XCode26 does not build engine properly

Development Platform & Builds XR Development
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1

Currently you are unable to build the engine (I can’t see any commits on 5.7 or main that would suggest this has been fixed) or build a project properly using XCode26.

This is down to code blocks preventing any version greater than 16.9, along with shader compilation issues.

I can provide the exact code blocks to fix these issues if needed, but are there any plans to take a look at and support XCode / OS 26.2?

Thanks,

Connor

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2

Steps to Reproduce
Attempt to build project through XCode or build the engine through XCode, there are code limitations blocking any version greater than XCode16.9.

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3

Code that needs updating is here :

Engine/Source/Developer/Apple/MetalShaderFormat/Private/MetalShaderCompiler.cpp Line 527

#if PLATFORM_MAC
		// Xcode 16 is the minimum supported version for MSC
		if(FPlatformMisc::XCodeVersionCompare(16, 0, 0) < 0)
		{
			UE_LOG(LogMetalShaderCompiler, Fatal, TEXT("Compiling shaders for Metal SM6 requires XCode 16.0 or above"));
		}
		
	#endif

I’ve taken a look and I think others have actually been reported with recent tickets.

Thanks,

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4

Hi Connor,

In the highlighted code snippet, the MetalShaderCompiler ensures that Xcode 16+ is available as that was the first SM6 Metal Tools.

However, if you require to build UE 5.6 against Xcode 26, you will need to cherrypick the latest version of Apple_SDK.json (https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/commit/7e089f3671e8f38192a829cf1c830e9d756121f6\) which added Xcode 26 support since UE 5.6 predates the release of Xcode 26.

Best regards.

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