App runs when running briefcase dev -r but fails to install dependencies with briefcase build -r

[YHordijk]

Describe the bug

I have a bit of an annoying issue with my app. When I run briefcase dev -r all the requirements are properly updated, all the package versions are correct, and the app runs perfectly. As soon as I try to run briefcase build -r I suddenly run into issues related to installing some packages that were installed fine with briefcase dev -r:

ERROR: Ignored the following versions that require a different python version: 3.5 Requires-Python >=3.11; 3.5rc0 Requires-Python >=3.11
ERROR: Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement docx>=0.2.4 (from tcutility) (from versions: none)
ERROR: No matching distribution found for docx>=0.2.4

It is related to two packages (also mine) called TCutility and TCviewer for which I specify the required version to be 0.16.11 and 0.1.3 respectively. These versions both support Python==3.10. It seems that for some reason pip tries to find a Python>=3.11 version for some packages while I am using a Python==3.10 environment. I don't understand why all the packages install correctly in dev-mode and fail when building the app.

Steps to reproduce

1. In a new folder run python3 -m venv test-env
2. Activate the environment source test-env/bin/activate
3. Install briefcase python -m pip install briefcase
4. Create a new briefcase project briefcase new
5. Press enter on everything to setup a basic project
6. Add "tcutility>=0.16.11" to the requirements in the pyproject.toml under [tool.briefcase.app.helloworld.macOS]
7. Move into the folder and run the project in dev mode cd helloworld; briefcase dev -r
8. A screen opens, no errors in the log
9. Build the app: briefcase build -r and get the following error:

ERROR: No matching distribution found for docx>=0.2.4
Installing app requirements... errored

Expected behavior

I expect tcutility to be included in the App build.

Screenshots

No response

Environment

• Operating System: MacOS Sonoma 14.6.1 with ARM64
• Python version: 3.10
• Pip freeze after using dev-mode shows:

anyio==4.10.0
arrow==1.3.0
attrs==25.3.0
bcrypt==4.3.0
beautifulsoup4==4.13.5
binaryornot==0.4.4
briefcase==0.3.25
build==1.3.0
certifi==2025.8.3
cffi==2.0.0
chardet==5.2.0
charset-normalizer==3.4.3
click==8.2.1
contourpy==1.3.2
cookiecutter==2.6.0
cryptography==45.0.7
cycler==0.12.1
dictfunc==1.1.0
dill==0.4.0
dmgbuild==1.6.5
docx==0.2.4
ds-store==1.3.1
et_xmlfile==2.0.0
exceptiongroup==1.3.0
fonttools==4.59.2
gitdb==4.0.12
GitPython==3.1.45
h11==0.16.0
htmldocx==0.0.6
httpcore==1.0.9
httpx==0.28.1
idna==3.10
importlib_metadata==8.7.0
iniconfig==2.1.0
invoke==2.2.0
Jinja2==3.1.6
kiwisolver==1.4.9
listfunc==1.0.0
lxml==5.2.0
mac-alias==2.2.2
markdown-it-py==4.0.0
MarkupSafe==3.0.2
matplotlib==3.10.6
mdurl==0.1.2
numpy==2.2.6
opencv-python==4.12.0.88
openpyxl==3.1.5
packaging==25.0
pandas==2.3.2
paramiko==4.0.0
pillow==11.3.0
plams==2025.104
platformdirs==4.4.0
pluggy==1.6.0
psutil==7.0.0
pycparser==2.22
Pygments==2.19.2
PyNaCl==1.5.0
pyparsing==3.2.3
pyproject_hooks==1.2.0
pytest==8.4.2
python-dateutil==2.9.0.post0
python-docx==1.2.0
python-slugify==8.0.4
pytz==2025.2
PyYAML==6.0.2
requests==2.32.5
rich==14.1.0
rubicon-objc==0.5.2
scipy==1.15.3
six==1.17.0
smmap==5.0.2
sniffio==1.3.1
soupsieve==2.8
std-nslog==1.0.3
StrEnum==0.4.15
TCutility==0.16.11
text-unidecode==1.3
toga-cocoa==0.5.2
toga-core==0.5.2
tomli==2.2.1
tomli_w==1.2.0
travertino==0.5.2
truststore==0.10.4
types-python-dateutil==2.9.0.20250822
typing_extensions==4.15.0
tzdata==2025.2
urllib3==2.5.0
zipp==3.23.0

Logs

briefcase.2025_09_09-11_32_23.build.log

Additional context

No response

[mhsmith]

I don't think this has anything to do with the Python version messages, which don't appear in the attached log anyway.

The actual reason for the failure is that docx isn't available as a wheel, which isn't surprising given that it hasn't been updated since 2014. You should consider switching your dependency to a package that's still being maintained, but meanwhile, the Briefcase documentation gives instructions on building your own wheel.

[YHordijk]

Thank you very much! The wheel for docx worked perfectly. After removing some other dependencies from the tcutility package we managed to get a working app out of it!