Cannot install asdf erlang on MAC OSX Mojave

Questions / Help
,
1

Background & Problem

I am trying to install erlang in a Mac OS system with Mojave on it. However the installation hangs for no apparent reason:

$ asdf install erlang 22.2.8
asdf_22.2.8 is not a kerl-managed Erlang/OTP installation
The asdf_22.2.8 build has been deleted
Extracting source code
Building Erlang/OTP 22.2.8 (asdf_22.2.8), please wait...

I know the issue is not the network, as I have downloaded everything and the step that hangs forever is the Building step.

I have removed and re-installed both asdf and erlang from scratch as well, but it didn’t fix the issue.
I believe I have all necessary dependencies as well, otherwise the re-installation would have failed.

Questions

  • Is someone else having the same issue?
  • What can I do to fix this?
2

Is this in the same network as Installing erlang via asdf on Ubuntu fails after "Downloading kerl"?

If so, have you checked if the same solution works? If not, have you checked anyway?

Also, as far as I remember, only certain erlang versions are buildable on certain MacOS versions, due to things changing in MacOS and its default libraries or Xcode. Also I have heard that on MacOS you have to re-accept the Xcode license every now and then, and tools using Xcode will either fail or stale until you did…

1 Like
3

Yes, it is the same network.
Yes, I have tried the same solution (with the .curlrc file) but it didn’t work.

I have some updates to do to XCode.
Will try those and then see how it goes!

4

After updating XCode the issue remains.
The only post I could find regarding a similar issue was an SO post which stated I had to install erlang > 22.3.1, which I am:

5

Erlang 22.2.8 is not > 22.3.1

2 Likes
6

How long is forever?
I’m on Mojave and coincidentally I had to do that yesterday, installing Elixir 1.11.3!
It hanged for quite a bit, almost an hour I think… I also thought something wrong was going on but it was dinner time, so I just left it there and when I came back it was completed.

7

Ah yes, my bad. Well, the same happens with 22.3.1 :smiley:

Over 4 hours. On this machine:

Screenshot 2021-01-19 at 10.41.38

8

I figured it out.

Turns out that while asdf is building a release (let’s say 22.2.8), you can actually follow its progress by going to ~/.asdf/plugins/erlang/kerl-home/builds/asdf_22.2.8 and looking at the otp_build_22.2.8.log.

By checking this I was actually able to find out that I had a problem with my brew installation, which in turn meant I was using a very outdated version of XCode and XTools.

By forcing an upgrade on my machine (and as a consequence fixing my broken brew installation), I was then able to smoothly run and install asdf install erlang.

Thanks everyone for the help! Once again I could not have done it without you!

3 Likes