Troubleshooting

PLEASE,
PLEASE,
PLEASE brew doctor BEFORE CREATING A TICKET!

If you create a ticket please paste your brew doctor and brew --config output into a Gist with your ticket.

Thank you!

1) Check for Common Issues

• brew update — then try again.
• brew doctor — the doctor diagnoses common issues.
• If you’re installing something Java-related, maybe you need the Java Developer Update?
• Check that you have the latest Xcode available for your OS. That's 2.5 for Tiger, 3.1.4 for Leopard.
• If things fail with permissions errors you should check the permissions in /usr/local. If you’re unsure what to do, you can:

sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local

But really you should know what you’re doing.

• Read through the Common Issues page

Listen to Dr. Brew

• If brew doctor warns about unbrewed dylibs, these seriously cause build trouble. Yes, we know it’s hard to know what to do with this warning. But it’s hard to advise!

2) File a Ticket for the Bug

We’ll fix the bug; if you ticket it. In the following instructions replace foo with the name of the formula that failed to build.

1. Create a new ticket;
2. Title it “Foo failed to build on 10.x”, where 10.x is your version of MacOS;
3. Create a new gist, and add (in the same gist!) the following:

• The output from HOMEBREW_MAKE_JOBS=1 VERBOSE=1 brew install foo
• The contents of the largest numbered log in ~/Library/Logs/Homebrew/foo, for example: 03.make;
• The output from brew doctor;

4. Link to the gist in your ticket. Be sure to post the http: link from the browser bar and not the git: link.

Thank you!