Can't build iOS Cordova app with Firebase on M1 Mac: "Module 'FirebaseFirestore' not found" and "framework not found AppAuth"

Question

I'm using Cordova 11.0.0 (cordova-ios 6.2.0) on a brand new Mac mini with an M1 chip, using Xcode 13.2.1, and I can't build my app for the iOS simulator. I'm trying to use cordova-plugin-firebasex 14.0.0 , but I can't build the app either with or without this plugin. With the plugin, I get Module 'FirebaseFirestore' not found, while without it I get framework not found AppAuth. I've searched on both of those errors, as well as on many others I've seen, for the past 3 days; the many solutions I've found and tried either don't work or are not applicable to an M1 machine. I've reinstalled almost everything, including Xcode, and many things multiple times. I've tried pod repo update, pod install, and pod update many times.

Other tool versions:

• ruby 3.1.0p0 (installed via homebrew)
• CocoaPods 1.11.2 (installed with above, new version of ruby)
• MacOS 12.2.1

Installing the new ruby and CocoaPods, rather than using MacOS's default versions, did remove a few error messages, and lets me run the pod commands without arch -x86_64 before them.

Interestingly, when the cordova-plugin-firebasex plugin is installed, then every time I run pod update, there are two extra messages in its output:

Pre-downloading: `FirebaseFirestore` from `https://github.com/invertase/firestore-ios-sdk-frameworks.git`, tag `8.11.0`

and

Installing FirebaseFirestore 8.11.0

This hints that there's something wrong with the FirebaseFirestore part of Firebase, as if it gets installed incompletely, or as if the plugin is missing some flag in the installation of its FirebaseFirestore component (?). Note that the line for FirebaseFirestore is different from the others in the Podfile:

# DO NOT MODIFY -- auto-generated by Apache Cordova
source 'https://cdn.cocoapods.org/'
platform :ios, '11.0'
use_frameworks!
target 'my_app' do
        project 'my_app.xcodeproj'
        pod 'Firebase/Core', '8.11.0'
        pod 'Firebase/Auth', '8.11.0'
        pod 'Firebase/Messaging', '8.11.0'
        pod 'Firebase/Performance', '8.11.0'
        pod 'Firebase/RemoteConfig', '8.11.0'
        pod 'Firebase/InAppMessaging', '8.11.0'
        pod 'FirebaseFirestore', :tag => '8.11.0', :git => 'https://github.com/invertase/firestore-ios-sdk-frameworks.git'
        pod 'Firebase/Crashlytics', '8.11.0'
        pod 'Firebase/Functions', '8.11.0'
        pod 'Firebase/Installations', '8.11.0'
        pod 'GoogleSignIn', '6.1.0'
        pod 'GoogleTagManager', '7.3.1'
end

Do I understand correctly that cordova-plugin-firebasex can be used either from the command line (with the -cli packages), or from Xcode, but not both at the same time? In any case, I've tried building from the command line too, and that fails when compiling cordova-plugin-firebasex/FirebasePlugin.m .

I'm completely new to Firebase and pretty much everything in the Apple world, so all advice is very welcome. Thanks!

EDIT: A few more things, possible clues:

Under platforms/iOS/my_app/CordovaLib/, there is no Cordova/, which is apparently supposed to contain Cordova.h and Info.list. What could cause this?

Now, after setting Architectures / Exclude Architectures to x86_64, I get the error message:

in /Users/me/dev/my_app/platforms/ios/Pods/GoogleSymbolUtilities/Frameworks/frameworks/GoogleSymbolUtilities.framework/GoogleSymbolUtilities(overload.o), building for iOS Simulator, but linking in object file built for iOS, file '/Users/me/dev/my_app/platforms/ios/Pods/GoogleSymbolUtilities/Frameworks/frameworks/GoogleSymbolUtilities.framework/GoogleSymbolUtilities' for architecture arm64.

I've also searched on this error message over the past 4 days, but found nothing that has worked.

In platforms/iOS/Pods/Pods.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj, IPHONEOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET is set to 8.0 for these modules (?): AppAuth.debug.xcconfig, GoogleSymbolUtilities.release.xcconfig, GoogleSymbolUtilities.debug.xcconfig, AppAuth.release.xcconfig, GoogleUtilitiesLegacy.debug.xcconfig, and GoogleUtilitiesLegacy.release.xcconfig. When building from the command line, a warning says those should be at least 9.0. I've tried changing those lines to 9.0 in that file, but the error message is unchanged. pod install plus pod update sets those back to 8.0.

Under Build Settings / Linking, I notice that the Path to Link Map File is set to a file that doesn't exist: build/my_app.build/Debug-iphoneos/.build/-LinkMap--.txt. In fact the directory build/my_app.build/ does not exist. The filename apparently shows that PRODUCT_NAME, CURRENT_VARIANT, and CURRENT_ARCH are not set. Is this important?

Thanks for any help at all. I suspect multiple apps being used here have problems, and solving any one problem would make everything else much easier to diagnose.

Answer 1

I had the same problem, but i solve it in this way

1. Remove firebase plugin

cordova plugin remove cordova-plugin-firebasex

2. Remove ios platform

cordova platform rm ios

3. upgrade homebrew and all packages

homebrew upgrade

4. Add ios platform

cordova platform add ios

5. Install firebasex

cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-firebasex

6. Build ios (cordova build ios) in my case i get this error

xcode-select: error: tool 'xcodebuild' requires Xcode, but active developer directory '/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools' is a command line tools instance

For solving this i launch this

sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer

(from this)

6. At this point i run cordova build ios again and this time all goes well

I hope this can be usefull

================================

At the end i've found another way, if the before steps does not works.

https://github.com/dpa99c/cordova-plugin-firebasex/issues/735#issuecomment-1140775999