Hello, I am trying to install pmetrics from GitHub in R studio on my mac running sonoma 14.3. I keep getting the error "could not find tools necessary to compile a package".
I have run pkgbuild::check_build_tools(debug = TRUE) and brew install gcc and llvm. Unfortunately without success. How can I fix this issue? Thank you!
I've just followed the advice here and never had any problems:
https://mac.r-project.org/tools/
Install Xcode (from App store) plus GNU Fortran complier (from link on the above page) and then download the necessary binaries for libraries and tools from here:
Thank you for you reply! unfortunately it still doesn't work for me. When I run pkgbuild::check_build_tools I get this error:
Trying to compile a simple C file
Running /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/R CMD SHLIB foo.c
using C compiler: ‘clang version 4.0.1 (tags/RELEASE_401/final)’
using SDK: ‘’
clang -arch arm64 -I"/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/include" -DNDEBUG -I/opt/R/arm64/include -fPIC -falign-functions=64 -Wall -g -O2 -c foo.c -o foo.o
clang-4.0: warning: optimization flag '-falign-functions=64' is not supported [-Wignored-optimization-argument]
clang -arch arm64 -dynamiclib -Wl,-headerpad_max_install_names -undefined dynamic_lookup -L/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/lib -L/opt/R/arm64/lib -o foo.so foo.o -F/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/.. -framework R -Wl,-framework -Wl,CoreFoundation
-iphoneos_version_min has been renamed to -ios_version_min
ld: warning: -undefined dynamic_lookup is deprecated on iOS
-iphoneos_version_min has been renamed to -ios_version_min
ld: warning: -undefined dynamic_lookup is deprecated on iOS
dyld[18399]: missing symbol called
clang-4.0: error: unable to execute command: Abort trap: 6
clang-4.0: error: linker command failed due to signal (use -v to see invocation)
make: *** [/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/share/make/shlib.mk:10: foo.so] Error 254
Error: Could not find tools necessary to compile a package
Call pkgbuild::check_build_tools(debug = TRUE) to diagnose the problem.
What does the output of pkgbuild::check_build_tools(debug = TRUE) tell you?
Hi, thank you for your reply.
the output tells me the lines I have copied in my previous reply. Then it opens a dialogue on my mac:
R install build tools Building R package from source requires installation of additional build tools. Do you want to install the additional tools now?
when I click yes, I get:
Error: Could not find tools necessary to compile a package
Call pkgbuild::check_build_tools(debug = TRUE) to diagnose the problem.
Blockquote
Apologies...
You could try opening a terminal window in macos and running:
xcode-select --install
Hopefully that will install the command line utilities needed to allow the compiler to work.
I have tried this, but it says it's already installed:
xcode-select: note: Command line tools are already installed. Use "Software Update" in System Settings or the softwareupdate command line interface to install updates
when I try to use a different package I get a similar error:
using C++ compiler: ‘clang version 4.0.1 (tags/RELEASE_401/final)’
using SDK: ‘’
clang-4.0: warning: optimization flag '-falign-functions=64' is not supported [-Wignored-optimization-argument]
error: invalid value 'gnu++17' in '-std=gnu++17'
make: *** [/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/etc/Makeconf:198: irm1-mread-source.o] Error 1
Error: the model build step failed.
does this help to identify the problem?
I found the directory for build tools was incorrect in Xcode. I have restored this and now R studio is compiling correctly. Thank you for your efforts and help!
This article helped me:
Glad you got it working. My guess is installing the compliers via Homebrew (mentioned in your first post) probably meant that things were pointing to the wrong location.