qt5 @5.15.8+qt5-qtwebengine: App cannot be run on this version of macOS. Qt requires macOS 13.0.0 or later, you have macOS 12.6.0

[kaamui]

I built a package of my app on a Mac Intel running on Ventura (macOS 13), and am not able to run it on a macOS Intel 12.6.

Error message when I try to launch it via the Terminal is : App cannot be run on this version of macOS. Qt requires macOS 13.0.0 or later, you have macOS 12.6.0

I'm quite surprised as I've been doing so with previous versions of macOS since a long time now, even before using MacPorts to handle Qt installation.

Is it a new and expected behavior, on the side of MacPorts ? On the side of macOS ? Is anyone else encountering this issue ?

Is it a limitation of MacPorts ? Can it be related to the XCode version I'm using ?

Thanks for your help.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Just to check the obvious: the deployment target defaults to the current major version of macOS, so it is expected that if you compile something on macOS 13, it can only run on macOS 13 and later. If you want to be able to run on earlier macOS versions, you have to set the deployment target to the earliest version you want to run on, for example by setting the environment variable MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=12.0 if you want to be able to run on macOS 12 or later. If you are building with Xcode, there is a setting for this in your Xcode project.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

And if you are trying to use MacPorts libraries like Qt in your project, then those libraries will also have to be built with a deployment target no greater than your program's deployment target, as will those libraries' dependencies, and so on down the chain. The error message makes it sound like Qt itself was built with the deployment target set to 13.0. This would be expected if you installed MacPorts on macOS 13 and compiled from source with the default deployment target or received our binaries which were compiled that way. To solve this with MacPorts, you would have to edit macports.conf and set buildfromsource always and macosx_deployment_target 12.0 (or whatever minimum OS version you want), then uninstall all installed ports and reinstall the ones you want, which will then build from source on your system using your desired deployment target. This will of course take much longer than just receiving pre-built binaries from us.

[kaamui]

I'm building my app with scripts and/or Qt Creator, and have a qmake setting similar to the one you are referring to : QMAKE_MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET = 10.15

As for Qt installation, I simply did a sudo port install qt5 , then a sudo port install qt5-qtwebengine

[markemer (Mark Anderson)]

Replying to kaamui:

I'm building my app with scripts and/or Qt Creator, and have a qmake setting similar to the one you are referring to : QMAKE_MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET = 10.15

As for Qt installation, I simply did a sudo port install qt5 , then a sudo port install qt5-qtwebengine

By default MacPorts builds/installs with a MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET equal to your current machine OS. Your app is building with 10.15 but the Qt you have installed is set to 13.