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Resolving zsh bus error with erlang/elixir on Mac Sonoma with asdf

A perfect storm of tooling hit me with a difficult to decipher error this morning zsh bus error mix. Others seem to have had similar woes and I was able to decipher a clean reproducible solution.

The tooling needed to run into this issue:

  • Mac upgraded to Sonoma
  • Using asdf to manage erlang and elixir
  • Using zsh
# upgrade some system dependencies, and asdf itself
brew update
brew upgrade # mostly to update asdf, can target specifically with `brew upgrade asdf` instead

# remove existing erlang and elixir installs, reshimming won't cut it so let's start fresh it doesn't take long asdf plugin-remove erlang asdf plugin-remove elixir

# reinstall those plugins asdf plugin add erlang [https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-erlang.git](https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-erlang.git) asdf plugin-add elixir [https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-elixir.git](https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-elixir.git)

# now let's install the versions App needs of erlang and elixir cd ./where-my-repos-are/app export KERL_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS="--disable-debug --without-javac" # recommended step by asdf erlang's readme asdf install # pulls from app's .tool-versions file

# done! try it out mix deps.get

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