Unreal Engine 5.6.1/5.7 Not Compiling on macOS 26.1 + Xcode 26.1.1 (Platform Mac Errors)

Hi everyone,

I’m having a severe issue opening or compiling my Unreal Engine project on macOS, and after two days of trying every possible solution, I’m completely stuck. I’ve seen similar reports for older versions, but it looks like every Unreal/macOS/Xcode version combination has its own unique problems.

I was originally using UE 5.6.1 with Xcode 16.0.0, because last time I posted here I was told Unreal only works if I downgrade Xcode. It was working—barely. I had to delete Intermediate, Saved, Binaries, and DerivedDataCache every single time I opened the project. Then suddenly that stopped working too.

So I updated everything: macOS, Xcode, Unreal Engine. Still UE can’t compile the project at all.

Current Setup

  • macOS 26.1

  • Xcode 26.1.1

  • Unreal Engine 5.6.1 (original project), also tried upgrading to 5.7

  • Mac M2

The Problem

When I open my project, I get:

“Modules are missing or built with a different version. Do you want to rebuild?”

Selecting Yes results in:

“Build failed. Try rebuilding from source manually.”

Upgrading to UE 5.7 gives me the exact same error.

What I’ve Already Tried

  • Deleted Intermediate, Saved, DerivedDataCache, Binaries

  • Deleted and reinstalled Unreal Engine

  • Regenerated Xcode project files

  • Reset xcode-select

  • Deleted Command Line Tools

  • Reinstalled Command Line Tools

  • Tried building manually from Xcode

At this moment I’m attempting to downgrade again (UE 5.6.1 + Xcode 26.0.0), because I’ve seen reports of it working for some people. But I need a real long-term solution. I want to be able to open my project AND upgrade engines without this level of frustration every time.

Any advice or up-to-date info would be extremely appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Hi , @Mahsa_Eskandari
this is very common issue when working Unreal project on Mac, I meet this issue everyday….

take a example of DMXPrevisSample project from fab, when I downloaded from Fab then try to open it, this issue popupped:

to resolve it , just go to UnrealEngine source root folder and re-link your UnrealEditor.app by this building cmd if your editor is source build:

./Engine/Build/BatchFiles/Mac/Build.sh UnrealEditor Mac Development   

I don’t use Launcher version editor so i have no idea how to handle it, maybe validate your editor from that drop-down menu….

hope this helpful ….