CMake error during fixup_bundle: target [library] is not absolute

Question

I'm using MSVC 2022 on windows, with ninja as a build generator and cmake 3.31.8.

Here is the error output when running 'ninja package' when it gets to the fixup_bundle section:

CPack: - Install project: MYAPP[]
Installing dependencies of myapplication.       
warning: target 'mylibrary.dll' is not absolute...
CMake Error at C:/Users/ContainerUser/scoop/apps/cmake/3.31.8/share/cmake-3.31/Modules/GetPrerequisites.cmake:663 (file):
  file failed to open for reading (No such file or directory):

    /mylibrary.dll
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  C:/Users/ContainerUser/scoop/apps/cmake/3.31.8/share/cmake-3.31/Modules/GetPrerequisites.cmake:975 (get_prerequisites)
  C:/Users/ContainerUser/scoop/apps/cmake/3.31.8/share/cmake-3.31/Modules/BundleUtilities.cmake:647 (get_prerequisites)
  C:/Users/ContainerUser/scoop/apps/cmake/3.31.8/share/cmake-3.31/Modules/BundleUtilities.cmake:933 (get_bundle_keys)

There's nothing really special about how this DLL is built, and its not the only DLL in the project. I tried renaming it, removing OUTPUT_NAME, getting rid of VERSION & SOVERSION but none of these had any impact.

ADD_LIBRARY(mylibrary_shared SHARED ${BASE_SOURCES} ${DOC_SOURCES} ${HEADER_FILES})
TARGET_LINK_LIBRARIES(mylibrary_shared ${MY_LIB_DEPENDS})

SET_TARGET_PROPERTIES(mylibrary_shared PROPERTIES
        VERSION "${mylibrary_LIBVERSION}"
        SOVERSION "${mylibrary_SOVERSION}"
        CLEAN_DIRECT_OUTPUT 1
        OUTPUT_NAME "mylibrary"
        COMPILE_FLAGS "-DBUILDING_MYLIBRARY"
        )

Here is my BundleUtilities code:

SET(APPS "\${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/myapplication.exe")
INSTALL(CODE "
    message(\"Installing dependencies of myapplication.\")
    file(GLOB_RECURSE MYPLUGINS
      \"\${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/plugins/*${CMAKE_SHARED_LIBRARY_SUFFIX}\")
    include(BundleUtilities)
    fixup_bundle(\"${APPS}\" \"\${MYPLUGINS}\" \"${MY_BIN_DIR}\")
    verify_app(${APPS})
    "
    COMPONENT controller)

For some more context, this code works 100% fine when using msbuild. I'm trying to switch to the ninja generator and got this error. I'm at a loss for how to even debug it. I can't seem to get any diagnostic output from cmake's GetPrerequisites.cmake and I'm not sure how to determine why the path might be blank. Any assistance in this regard is appreciated.

I also tried this with the latest cmake version 4.0.3 and this didn't fix it.

KyleL · Accepted Answer · 2025-08-05 15:07:19Z

0

I was able to fix it by adding an extra path to ${MY_BIN_DIR} in the fixup_bundle command that includes the DLL directly. I'm not sure why it worked fine with msbuild and not with ninja, but that may just remain a mystery.

answered Aug 5 at 15:07

KyleL

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