Error "library not found for" after putting application in AdMob

Question

I am getting an error after I put my application in an AdMob. The app was working until today. The error is the following:

ld: library not found for -lGoogleAdMobAds
clang: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)

How can I fix this? Thank you.

Try this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1471968/xcode-linker-error-library-not-found-for-ladmobdevice — nmh, Jun 05 '14 at 01:22
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/33140790/library-not-found-for-lcloudinary — Aakil Ladhani, Jan 29 '16 at 12:20
Sometimes: Unplug your device and first build the project. It will generate libraries and then you will be able to run in device. — TheTiger, Apr 10 '18 at 06:33

score 360 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 19 '17 at 13:29

360

I had a similar "library not found" issue. However it was because I accidentally was using the .xcodeproj file instead of the .xcworkspace file.

edited Jul 19 '17 at 13:29

kenorb

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answered Feb 16 '15 at 18:41

Casper

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Can somebody please explain the purpose of .xcodeproj and .xcworkspace? – EFreak Jul 10 '18 at 09:34
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Things like this make me love the Javascript ecosystem – Mark Jul 10 '18 at 23:46
How i can change that..? – Brayan Loayza Aug 29 '18 at 23:03
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xcworkspace is when you use Cocoapods. It's not Xcode problem, but the users. – Azam Jan 17 '19 at 04:07
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ffs I wasted a good 5 hours earlier this afternoon because I didn't realize the difference. -_- – Will Jul 17 '19 at 00:46
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.xcworkspace is when you have more than 1 "project" inside your solution. For example you can have external libraries (cocoapods) or your own library that you use in many projects. – Daniel Benedykt Oct 28 '19 at 15:22
2

This gets me about once every 6 months with XCode. It's especially a problem with react-native and other similar Pods heavy apps. You need the **workspace** not the project. – Flacito Feb 06 '20 at 00:54

raurora · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-05T01:27:53.553

120

Sometimes you just remove the reference of the library and add reference again.

Apart from adding the Google Mobile Ads SDK and other libraries again from scratch, I would recommend you checking the Library Search Paths. There are instances when you copy or duplicate a target, Xcode decides that it needs to escape any double quotes " with a '\'. Make sure you remove all the \’s - it should look like this -

enter image description here

I was able to duplicate the error, by doing prefixing my path with multiple '\'.

edited Jun 05 '14 at 01:27

answered Jun 05 '14 at 01:22

raurora

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good one, after pod install, one of the library was not listed there. I don't know why but adding that library path makes it work. – Prince Kumar Sharma Apr 02 '18 at 11:02
Well this fixed my issue "Library not found for -lART" and it's really unbelievable ! Thank you ! – ZedTuX May 13 '19 at 08:05
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Consider "Header Search Paths" too. – Luat Vu Dinh Aug 14 '19 at 09:51
@raurora How do you access library search paths? – MathMax Jun 15 '20 at 15:20
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@MassimoFrittelli Project > Build Settings tabs > Search Paths. You can type on the search option too. – raurora Jun 16 '20 at 05:16

score 99 · Answer 3 · answered May 02 '17 at 07:55

99

Select your Target, go to "Build Phases" in "Link Binary With Libraries" remove ".a" file of that library. Clean and Build.

answered May 02 '17 at 07:55

Abuzar Amin

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Yup, strange enough that Xcode doesn't mark it missing by coloring it red – brainray May 15 '17 at 11:49
Really nice!! my problem was when I added user framework to old project. Remove coreplot.a and works fine!!!! – Jose Pose S Jul 20 '18 at 08:12

hasan · Answer 4 · 2017-10-01T10:23:37.153

69

If error related to Cocoapods as follow:

library not found for -lPod-...

You need to check Other Linker Flags and remove it from there.

Extra Information: If you have an old project that uses cocoapods. And recently you needed to add the use_frameworks! to your podfile. cocoapods will not add the libraries to your Other Linker Flags anymore cause its inherited. Therefore, you may need to remove those manually from the other linker flags which they were added before using the use_frameworks!

edited Oct 01 '17 at 10:23

answered Apr 07 '15 at 17:15

hasan

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I have many flags here, should I remove all or just the one for the Pod? – Mayur Deshmukh Mar 20 '16 at 14:08
If those flags causes a problem. you should remove them or keep them and add the library if you still want to use it. – hasan Mar 20 '16 at 14:11
i remove that but doesn't work, mix panel its the problem – Eduardo Oliveros Aug 25 '16 at 15:11
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I guess that happens when you try to remove the library that is added by cocoa pods manually. The correct way is to remove the library from your podfile. then you run pod install again – hasan Dec 14 '16 at 10:27
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Thanks!! This was a clue for me :). In my case, the duplicate target has divided every -l"framework" in two lines "-l" and "framework" !! – Eva Madrazo Mar 14 '17 at 13:09
I found references to AWS pods I just removed from my project here. Thanks – InnisBrendan Mar 26 '18 at 17:31
@EvaMadrazo This happened with me too. Did you delete all but one "framework" or just combine them into one line? – Ian Steffy Apr 12 '18 at 09:22
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@IanSteffy just combine it – Eva Madrazo Apr 12 '18 at 13:29

Ted · Answer 5 · 2021-03-26T17:17:24.640

60

For my case Xcode 7, also worked in Xcode 9.1/9.2

ld: library not found for -ldAfnetworking
clang: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)

set Build Active architecture Only to Yes

edited Mar 26 '21 at 17:17

answered Jan 27 '16 at 11:53

Ted

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What about when we need to create a Production build for App Store? I mean it should be NO for Production Build. – Jabbar Jul 27 '16 at 12:05
agree it should be NO for production – Ted Jul 27 '16 at 13:09
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Will this NO effect on Production Build Installation? – Jabbar Jul 27 '16 at 13:42
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Worked for me while integrating Pinterest SDK on XCode 9.2 and iOS 11. – Aakash Aggarwal Dec 18 '17 at 11:21

Teena nath Paul · Answer 6 · 2017-11-15T12:01:48.397

15

If error is like following

ld: library not found for -lpods

I found that a file "libPods.a" which is in red colour(like missing files) was created somehow in the Framework group of the project. I just simply removed that file and everything got fine.

EDIT: Another Solution

Another Solution that I have already answered in the similar question is in this link

edited Nov 15 '17 at 12:01

answered Aug 24 '15 at 10:00

Teena nath Paul

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score 14 · Answer 7 · answered Mar 14 '18 at 07:38

14

goto Build Phases -> Link Binary With Libraries and remove library which show errors because that library is not available in project folder

answered Mar 14 '18 at 07:38

Hitesh Agarwal

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This fixed my particular problem. I had two similar named libraries, one named `libPods-Foo BarTests.a` and another one named `libPods-FooBarTests.a` . – edenwaith Mar 16 '18 at 19:29

score 7 · Answer 8 · answered Jun 20 '17 at 19:40

Late for the answer but here are the list of things which I tried.So it will be in one place if anyone wants to try to fix the issue.

Valid architecture = armv7 armv7s
Build Active Architecture only = NO
Target -> Build Settings ->Other Linker Flags = $(inherited)
Target -> Build Settings ->Library Search Path = $(inherited)
Product Clean
Pod Update in terminal

yoAlex5 · Answer 9 · 2022-02-15T09:14:14.007

ld: library not found for

It is compile time error for a Static Library that is caused by Static Linker

ld: library not found for -l<Library_name>

1.You can get the error Library not found for when you have not include a library path to the Library Search Paths(LIBRARY_SEARCH_PATHS)

ld means Static Linker which can not find a location of the library. As a developer you should help the linker and point the Library Search Paths

Build Settings -> Search Paths -> Library Search Paths

2.Also you can get this error if you first time open a new project (.xcodeproj) with Cocoapods support, run pod update. To fix it just close this project and open created a workspace instead (.xcworkspace )

[Vocabulary]

score 3 · Answer 10 · answered Apr 03 '19 at 08:37

As for me this problem occurs because i installed Material Library for IOS. to solve this issue

1: Go to Build Settings of your target app.

2: Search for Other linker flags

3: Open the other linker flags and check for the library which is mention in the error.

4: remove that flag.

5: Clean and build.

I hope this fix your issue.

score 2 · Answer 11 · answered Apr 15 '16 at 06:39

In my case there was a naming issue. My library was called ios-admob-mm-adapter.a, but Xcode expected, that the name should start with prefix lib. I've just renamed my lib to libios-admob-mm-adapter.a and fixed the issue.

I use Cocoapods, and it links libraries with Other linker flags option in build settings of my target. The flag looks like -l"ios-admob-mm-adapter"

Hope it helps someone else

score 2 · Answer 12 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

2

Simply, GoogleAdMobAds.a is missing in project target. For me it was libAdIdAccessLibrary.a Please check attached screenshot

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Jan 02 '18 at 07:34

Ashvin

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score 2 · Answer 13 · answered Jun 01 '19 at 06:22

2

In the case of ld: library not found for -{LIBRARY_NAME} happened because the library file(s) is not existing.

Check the library path on your application targets’ “Build Phases” Library Search Paths tab.

The library file(s) path must be according to the real path for example if your file(s) in the root of the project you must set the path like $(PROJECT_DIR)

answered Jun 01 '19 at 06:22

Reza Dehnavi

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This happened to me when I updated a pod project to XCode 13 relating to the Nimble framework that the previous version Cocoapod tool (used to create the workspace) stuck into the Podfile at a specific version. This made `pod update` not fix it right away, I had to replace `pod 'Nimble', '~> X.Y.Z'` with just `pod 'Nimble'` which updated Nimble to the latest version which solved my problem. – Papyrus Feb 04 '22 at 01:24

score 1 · Answer 14 · answered Sep 29 '15 at 15:14

1

I know this is a bit old, but I just hit a similar issue and running 'pod update' fixed this for me. My library error was with AFNetworking...

Just be careful doing pod update if you don't use explicit versions in your pod file.

answered Sep 29 '15 at 15:14

Trevor Panhorst

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score 1 · Answer 15 · answered Feb 04 '16 at 19:55

1

This error is very weird.

I had this error with -ldAfnetworking and I only copy my project in other path and works.

answered Feb 04 '16 at 19:55

A. Trejo

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score 1 · Answer 16 · edited Oct 29 '16 at 17:14

1

I tried renaming my build configuration Release to Production, but apparently cocoa pods doesn't like it. I renamed it again to Release, and everything builds just fine.

edited Oct 29 '16 at 17:14

DimaSan

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answered Oct 28 '16 at 13:10

Aymeric Bouzy aybbyk

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you also could have rename the target in the podfile. – Romain TAILLANDIER Jun 07 '17 at 08:17

score 1 · Answer 17 · answered Dec 05 '16 at 15:21

@raurora's answer pointed me in the right direction. I was including libraries in my "watchkitapp Extension/lib" path. In this case, the Library Search Path needed to be escaped with a '\', but the linker didn't seem to understand this. To fix / work-around the issue, I moved my lib path up one level so it was no longer in a directory that contained a space in the name.

score 1 · Answer 18 · answered Jul 23 '18 at 11:55

1

I just update the pod file 'pod update' and it start to work for me normally.

answered Jul 23 '18 at 11:55

Chandni

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score 1 · Answer 19 · answered Jul 31 '18 at 10:41

1

Running 'pod update' in my project fixed my problem with the 'library not found for -lSTPopup' error.

Remarking Trevor Panhorst's answer:

"Just be careful doing pod update if you don't use explicit versions in your pod file."

answered Jul 31 '18 at 10:41

Juan Santos

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score 1 · Answer 20 · answered Jan 22 '19 at 02:33

1

Easy solution. Here's how I'd fix the issue:

Go to the directory platforms/ios
Then, execute the command pod install

That's it. This should install the missing library.

answered Jan 22 '19 at 02:33

Manoj Shrestha

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score 1 · Answer 21 · answered Apr 02 '20 at 14:49

1

Cleaned Build Folder
Restarted XCode

Went away...

answered Apr 02 '20 at 14:49

batthis

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score 0 · Answer 22 · answered Jul 08 '20 at 23:06

I was getting similar bugs on library not found. Ultimately this is how I was able to resolve it

Before starting with Xcode Archive, used flutter build iOS
Changed the IOS Deployment Target to a higher target iOS 11.2 . Earlier I had something like 8.0 which was giving all the above errors.
Made sure that the IOS deployment targets in Xcode are same in the Project, Target and Pods

score 0 · Answer 23 · edited Jul 04 '21 at 07:06

0

I was also facing the same issue and spent more than 24 hours to solve this, I tried everything from the above solutions but what finally works for me is

Build settings -> Select Target
Basics
User-defined
Change the VALID_ARCHS to arm64

edited Jul 04 '21 at 07:06

de.

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answered Jul 02 '21 at 05:19

ashwini mukade

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score 0 · Answer 24 · answered Jun 27 '22 at 12:56

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Dude you need a reinstallation.

Delete simply "rm -rf" pods.
Install Pods "bundle exec pod install"

Works well then.

answered Jun 27 '22 at 12:56

Георгий Кремлин

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score -1 · Answer 25 · answered Nov 03 '22 at 15:35

-1

the same here, but in my case was resolved with answer the kenorb

answered Nov 03 '22 at 15:35

danilopx

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Error "library not found for" after putting application in AdMob

25 Answers25

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