Building on Windows with MSYS2 fails

[srs4511351]

Installing NRSC5 on Windows 11 under MSYS2, the install fails with an automake version mismatch.

I use the commands

cd ~/
git clone https://github.com/theori-io/nrsc5.git
nrsc5/support/msys2-build

I removed the "-j4" because the error messages were scrambled, but it failed either way.

Here are the last of the compiler messages:

[  7%] Performing build step for 'fftw_external'
 cd /C/msys64/home/srs/nrsc5/build/fftw-prefix/src/fftw_external && C:/msys64/usr/bin/sh.exe /C/msys64/home/srs/nrsc5/build/fftw-prefix/src/fftw_external/missing automake-1.16 --gnu Makefile
configure.ac:31: error: version mismatch.  This is Automake 1.16.5,
configure.ac:31: but the definition used by this AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE
configure.ac:31: comes from Automake 1.16.3.  You should recreate
configure.ac:31: aclocal.m4 with aclocal and run automake again.
WARNING: 'automake-1.16' is probably too old.
         You should only need it if you modified 'Makefile.am' or
         'configure.ac' or m4 files included by 'configure.ac'.
         The 'automake' program is part of the GNU Automake package:
         <https://www.gnu.org/software/automake>
         It also requires GNU Autoconf, GNU m4 and Perl in order to run:
         <https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf>
         <https://www.gnu.org/software/m4/>
         <https://www.perl.org/>
make[3]: *** [Makefile:560: /C/msys64/home/srs/nrsc5/build/fftw-prefix/src/fftw_external/Makefile.in] Error 63
make[2]: *** [CMakeFiles/fftw_external.dir/build.make:86: fftw-prefix/src/fftw_external-stamp/fftw_external-build] Error 2
make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/Makefile2:127: CMakeFiles/fftw_external.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [Makefile:136: all] Error 2

There are several versions installed by the script.

$ pacman -Ss | grep -i automake
msys/automake-wrapper 20250528-1 [installed]
    Wrapper scripts for automake commands
msys/automake1.11 1.11.6-6 [installed]
msys/automake1.12 1.12.6-6 [installed]
msys/automake1.13 1.13.4-7 [installed]
msys/automake1.14 1.14.1-6 [installed]
msys/automake1.15 1.15.1-4 [installed]
msys/automake1.16 1.16.5-1 [installed]
msys/automake1.17 1.17-1 [installed]
msys/automake1.18 1.18.1-1 [installed]

Does the automake version need to be updated?

[markjfine]

The error is directing you to run aclocal to reconfigure your macros. Have you done that? This could be the reason why you are getting automake errors.

[argilo]

Are you doing a fresh install, or attempting to upgrade nrsc5? If it's the latter, I would suggest that you run rm -rf nrsc5/build to clear out whatever remained from the previous version, then run nrsc5/support/msys2-build again.

[srs4511351]

This is a new install, although I may have have run nrsc5/support/msys2-build more than once. aclocal requires configure.ac, which is not present in the nrsc5 files, even after running cmake.

[argilo]

OK. I would still suggest removing the build directory with rm -rf nrsc5/build to see whether that resolves the issue.

[srs4511351]

The nrsc installation is new, but MSYS2 is old and recently updated.

I deleted the entire nrsc directory and contents. Is this essentially the same as deleting build?
I have done this several times with the same result.

This time, I ran the commands from nrsc5/support/msys2-build, as I need -D LIBRARY_DEBUG_LEVEL=1 if I want to try nrsc5-dui, which requires that.
I found that make created ~/nrsc5/build/fftw-prefix/src/fftw_external/configure.ac
I did this:

srs@LAPTOP-HTK81DU2 MINGW64 ~/nrsc5/build
$ cd fftw-prefix/src/fftw_external

srs@LAPTOP-HTK81DU2 MINGW64 ~/nrsc5/build/fftw-prefix/src/fftw_external
$ aclocal

cd ~/nrsc5/build
Then reran:

cmake -G "MSYS Makefiles" \
    -D USE_STATIC=ON \
    -D USE_SYSTEM_LIBUSB=OFF \
    -D USE_SYSTEM_RTLSDR=OFF \
    -D USE_SYSTEM_LIBAO=OFF \
    -D USE_SYSTEM_FFTW=OFF \
    -D USE_SSE=ON \
    -D LIBRARY_DEBUG_LEVEL=1 \
    -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=${MINGW_PREFIX} \
    ..

This time, it did not fail, but instead, it seemed to repeat everything and ran for hours.

At this point, there are many occurrences of configure.ac
Should I run aclocal in one of these directories?

/home/srs/fftw-3.3.10/configure.ac
/home/srs/nrsc5/build/fftw-prefix/src/fftw_external/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-c/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-c++/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-c++-gnome2/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-c++-gnome3/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-c++-qt/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-c++-wxwidgets/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-c++20/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-c-gnome2/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-c-gnome3/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-c-http/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-clisp/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-csharp/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-csharp-forms/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-d/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-gawk/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-go/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-go-http/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-guile/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-java/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-java-awt/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-java-qtjambi/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-java-swing/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-librep/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-modula2/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-objc/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-objc-gnome2/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-pascal/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-perl/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-php/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-python/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-ruby/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-rust/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-sh/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-smalltalk/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-tcl/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-tcl-tk/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/doc/gettext/examples/hello-ycp/configure.ac
/mingw64/share/libtool/configure.ac

[argilo]

It could be that something is wrong with your MSYS2 installation. Could you try removing and reinstalling it?

[srs4511351]

I removed and installed MSYS2.
NRSC5 built successfully and works.

I think that the problem was that fftw was installed last year, and before the recent system upgrades.

I guess that means that I should hurry and install the other software that I want before more upgrades come out.

Thanks to markjfine and argilo for your help and Happy Holidays!

[argilo]

I think that the problem was that fftw was installed last year, and before the recent system upgrades.

A more likely explanation is that one of the automake packages was broken. Perhaps an upgrade failed, or a previous version issued by MSYS2 was broken.

In any case, the problem appears to have been outside nrsc5, so I'll close this issue off.

[argilo]

This time, I ran the commands from nrsc5/support/msys2-build, as I need -D LIBRARY_DEBUG_LEVEL=1 if I want to try nrsc5-dui, which requires that.

@markjfine Does NRSC5-DUI in fact still require -DLIBRARY_DEBUG_LEVEL=1? The readme says so, but I suspect the need may have been removed by #441 and markjfine/nrsc5-dui@949893e.

If there's some other reason it's still required, please let me know so I can help get rid of the requirement.

[markjfine]

I seem to recall that the messages it was looking for were made part of the standard output at some point. All the regex items now have a date-time stamp up front. I personally still build it that way to see everything that's going on, but it's no longer necessary for nrsc5-dui to operate.

[markjfine]

Thanks for reminding me that the nrsc5-dui README was never updated to reflect this... I've just changed it.

[argilo]

Thanks for confirming!

I personally still build it that way to see everything that's going on

Bit by bit, we're moving all the useful messages out into the API (#372), with the latest effort in #470. Hopefully soon we'll reach the point where LIBRARY_DEBUG_LEVEL is only needed by developers working on libnrsc5 itself.

[srs4511351]

I tried to run nrsc5-dui, but it crashes looking for tty/termios, which is not available on Windows/MSYS2. I haven't yet managed to find a solution.

…

----Steve

On Sat, Dec 27, 2025, 8:16 PM Clayton Smith ***@***.***> wrote: *argilo* left a comment (theori-io/nrsc5#472) <#472 (comment)> Thanks for confirming! I personally still build it that way to see everything that's going on Bit by bit, we're moving all the useful messages out into the API (#372 <#372>), with the latest effort in #470 <#470>. Hopefully soon we'll reach the point where LIBRARY_DEBUG_LEVEL is only needed by developers working on libnrsc5 itself. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#472 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AQQ3FMIK67CFUS2LTHT7WA34D4VOPAVCNFSM6AAAAACP5EX7JWVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZTMOJUGM2TCNBSHE> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[markjfine]

I haven't yet managed to find a solution.

There is no native Windows solution involving tty because Windows is not POSIX compliant, as stated in the nrsc5-dui README. You would have to physically run everything directly under a MSYS2 or WSL2 environment as if it were a Linux virtual machine.