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Fix headless builds on macOS and Windows - #3826

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dtinth wants to merge 3 commits into
jamulussoftware:mainfrom
dtinth:fix/headless-macos-windows
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Fix headless builds on macOS and Windows#3826
dtinth wants to merge 3 commits into
jamulussoftware:mainfrom
dtinth:fix/headless-macos-windows

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@dtinth

@dtinth dtinth commented Jul 23, 2026 •
edited by pljones
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Short description of changes

Three one-line fixes so that CONFIG+=headless compiles (and links) on macOS and Windows, as it already does on Linux.

CHANGELOG: Build: Fixed headless builds (CONFIG+=headless) not compiling on macOS and Windows.

Context: Fixes an issue?

Fixes: #3825

Does this change need documentation? What needs to be documented and how?

No.

Status of this Pull Request

Working implementation, CI-verified..

What is missing until this pull request can be merged?

Nothing known.

  • Verified in a fork with a headless client/server build-and-connect job on all three platforms:
    • failing before
      • macOS: fatal error: 'QMessageBox' file not found, then Undefined symbols … qt_set_sequence_auto_mnemonic(bool)
      • Windows: error C2027: use of undefined type 'QApplication'
    • green after with only these three commits.

Checklist

  • I've verified that this Pull Request follows the general code principles
  • I tested my code and it does what I want
  • My code follows the style guide
  • I waited some time after this Pull Request was opened and all GitHub checks completed without errors.
  • I've filled all the content above

AUTOBUILD: Please build all targets

dtinth-claw Bot and others added 3 commits July 23, 2026 13:51
@dtinth-claw @claude
Remove unused QMessageBox include from CoreAudio sound.h
9c575a8 
The include is not referenced anywhere in src/sound/coreaudio-mac/ and
breaks CONFIG+=headless builds on macOS, where the widgets module is not
available.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01HGdLtGxMrbExBFG3aReNAH
@dtinth-claw @claude
Use QCoreApplication::applicationDirPath() in Windows-only block
2e74c05 
The #ifdef _WIN32 block runs in headless builds too, but <QApplication>
is only included when HEADLESS is not defined, so headless Windows
builds fail to compile. applicationDirPath() is a static inherited from
QCoreApplication, so this is behavior-neutral in GUI builds.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01HGdLtGxMrbExBFG3aReNAH
@dtinth-claw @claude
Gate qt_set_sequence_auto_mnemonic behind HEADLESS on macOS
8a3f969 
A third headless-on-macOS gap, found once the sound.h fix let the
headless build reach the link stage: main.cpp calls
qt_set_sequence_auto_mnemonic() unconditionally on Q_OS_MACOS, but the
symbol only resolves when QtWidgets is linked -- so a plain
CONFIG+=headless build fails at link time with "symbol(s) not found
for architecture arm64". Menu-accelerator mnemonics are meaningless
without a GUI, so gate both the extern declaration and the call site
behind !defined(HEADLESS) as well.

mac/activity.h and the CActivity app-nap-prevention machinery stay
unconditional for macOS -- headless servers/clients still want nap
prevention, only the mnemonic bits are GUI-only.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01HGdLtGxMrbExBFG3aReNAH
Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings July 23, 2026 09:22
@dtinth dtinth mentioned this pull request Jul 23, 2026
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@ann0see ann0see added this to Tracking Jul 23, 2026
@github-project-automation github-project-automation Bot moved this to Triage in Tracking Jul 23, 2026
@ann0see ann0see added this to the Release 4.0.0 milestone Jul 23, 2026
@ann0see ann0see added bug Something isn't working macOS macOS runtime issue Windows Windows runtime issue AI AI generated or potentially AI generated labels Jul 23, 2026
@ann0see ann0see moved this from Triage to Waiting on Team in Tracking Jul 23, 2026
Copilot AI reviewed Jul 23, 2026
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Pull request overview

This PR fixes CONFIG+=headless builds on macOS and Windows by removing/guarding GUI-only Qt usage so headless targets compile and link consistently across platforms.

Changes:

  • Removed an unnecessary QMessageBox include from the macOS CoreAudio sound header to avoid QtWidgets dependency in headless builds.
  • Guarded macOS mnemonic-key enabling (qt_set_sequence_auto_mnemonic) so it’s not referenced in headless builds.
  • Switched Windows applicationDirPath() usage from QApplication to QCoreApplication so headless builds don’t require QApplication.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated no comments.

File Description
src/sound/coreaudio-mac/sound.h Drops a QtWidgets header include that breaks headless compilation on macOS.
src/main.cpp Avoids QtWidgets-only symbols/types in headless builds on macOS/Windows.

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ann0see
ann0see reviewed Jul 23, 2026
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Comment thread src/sound/coreaudio-mac/sound.h
@dtinth-claw dtinth-claw Bot mentioned this pull request Jul 23, 2026
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ann0see
ann0see reviewed Jul 23, 2026
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macOS works fine. Needed to compile it twice - probably it didn't create qrc_qmake_qmake_qm_files.cpp first, but not part of this PR...

error: Build input file cannot be found: '/private/tmp/jamulus/qrc_qmake_qmake_qm_files.cpp'. Did you forget to declare this file as an output of a script phase or custom build rule which produces it? (in target 'Jamulus' from project 'Jamulus')

@mcfnord

mcfnord commented Jul 27, 2026

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MY LLM WROTE: this comment. I asked it to test this branch on hardware I had available and report the result.

Tested this branch on the legacy macOS toolchain the official release CI still uses for the "MacOS Legacy" leg: Xcode 14.2 Command Line Tools + Qt 5.15.2 (x86_64, via aqtinstall) on a real x86_64 Mac (macOS 12.7.6 Monterey). This is a different combo than the CI run on this PR, which only covers Xcode 16.3.0 + Qt 6.10.2 on arm64.

Result: clean build, no QMessageBox/sound.h errors, qmake CONFIG+=headless && make produced a working Jamulus.app/Contents/MacOS/Jamulus binary. --help works, and a real headless server smoke-start (-n -s -p <port> --jsonrpcport ... --jsonrpcsecretfile ...) bound both IPv4 and IPv6 sockets, started the JSON-RPC server, and printed the normal startup banner before I killed it.

So this fix also holds on Qt5/x86_64, not just Qt6/arm64 — a combination neither CI nor this branch had been exercised on before.

ann0see
ann0see reviewed Jul 28, 2026
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After this has been run on Windows once I'm inclined to approve and merge this.

@pljones

pljones commented Jul 29, 2026

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Might be the weekend before I get to try anything on my Windows box.

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AI AI generated or potentially AI generated bug Something isn't working macOS macOS runtime issue Windows Windows runtime issue

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Status: Waiting on Team

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headless doesn't compile on macOS/Windows

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@dtinth @mcfnord @pljones @ann0see