Topic: Armory on macOS 10.15 (Catalina) (Read 8258 times)

On vera. J'ai des doubts. I'm feeling cynical these days regarding Armory and MacOs.   Will it really work some day? It's Sep 2021, I have Bitcoin Core 0.21.1, and a new MBP (w/ intel processors). I get these sucky log messages: Service exited due to SIGKILL | sent by mds[96]

Well... that's certainly a viable option if you're going to be happy using the older hardware... especially if you can get a good deal on them.

I can't speak to what Apple are considering doing with the support of the older Intel-based systems now that they are making their own silicon... but they have usually been "pretty good" with that sort of thing. I mean, when they did the last silicon swap (PowerPC -> Intel), the support was ongoing for something like 7 years!

Additionally, the transition is scheduled to take place over 2 years or so... so it really shouldn't be an issue in the near term.

Or just purchase one of the current MBP's that still have a bunch of intel chips before they stop offering them?

That's correct... they are a completely different instruction set. However, the M1 Apples have a "Rosetta Translation" system that can run some x86_64 code: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple-silicon/about-the-rosetta-translation-environment

So, Armory might still work on the M1-based laptops... but given that Armory and MacOSX were already somewhat problematic, you might be better using a virtual machine (running Linux or Windows)... or waiting until an M1 native build is released.

These are ARM chips afaik, so it would definitely break the x86 breaks.

 I currently have macOS Catalina 15.4, and an old version of Armory 0.96,  and this works fine.

I am now wondering if the new MBP's with their M1 chip (replacing intel) would somehow break Armory. It should make no difference to running Armory, no?
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I'm not aware of any workarounds. I also can't really do any work on finishing the port until the build system settles. So, short of using a VM, macOS users are SOL at the moment.

Hope there's a next version of Armory for Mac...  using brew would be great.

As far as the workaround for the openssl library earlier... it doesn't work now.  Besides building a VM and migrating data... is there any other way around this to get it working on 10.15.x?

$ brew reinstall https://github.com/tebelorg/Tump/releases/download/v1.0.0/openssl.rb

Traceback (most recent call last):
`brew extract` or `brew create` and `brew tap-new` to create a formula file in a tap on GitHub instead.: Invalid usage: Non-checksummed download of openssl formula file from an arbitrary URL is unsupported!  (UsageError)
`brew extract` or `brew create` and `brew tap-new` to create a formula file in a tap on GitHub instead.: Invalid usage: Non-checksummed download of openssl formula file from an arbitrary URL is unsupported!  (UsageError)

Here is the ultimate guide how to circumvent the fact that Armory does not run on MacOS.

You need an Armory seed for that.

1. Install the trial version of Parallels, and Windows in it. One click, and for free.
2. Install the Windows version of Armory within Parallels.
3. Access the wallet using your seed, then move your coins elsewhere.

Closed Source repaired the mess Open Source left me with. (I leave the obvious and not so obvious conclusions from that to the community...)

Did you manage to get this to work? I'm having the same issue. Thanks

Next version will run natively on OSX

If you are like me and read this and your heart sank.  Another thread suggest downloading virtual box and running Ubuntu on a Mac Virtual machine.  It looks easy enough.   I am about to try it now.

Edit:  This proved way to difficult for me. Went a bought a machine and put Ubuntu on it.  Nearly at the finish line.

Here is the other thread.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/simplest-way-to-get-armory-running-5293483

I am following this videos advice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJcc-xC6krE

Hi. I've been maintaining the Mac build for awhile. To make a very long story short, my maintenance of the Mac build is on the backburner these days. There are two primary reasons.

- I've got a lot going on in my life right now. I don't have much time to dedicate to the project, and what time I do have, I've found myself gravitating towards other projects and hobbies.
- Frankly, I think Armory's build system for the Mac is terrible, and always has been. It was donated by somebody back around 2012/2013. Technically, it works, but it's a real pain in the butt to maintain. That and, long ago, I stopped seeing the point in making things so convoluted. In theory, it allows people to create offline builds. I'm not aware of a single person using Macs for offline Armory, though. (If they are, I highly recommend they pick up a barebones PC with Linux, or even Raspberry Pi 4. Support will be much better and easier.) That and I just don't see the point in downloading all these packages and compiling them locally. It may have been at least somewhat necessary back then. It isn't now, and it just makes compilation much more brittle.

For awhile, I've been toying with the idea of overhauling the Mac build system such that it leans on brew, or possibly brew-pkg if enough people are dead set on using Armory offline on a Mac. Either way, Bitcoin Core uses brew. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me, and it'll make Mac compilation far simpler. Just install a few dependencies and compile Armory like you would under Linux, and you're good. None of this brittle Python script garbage that's prone to breaking every few months.

Of course, I have to pencil in time to write out everything. Depending on how much cruft is there, I might be able to bang out something over a weekend, or even a day. Now that the dev build has finally gotten away from Qt 4 and Python 2, this is far easier.

tl;dr - If you're in a hurry, do it yourself, but I have a path in my head if I can ever carve out enough time to get it done. Either way, if this gets done, it'll be done no earlier than 0.97. Backporting to 0.96 would be far too painful due in large part to the Py2/Qt4 requirement.

Hi, thank you for your detailed instructions on how to solve this issue. It helped me on earlier versions of OSx, but today when I tried it failed. In the thread I saw the suggestion to run the following command:


which I did but, it still crashes when I start Armory. The error I get is the following:


Any ideas? Thanks!

Im having the problem you mention, before you posted that it works.

Armory doesn't open in Catalina 10.15.7
Anybody else having this issue?

Older version of Armory opens, a really old I had. But it doesn't connect online.

Cheers
simon

Hello there,

Is there a good email address I can use to contact Armory business development team regarding partnerships with another service?

The email address in their webpage [email protected] and [email protected] are no longer working, those don't receive emails.

EDIT: Okay. It turns out that the following was a false alarm. I don't know what happened behind-the-scenes but I just migrated to a new Mac that came preinstalled with macOS 10.15.1. I fired up Armory, expecting it to complain. It didn't. So, all should be well. However, when you run, you have to stay on the OpenSSL 1.0.x line, due to Python nonsense that doesn't apply to Armory. If you bump into an issue where brew installs OpenSSL 1.1, run the following command from the terminal, as seen here. This should do the trick.


Thanks. I'll leave the directions below in case the migration directions are useful to anyone.

--------------------
Hi. Just wanted to get a message out to everyone. If you're running macOS and Armory is important to you, please don't upgrade to 10.15 just yet. Long story short, due to a library dependency, Armory won't run. I don't think there's a way around this without a library upgrade. Said upgrade will be part of 0.97. As always, this is a work-in-progress. (I had some great momentum a couple of months ago but now life is eating up a lot of my free time.)

If you have already upgraded to 10.15, you have some options.

Option 1: Downgrade back to 10.14. I haven't tried this method. This is very much at your own risk.

Option 2a: Use a virtual machine. This is more involved and requires some technical skills. It's also guaranteed to work (with some minor caveats). The steps are as follows.

- First off, back up both your Armory data and Bitcoin Core data. If you have a paper or digital backup, great! If not, don't fret. You can copy your Armory data folder, although this is very much at your own risk. (If you don't know your way around PCs, just stick to paper or digital backups and wait for the upgrade.)
- You'll need to run either Windows or Linux, or macOS 10.14. If you have a separate PC, you're good to go. If you only have a Mac on 10.15, and you have enough resources (4-core CPU and 8GB RAM minimum, along with at least 40GB of storage), you can run what's called a virtual machine. This is basically a way to run an operating system on top of another operating system. VirtualBox is free but I find it clunky. VMWare Fusion costs US$50 but is easier to use, and arguably a bit more stable (with one caveat listed below).
- For the VM, install your desired OS. I recommend the latest Windows 10, or Ubuntu 18.04 (latest long-term stable release), or macOS 10.14 (will need a free Mac developer account to download the latest image, and then do some black magic to create an ISO that your VM software can handle, so I don't recommend this except to fellow tech nerds). I recommend Ubuntu if at all possible but Windows should work fine, and it's still free.
- Run the VM OS, install the latest security patches, and install Armory and Bitcoin Core on the VM.
- If at all possible, copy over your Bitcoin Core and Armory data, or at least put it somewhere that the VM OS can access it (512GB or larger thumb drive is best). This is the quickest option. Otherwise, you'll have to download the entire blockchain again, restore your wallet from your backup, and wait for Armory to resync.
- Run both Bitcoin Core and Armory from the command line, with the options to read the respective data from appropriate directories. Look here for Armory pathing and here for Bitcoin Core.
- Use Armory as normal.
- Once Armory supports 10.15, you'll either need to stick to using the updated data (e.g., on your thumb drive) or copy the updated data back to your normal Mac directory. That's your call. Either way, be consistent, use only the updated data, and don't try to go back to 0.96.x (unless you use a VM or separate computer).

Please note that VMs can be a little weird at times. They're inherently slower than the OS that they're running on. In addition, strange bugs can affect your experience. While it was a bit of a worst case scenario, a bug in macOS 10.14.6 made my VMs unusable for weeks (which, in turn, helped kill my Armory upgrade momentum). Please be careful if you go down this path.

Option 2b: Use a separate PC. The steps are basically the same as 2a. You'll just be on a physically separate PC. If it already has Windows or Linux on it, there's no need to reinstall, although you should make sure to run with the latest security patches installed.

I believe that covers all the bases. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Thanks for your patience!