Unable to build for Portal on macOS

[Duarte475]

Hi, I'm trying to build the source engine so I can play Portal on my M1 MacBook.
I configured waf with the command python3 waf configure -T release --prefix='' --build-games=portal
I tried building with python3 waf build but it error out with:

Waf: Leaving directory `/Users/duarte/source-engine/build'
Build failed
 -> task in 'tier1' failed with exit status 1 (run with -v to display more information)
 -> task in 'tier1' failed with exit status 1 (run with -v to display more information)
 -> task in 'tier1' failed with exit status 1 (run with -v to display more information)
 -> task in 'tier1' failed with exit status 1 (run with -v to display more information)
 -> task in 'tier1' failed with exit status 1 (run with -v to display more information)
 -> task in 'tier1' failed with exit status 1 (run with -v to display more information)
 -> task in 'tier1' failed with exit status 1 (run with -v to display more information)
 -> task in 'tier0' failed with exit status 1 (run with -v to display more information)

Am I doing something wrong ?
Thanks for all of the help🙏

[FlamedDogo99]

Well, something is definitely going wrong, and the logs you provided really don't give us much to work with.
I would recommend going to the Mac Source Ports discord, as everyone seems to have a unique issue with getting everything working. @hakase was particularly helpful when I was having issues with it

[ironmjp]

ive got a build of the source code that compiles fine. let me get a google drive link.

[ironmjp]

also you doing fine just replace your source engine folder with mine.
i belive the source code currently doesnt compile on macos. it might not on other platforms but i havent tested as they can run it natively
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1El9FBcka5ns767Uf3uRNOfF34bqENrCA/view?usp=sharing

[AndyGraewe]

Something is wired. I was able to build app for HL2 and portal some weeks ago. But now it is not working anymore.

[Duarte475]

A few months ago I was also able to build on macOS for HL2. My best bet is that some dependency is causing this problem.
I've also spoke with @hakase and he's facing similar issues.

@ironmjp
How were you able to build it ?

[AndyGraewe]

also you doing fine just replace your source engine folder with mine. i belive the source code currently doesnt compile on macos. it might not on other platforms but i havent tested as they can run it natively https://drive.google.com/file/d/1El9FBcka5ns767Uf3uRNOfF34bqENrCA/view?usp=sharing

Thanks, with your sources compiling is working on mac. Thank you very much.

[vova12021970]

Engine have problem to build on MacOS with cmake 19. Just apply a patch from er2off/source-engine:cmake19 (I don't recommend too much)

[mSapik]

On macos 15.6.1 i have the same errors. I solve this by applied this commands:

export SDKROOT=$(xcrun --sdk macosx --show-sdk-path)
export CXXFLAGS="--sysroot=$SDKROOT -isystem$SDKROOT/usr/include/c++/v1"
export CFLAGS="--sysroot=$SDKROOT"

and this fork: https://github.com/er2off/source-engine/tree/clang19

[ralph303]

On macos 15.6.1 i have the same errors. I solve this by applied this commands:

export SDKROOT=$(xcrun --sdk macosx --show-sdk-path)
export CXXFLAGS="--sysroot=$SDKROOT -isystem$SDKROOT/usr/include/c++/v1"
export CFLAGS="--sysroot=$SDKROOT"

and this fork: https://github.com/er2off/source-engine/tree/clang19

I managed to compile the clang19 fork successfully on MacOS 15.7, but I always hit linker errors when building the engine, for example:

Undefined symbols for architecture arm64:
[...]
ld: symbol(s) not found for architecture arm64 clang++: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)
Build failed
 -> task in 'engine' failed with exit status 1: 

Could you share how exactly you configured wscript or any special steps you took to get a working build on MacOS 15.x?