Running pod setup gives me "bad interpreter: No such file or directory" error

Question

Recently I tried to do pod setup and I get this error:

-bash: /usr/local/bin/pod: /usr/local/opt/ruby/bin/ruby: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

I followed Ray Wenderlich's guide to install CocoaPods and I get this issue so I have no idea what is going on.

What is your system? [Darwin (Mac OS X)?] How did you install Ruby? [brew? ports? from source?] How are you managing Ruby versions? [RVM? rbenv?] Which guide by Ray Wenderlich did you follow? [there are several] — mwp, Aug 27 '15 at 08:08
The error basically tells you that the interpreter you are attempting to use is not there. Look at the /usr/local/bin/pod, first line (one that starts with #!) and you should see the ruby interpreter there. Is there anything in /usr/local/opt/ruby? Are you using rbenv, rvm? — Mircea, Aug 27 '15 at 15:53

score 514 · Answer 1 · edited Nov 15 '17 at 12:09

514

I encountered this problem when upgrading to Mac OS High Sierra.

This was my fix:

sudo gem install cocoapods

I found this answer on the CocoaPods issue list on Github.

edited Nov 15 '17 at 12:09

Andrey Gordeev

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answered Sep 22 '17 at 16:22

Torre Lasley

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This one fixed it for me. – Andrew Sep 27 '17 at 07:04
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don't forget sudo: `sudo gem install cocoapods` – blackhawk4152 Sep 28 '17 at 12:41
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I had the same issue and doing a `brew update` and `brew upgrade` installed the latest cocoapods for me and did the trick – srik Nov 13 '17 at 12:19
Downvoted because of the use of sudo. See various answers on StackExchange for installing ruby/gems without it. e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31414249/how-to-install-gems-without-sudo-on-mac-os-x – cartland Apr 06 '18 at 01:00
This also has fixed it for me, Plus one for the great answer, this should be the accepted answer – samouray Jun 27 '18 at 16:46
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If this doesn't help, try **restarting** Terminal. – Tamás Sengel Oct 08 '18 at 02:45
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This helps with Catalina too. – possen Jun 20 '19 at 19:33
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This fixed it for me on macOS Catalina. Thank you :) – Benr783 Oct 11 '19 at 21:25
I didn't think it will help but it did, macOS Catalina. – shlomiLan Sep 06 '20 at 05:57
Ugh! You should never use sudo to install gems. I wrote a detailed, top-rated answer for safely installing gems on a Mac: https://stackoverflow.com/a/54873916/928191 – monfresh Dec 31 '20 at 17:37

score 127 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 15 '19 at 12:01

127

This happened when I upgraded to Catalina. I solved it by running:

sudo gem install -n /usr/local/bin ruby
sudo gem install -n /usr/local/bin cocoapods

answered Oct 15 '19 at 12:01

Rendel

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This was the solution for me after upgrading to Catalina. – Joe Nov 17 '19 at 19:01
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You might have to install separate package for the ruby development environment, ruby-dev or ruby-devel for example. – Chandni Apr 02 '20 at 15:10
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Along with this I also had an issue with openssl that I had to fix first - `brew uninstall openssl & brew install openssl` – Jacksonkr May 11 '20 at 13:59

score 77 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 18 '17 at 17:05

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After upgraded to High Sierra, I got the same error, just reinstalled the cocoapods

sudo gem install -n /usr/local/bin cocoapods

answered Oct 18 '17 at 17:05

Shan Ye

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Worked well, nice! – John Sardinha Nov 15 '17 at 15:06
This is needed for High Sierra. Thank you. – gunjot singh Feb 07 '18 at 10:33
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For those who updated to Catalina, this is needed as well. – The1993 Oct 08 '19 at 07:26

score 54 · Answer 4 · edited Oct 10 '19 at 22:33

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Same issue I was facing when I updated our system from Sierra to Mojave. Also works for Catalina

The following steps worked:

sudo gem update --system
sudo gem install -n /usr/local/bin cocoapods

I got the help from the following link.

edited Oct 10 '19 at 22:33

hooknc

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answered May 29 '19 at 11:27

Niraj Paul

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Getting the same issue after upgrading to Catalina. This helps! Use `Sudo` in front to get write permission fwiw. – Ying Chen Oct 10 '19 at 17:17
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I ended up here after Catalina installation. This works well. – Hoon Oct 10 '19 at 17:22
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worked for me after updating 10.14 Mojave to 10.15 Catalina – Fato Oct 16 '19 at 07:00

score 23 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 29 '18 at 07:48

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brew link --overwrite cocoapods

This line saved my day.

answered Aug 29 '18 at 07:48

goodhyun

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Eventually this fixed the issue for me – Alex Buznik Dec 01 '20 at 12:22
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Also saved my day! – duyhungws Jan 28 '21 at 18:37

score 17 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 28 '15 at 08:45

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i fixed it by running brew install ruby

answered Aug 28 '15 at 08:45

user3670235

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I had to reinstall `rew uninstall cocoapods` `rew install cocoapods` after I installed ruby to make the error go away. – Günter Zöchbauer Nov 16 '17 at 14:21

score 14 · Answer 7 · answered May 22 '20 at 09:13

14

The following worked for me:

Select Command Line Tools in XCode.

    XCode > Preferences > Locations > Command Line Tools > XCode 11.X.X

In terminal execute:

    sudo gem install cocoapods -n /usr/local/bin

https://stackoverflow.com/a/60464653

answered May 22 '20 at 09:13

CocodyRockStar

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score 6 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 27 '17 at 12:36

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While I'm trying to install again then I got another error saying that

ERROR: While executing gem ... (Gem::FilePermissionError) You don't have write permissions for the /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.3.0 directory.

Then I did this and worked fine.

sudo gem uninstall cocoapods

sudo gem install cocoapods

answered Sep 27 '17 at 12:36

Himanth

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Most likely you didn't need to uninstall. That error just says you don't have the correct permissions to do what you were trying to do. So adding `sudo` was all you needed. See the comment from [https://stackoverflow.com/users/877341/blackhawk4152] above – PJayRushton Oct 04 '17 at 14:17

score 6 · Answer 9 · answered Nov 22 '17 at 11:44

6

On my mac this solved the problem:

brew uninstall cocoapods

brew install cocoapods

answered Nov 22 '17 at 11:44

aaa

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score 6 · Answer 10 · answered Nov 04 '19 at 21:51

After upgrading from OS X Mojave to OS X Catalina I received this message when running pod init or pod --version: -bash: /Users/mangolassi/.gem/bin/pod: /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.3/usr/bin/ruby: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

I don't like the idea of sudo gem install cocoapods so I have my .cocoapods folder in my user directory and I've modified my .bash_profile to point to it. The error I received was because the version 2.3 was hard coded in this file: /Users/eric/.gem/bin/pod and Catalina came with 2.6.

It's possible that using sudo install would overwrite this file successfully, and probably does, but I wanted to keep my original setup.

I was able to to just modify the first shebang line of the file /Users/eric/.gem/bin/pod to have a path with 2.6 instead of 2.3 and it worked. The entire change was changing the '3' to a '6' in my chase as the version was still '2'.

Nice! Only this answer worked for me. Apparently after upgrading to Catalina ruby 2.3 was replaced with 2.6 — Kamen Dobrev, Mar 26 '20 at 16:53

monfresh · Answer 11 · 2023-05-23T20:19:09.853

The error in the original post is due to an improperly configured Ruby environment. You should never use sudo to install gems, no matter how many times you see it as an accepted answer on Stack Overflow.

At a high level, setting up a proper Ruby development environment on a Mac involves six steps:

Install Homebrew (which also installs the prerequisite Apple command line tools)
Install a Ruby manager (such as chruby, rbenv, asdf, RVM) - most of these can be installed with Homebrew
Configure the Ruby manager by adding the appropriate lines to your shell file (~/.bash_profile or ~/.zshrc) - each manager will have instructions for doing this, and this is a typical step that people miss
Restart the terminal (or open a new tab) for the shell changes to take effect - another step that is often overlooked
Install a specific version of Ruby using the Ruby manager
Switch to that version of Ruby using the Ruby manager

My personal preference is chruby with ruby-install. For a step-by-step guide, check out my detailed tutorial for setting up Ruby on a Mac.

Gayal Kuruppu · Answer 12 · 2020-10-29T17:39:51.740

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for MACOS X Catalina

Tried most of the answers but none worked. If the above doesn't work try Opening Xcode preferences > Locations > selecting Command Line Tools to Xcode. Then install cocoapods

sudo gem install -n /usr/local/bin cocoapods

edited Oct 29 '20 at 17:39

answered Oct 20 '20 at 22:12

Gayal Kuruppu

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score 4 · Answer 13 · edited Jun 07 '21 at 06:23

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I came across a similar issue when I tried upgrading the cocoa pods version using:

brew upgrade cocoapods

To fix this, cocopaods had to be linked with xcodeproj using the command below:

brew link cocoapods

If the linking fails, then you should be able to link by overwriting the previously existing link as follows:

brew link --overwrite cocoapods

edited Jun 07 '21 at 06:23

Dharman

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answered Jun 07 '21 at 06:18

Gurunath Sripad

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score 2 · Answer 14 · answered Apr 06 '18 at 00:57

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Fixed with

brew upgrade cocoapods

answered Apr 06 '18 at 00:57

cartland

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score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Jul 06 '19 at 15:09

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In my case nothing of the above worked. I had ruby 2.3.0 installed and I had to downgrade to 2.0.0:

gem update --system 2.0.0

answered Jul 06 '19 at 15:09

giorgos.nl

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score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Mar 25 '20 at 23:11

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The "rubyist approved" way of doing this is to install a ruby version manager (rbenv) and install cocoapods through that. Messing with sudo and your rubygems is going to lead to tears.

answered Mar 25 '20 at 23:11

Pinwheeler

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score 0 · Answer 17 · answered Mar 19 '21 at 21:13

Find the pod file. Mine was located at usr/local/bin/pod

You'll find that the top line says version 2.3. Edit this file to the correct version number. Save a copy of the original incase you mess it up.

Try your pod related commands again.

Worked for me after days of trying everything.

score 0 · Answer 18 · answered Sep 11 '21 at 23:27

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vi pod then replace the ruby path 2.3 one to the path which u get by using which ruby command in terminal then do pod setup it will work this worked for me after trying all the listed solutions .

answered Sep 11 '21 at 23:27

user1953237

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Debian G · Answer 19 · 2023-01-11T05:04:04.717

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re-installing ruby solving issues on my case (error happen after I upgrade Mac OS to Monterey). it's take a bit of time to reinstall but it worked

edited Jan 11 '23 at 05:04

answered Jan 11 '23 at 05:00

Debian G

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score 0 · Answer 20 · answered Aug 27 '23 at 09:09

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Technically Symlink to Ruby is broken.

Fix it by executing command: ln -s /opt/homebrew/Cellar/ruby/<version> /opt/homebrew/opt/ruby

answered Aug 27 '23 at 09:09

Azim Ansari

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This is a duplicate answer. Many users have described methods similar to solve the problem. – Ben A. Aug 30 '23 at 17:11
Mostly others are suggesting to reinstall ruby or cocoapods. Both are installed correctly. Its only symlink issue. I do not find any such answer. – Azim Ansari Aug 30 '23 at 17:54

Running pod setup gives me "bad interpreter: No such file or directory" error

20 Answers20

for MACOS X Catalina

Linked