>
+           <string>libskia.a</string>
+           <key>SupportedArchitectures</key>
+           <array>
+               <string>arm64</string>
+               <string>x86_64</string>
+           </array>
+           <key>SupportedPlatform</key>
+           <string>ios</string>
+           <key>SupportedPlatformVariant</key>
+           <string>maccatalyst</string>
+       </dict>
    </array>
    <key>CFBundlePackageType</key>
    <string>XFWK</string>
    <key>XCFrameworkFormatVersion</key>
    <string>1.0</string>
</dict>
</plist>

LibraryIdentifier must exactly match the folder name inside the .xcframework.

---

Fixing error: binaries with multiple platforms are not supported

If xcodebuild -create-xcframework fails with:

error: binaries with multiple platforms are not supported

OR

error: '...' is unavailable: not available on macCatalyst

your static library was built with mixed MACOS and MACCATALYST object files.

To fix this, replace the if (is_mac) block in:

externals/skia/gn/skia/BUILD.gn

with the following code to force all modules to target Mac Catalyst consistently:

if (is_mac) {
  # Dynamically determine the correct architecture string for Mac Catalyst
  if (current_cpu == "arm64") {
    _catalyst_target = "arm64-apple-ios14.0-macabi"
  } else {
    _catalyst_target = "x86_64-apple-ios14.0-macabi"
  }

  # Force Mac Catalyst iOSSupport SDK search paths globally
  asmflags += [
    "-target", _catalyst_target,
    "-isysroot", "/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX26.5.sdk",
  ]

  cflags += [
    "-target", _catalyst_target,
    "-isysroot", "/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX26.5.sdk",
    "-isystem", "/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX26.5.sdk/System/iOSSupport/usr/include",
    "-iframework", "/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX26.5.sdk/System/iOSSupport/System/Library/Frameworks",
  ]

  cflags_cc += [
    "-stdlib=libc++",
  ]

  ldflags += [
    "-target", _catalyst_target,
    "-isysroot", "/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX26.5.sdk",
    "-iframework", "/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX26.5.sdk/System/iOSSupport/System/Library/Frameworks",
    "-stdlib=libc++",
    "-Wl,-w",
  ]
}

Replace MacOSX26.5.sdk with your iOS SDK version.