iOS build fails via make run-ios but works with Xcode.app after upgrading react-native to 0.73.x

[siddarthkay]

Problem

make run-ios fails with :

error Failed to build iOS project. "xcodebuild" exited with error code '65'. To debug build logs further, 
consider building your app with Xcode.app, by opening 'StatusIm.xcworkspace'.
info Run CLI with --verbose flag for more details.

Since we do not want to rely on opening Xcode app I try running xcodebuild with -verbose flag like this
cd ios && xcodebuild -workspace StatusIm.xcworkspace -configuration Debug -scheme StatusIm -verbose | xcbeautify

Thats when I get more details on the failure :

[FBReactNativeSpec] Running script [CP-User] Generate Specs
** BUILD FAILED **


The following build commands failed:
	PhaseScriptExecution [CP-User]\ Generate\ Specs /Users/siddarthkumar/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/
	StatusIm-fxiitjbbybrcsqcxqartjfyvqxdo/Build/Intermediates.noindex/Pods.build/Debug-iphoneos/
	FBReactNativeSpec.build/Script-46EB2E00021AC0.sh (in target 'FBReactNativeSpec' from project 'Pods')
(1 failure)

My knee jerk reaction when i spotted DerivedData in the error message was that this issue could be cache related (but it wasn't)
I ran make xcode-clean and make clean just and this issue was consistently reproducible.

Notes

• We had faced a similar issue in the past where the iOS side would build via Xcode.App but fail via xcodebuild CLI -> https://github.com/status-im/status-mobile/issues/15911

• guidelines by React Native team on how to deal with FBReactNativeSpec failures -> https://reactnative.dev/docs/0.71/new-architecture-troubleshooting#xcode-build-issues

blocks #16721

[siddarthkay]

First thing I try is to manually execute Script-46EB2E00021AC0.sh and It obviously fails, this time with an error message

[nix-shell:~/code/experiments/status-mobile/ios]$ sh /Users/siddarthkumar/Library/Developer/Xcode/
DerivedData/StatusIm-fxiitjbbybrcsqcxqartjfyvqxdo/Build/Intermediates.noindex/Pods.build/Debug-iphoneos/
FBReactNativeSpec.build/Script-46EB2E00021AC0.sh
/bin/sh: /../../scripts/xcode/with-environment.sh: No such file or directory

inside this bash script, the path to WITH_ENVIRONMENT is determined like this
WITH_ENVIRONMENT="$RCT_SCRIPT_RN_DIR/scripts/xcode/with-environment.sh"

the variable RCT_SCRIPT_RN_DIR comes from here https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/0.73-stable/packages/react-native/scripts/react_native_pods_utils/script_phases.rb#L12

This could mean that since this variable is not properly set the script execution could fail.
Investigating further.

[siddarthkay]

The issue is indeed in this script, after adding some logs to script_phases.rb we get the following logs :

RCT_SCRIPT_RN_DIR is -> /Users/siddarthkumar/code/experiments/status-mobile/ios/Pods/../../node_modules/
react-native/React/FBReactNativeSpec/../..

WITH_ENVIRONMENT is -> /Users/siddarthkumar/code/experiments/status-mobile/ios/Pods/../../node_modules/
react-native/React/FBReactNativeSpec/../../scripts/xcode/with-environment.sh

Node found at: /nix/store/ihji2bc16a7kj8d9z3xglj619v9ywmbi-nodejs-20.2.0/bin/node
cp: invalid option -- 'X'

we can see that cp command is failing, which seems to be the core problem.

[siddarthkay]

so -X is used along with cp here at : https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/0.73-stable/packages/react-native/scripts/react_native_pods_utils/script_phases.sh#L107

moveOutputs () {
    mkdir -p "$RCT_SCRIPT_OUTPUT_DIR"

    # Copy all output to output_dir
    cp -R -X "$TEMP_OUTPUT_DIR/." "$RCT_SCRIPT_OUTPUT_DIR" || exit 1
    echo "$LIBRARY_NAME output has been written to $RCT_SCRIPT_OUTPUT_DIR:" >> "${SCRIPT_OUTPUT_FILE_0}" 2>&1
    ls -1 "$RCT_SCRIPT_OUTPUT_DIR" >> "${SCRIPT_OUTPUT_FILE_0}" 2>&1
}

and that is why when this script fails they just exit 🥲👌🏻👏🏻

[siddarthkay]

Fixed by patching -X out of script_phases.sh#L107

ref : 9fb9e69

[sandipndev]

Indeed, this was a great find. Thanks for solving this. I fixed using patch-package method.
GaloyMoney/blink-mobile@f409797

I see you use nix (we use it too, via flakes) and really wish there was a way to handle Xcode inside nix dips but Apple and it's lock-in.

[siddarthkay]

@sandipndev : we recently moved over to using .patch files instead with this PR -> #19451

We just don't use patch-package npm library, we apply the patches ourselves in a patch phase inside nix.

and our patch now is also pretty similar ->

status-mobile/patches/react-native-script.patch

Line 9 in 6e85442

- cp -R -X "$TEMP_OUTPUT_DIR/." "$RCT_SCRIPT_OUTPUT_DIR" || exit 1