[R-SIG-Mac] Failed tests on M1mac

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 2025-11-21 6:53 p.m., Jordan Martinetti wrote:
> Hello I am a new CRAN author working on Windows.  I tested my package locally and it worked great and passed CRAN testing when I initially uploaded.  Yesterday I got an email saying it failed on M1mac.  I don't have a mac machine to do testing on so i'm unsure how I can test my package before uploading to CRAN and hoping it passes.
> 
> While I don't expect a significant portion of users of my package to work on mac, I would rather not skip mac testing and try to work on as many platforms as possible.  How can I test my package on mac, without owning a mac, so that I know it will work before uploading to CRAN?

If you use Github actions for testing, you can choose a Mac machine to 
run on.  I don't know what versions of macOS they have available.

Here are some lines from the YAML file for one of my packages that is 
tested on Windows, Ubuntu and macOS:

   R-CMD-check:
     runs-on: ${{ matrix.config.os }}

     name: ${{ matrix.config.os }} (${{ matrix.config.r }})

     strategy:
       fail-fast: false
       matrix:
         config:
           - {os: windows-latest, r: 'release'}
           - {os: windows-latest, r: 'devel'}
           - {os: ubuntu-latest,   r: 'devel', http-user-agent: 'release'}
           - {os: macos-latest, r: 'devel'}

These were originally based on the code from the `usethis` package; I 
don't know how far it has diverged by now.

If you're not using Github, Gitlab or something similar, you should.

Duncan