Running FreeCAD 0.19 on macOS Big Sur

Computer Aided Design (CAD)
1

With the release of macOS Big Sur, the FreeCAD pre-releases for version .19 found on the Github release page are not currently working. While there are different ways to install FreeCAD pre-releases on your Mac, I have found that using MiniConda is the easiest way to obtain a working version of .19 with a relatively current revision level.

Here is a link to the post on the DrVax website that provides step by step instructions for getting FreeCAD .19 working again on macOS Big Sur while the core developers work out the issues with the versions on the Github release page.

https://drvax.com/freecad-pre-releases-on-macos/

2

Greetings!

Thanks for summarizing your MiniConda experience. I followed your steps and ended up with a working version of 0.19 on Big Sur. I initially thought that I might be able to go directly from the initial installation in fcenv to the update instruction you list at the top of the page. But, sadly that didn’t do anything, so I went through the step of installing the dev materials. Like your experience, those seemed to hang. Going back and re-executing the steps at the top then updated things such that I now have a current version, as shown below.

Thanks very much for taking the time to post the instructions!

John

OS: macOS 10.16
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.19.23323 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: master
Hash: 512d5c6141aec52b6eecc67370336a28fde862a6
Python version: 3.8.6
Qt version: 5.12.5
Coin version: 4.0.0
OCC version: 7.4.0
Locale: English/United States (en_US)
3

I’ve tried following all of your instructions to use miniconda to install Freecad on my Big Sur OS but I can’t get to the latest release of it. What have I done wrong? I am hung up on 0.19. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am a complete noob at this though so please be patient with me!

4

Thanks for this post. It helped me get me up and running again on Big Sur.

Thanks very much for the work you put in to do this.

Lane

5

If you’re having trouble getting FreeCAD to run on Big Sur you need to make sure you do ALL of the steps in the order listed. This is just a short term fix, but it requires doing the steps in the exact order listed to work.

6

Hi there, from Holland.
I just finished installing a Freecad 0.19 version on my Mac! I have tried many things to get the 0.18 version working on my Big Sur Os but without succes.
I was very glad when I saw your video on YouTube with the link to your excellent explanation! After some tinkering and research I managed to get things running under Miniconda, including a nice Freecad.icns logo in my Automator-app instead of the Automator.icns icon. It all works like a charme. Thank you so much!
I only have one question left: starting Freecad with the “conda activate fcenv”, “freecad” commands works and seems logical.
But: when and why should I use the “deactivate” command?
Greetings: Rudy

7

you video= your video sorry…

8

First, to everyone following this thread. If you update FreeCAD with Conda and then it starts hanging again you need to roll back the version of libclang. I updated my post at DrVAX about this to provide more details but the solution to the hanging in Big Sur is to install with Conda and then:

conda activate fcenv
conda install libclang=9.0.1

In terms of deactivating. No need to deactivate unless you want to run something you installed in a different Conda environment. Just close the terminate session. Activating an environment with conda basically makes modifications to the terminal shell environment. When you exit the shell the environment variables go back to the original values.

You can learn more about this at:

https://drvax.com/freecad-pre-releases-on-macos/

9

Hi Irvshapiro,

Thanks for your post that I finally installed Freecad 0.19 on my Mac with macOS 11.1.
However, I’ve found the same issue as others that I can’t update to the latest version by strictly follow your instructions. Only can update to version 21xxxx, still can’t use addon manager.

After some studies I found the reason:
In your post there are two steps to install Freecad and update to the latest version:
step 1: % conda update --all
% conda create --name fcenv --channel conda-forge freecad

step 2: % conda activate fcenv
% conda update --all
% conda config --add channels freecad/label/dev
% conda update freecad -c=freecad/label/dev

there is an issue that conda-forge hasn’t been added to the channels, which means all the dependents cannot find the right channel to update.

In your case, I think you already added conda-forge to channels. So you hasn’t found this issue.

I suggest install freecad by this way, which is much easier to install the latest version.

% conda update --all
% conda create --name fcenv
% conda activate fcenv
% conda config --add channels conda-forge
% conda install -c freecad/label/dev freecad
% conda install libclang=9.0.1
% conda install gitpython
% freecad

this is working fine for me.

Thanks again for your post at DrVAX

10

The add-on manager got broken by Microsoft it is not a bug in FreeCAD.

Accessing GitHUB files without using the real functionality is kind of a hack. FreeCAD does what a user would do. It accesses the website and downloads the files. The problem is when the website changes this mechanism fails.

The FreeCAD devs fixed the changes at one point even in the out dated 0.18 and just a week later Microsoft changed something again and now even the 0.19 is broken.

Wasting time in this shit is pointless as you always need to clean the mess behind Microsoft. They should simply host the addon release files somewhere under their control and done. That is the price you pay for not using your own web space.

Currently the only way to install Addons in FreeCAD is to download them by hand and install them by hand.

11

Sounds like a great topic for a DrV video: How to Manually Download & Install FreeCAD Addons.

12

I wonder if anybody has experience running FreeCAD on a virtual machine on a mac?
I have used Oracle virtual box to run linux mint to run Eclipse to do Java programming and it worked fine
I am just thinking of options, and would love to ear what others think, or whatever experience could be shared

13

As of now, doing Dr. Vax’s conda install method does result in a working .19 build on Big Sur, and addon manager does work for me as well. Make sure to follow those extra steps to update it, and it should work.

14

I was going to hold out for FreeCAD to offer Big Sur support, but I’m starting to think they will never bother to do so. Has anyone seen any motion from FreeCAD on the Big Sur front?

15

The FreeCAD team is currently preparing the official 0.19 release and in bugfixing mode.

So it is likely that a proper working Mac version gets released along with the other systems. Latest information is a release date in March, so very soon.

16

And then we can look forward to v0.20 (or whatever they’re actually going to call it).

17

Hi guys,
.19 will support Big Sur for sure. I think for a last couple of pre-releases, they’ve fixed the Big Sur issues. You can download the pre-release now, version .19-24267, and it will work: https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases/tag/0.19_pre
Either that, or you can wait for the stable release which should be some time this month.

Should have posted here a while back, cause it’s been like this for a few weeks!

18

Hey
I have been using F360 for new designs. I am concerned about AutoCAD pulling the cord for free downloads, but it is so much better than FreeCAD for me a former SolidWorks user. I am retired and do 3D printing as a hobby and cant justify paying for that Program.
Don’t know what BIG SUR is. but guess it has to do with FreeCAD crashing every time I use it. Has the latest version taken care of that?

19

I, too, use F360. I have used FreeCAD but there are a couple of things about it that make it a lesser choice for me. If AutoDesk does discontinue the free version, I will simply have to find something else; likely FreeCAD, which will hopefully have been updated enough to eliminate the issues I have with it. In the meantime I get the advantages of F360, and I have all the models saved to my network server, at least the STL versions. So far, all my models have been 1-offs & will likely never need to be re-visited or redesigned, so losing access to F360 wouldn’t be a disaster.

20

FreeCAD 0.19.1 and the FreeCAD 0.20 got a lot more stable due to the feature freeze and bug-fix mode before the 0.19 freeze.

It still is a good idea to save frequently and activate auto save, but otherwise the program is getting better and better.

I know it feels not ready to be used in many places, but you need to keep in mind that only a hand full of developers work in their spare time on the project, while these other “free” and otherwise expensive programs have a company in their back with a horde of developers working at least 40 hours a week on it.

In addition FreeCAD does not try to mimic existing solutions, which makes it harder to swap. This isn’t a bad thing, too. From a person swapping to FreeCAD it is of course, but from software perspective it may be an opportunity. Just because the existing UI is used everywhere and the workflow is the same on other CAD applications does not mean it also is the best. People are just used to it.

You can compare it to the use of an operating system. Many Linux distributions mimic Windows desktops to make is easier to swap. Others do not or leave the choice of desktop to the user. This is about the workflow the users are used to. Breaking it makes it less usable, but also prevents from getting stuff better.

The same thing you can see with electric cars these days. The shape of cars was defined by having a huge motor in the front. Now with battery driven cars you just need a bottom plate holding the batteries and four wheels having the motors on the axle. This lego like base plate with wheels is the only thing predefined and the rest could look very different, but it doesn’t at all for most electric cars. Most people don’t like dramatic changes in look and feel.

On the other hand people expect launching a desktop application would take a while and are used to it, while I know it doesn’t have to be that way and the slow behavior annoys me, when I am forced to use Linux, MacOS or Windows.

The FreeCAD developers did and do some questionable decisions. This is unquestionable, too. The fact that its most powerful features must no be used to get a stable model is laughable. The bug behind (topology naming problem), should have been priority three years ago, but it didn’t.

They work on it with 0.20 and hopefully in 2021 we will get a version showing the full potential to the users, too. I had a glimpse of that using a version with the related bug mostly fix and it was a great experience pushing FreeCAD on par with the other available, but costly, versions.

When I started with FreeCAD 0.15 (I think) it was so much more broken and unusable, but I choose the way as other solutions where simply not available, since I needed a Linux version of the CAD software. I also wanted to be in full control and never trusted the Fusion360 free license. Investing time to learn CAD using a solution that could be taken from me, sounded like the wrong path. I payed the price with a good amount frustration at the beginning years, but over time I learned my way to CAD with FreeCAD and designing even more complex stuff gets easier every day. FreeCAD also evolved a lot over the years. As a bonus I now have full control over my models, while on other solutions I would end up with the plain finished models, but without the modeling tree.