Linking error to freetype on Mac OS X High Sierra

[jonasseglare]

Issue or Feature

After upgrading to Mac OS X High Sierra, I experienced difficulties in getting our web server that uses canvas to work. Specifically, when launching the server it crashes with the error:

canvas.node, 1): Symbol not found: _FT_Done_Face

The canvas version is 1.6.7

Quick-fix

We managed to fix the problem by adding the line '-lfreetype' to bindings.gyp, so that the relevant portion of that file looks like this:

, 4611, 4714, 4512]
                }
              }
            }
          }
        }, { # 'OS!="win"'
          'libraries': [
            '<!@(pkg-config pixman-1 --libs)',
            '<!@(pkg-config cairo --libs)',
            '<!@(pkg-config libpng --libs)',
            '-lfreetype'
          ],
          'include_dirs': [
            '<!@(pkg-config cairo --cflags-only-I | sed s/-I//g)',
            '<!@(pkg-config libpng --cflags-only-I | sed s/-I//g)'
          ]
        }],
        ['with_freetype=="true"', {
          'defines': [
            'HAVE_FREETYPE'
          ],

Steps to Reproduce

• Upgrade Mac OS X to High Sierra
• Upgrade XCode
• Reinstall brew
• Reinstall all brew packages
• Make sure Cairo and Freetype are installed using brew
• Require node-canvas from the source code of a node project
• npm install

To fix it, edit the file as explained above (adding -lfreetype), call node-gyp rebuild from the node_modules/canvas subdirectory. Launch the web server and it should not crash.

So in short, you need to make sure that we link to freetype.

Your Environment

• node-canvas: 1.6.7
• Using brew to install Cairo and freetype
• Node version: v6.2.2
• Mac OS X High Sierra (10.13 (17A365))

[chearon]

You're right, although for 1.6.x it should go in the HAVE_FREETYPE section of binding.gyp (and via pkg-config). 2.x is unaffected.

[jonasseglare]

Thanks for the information. I tried to use 2.0.0-alpha.5 and it works directly without any linking errors.