Cross-compilation from macOS to Linux on arm64 broken on >=22

[Niek]

What version of pkg are you using?

6.9.0

What version of Node.js are you using?

24.10.0

What operating system are you using?

macOS 26

What CPU architecture are you using?

arm64

What Node versions, OSs and CPU architectures are you building for?

node22-linux-arm64

Describe the Bug

I can no longer cross-compile binaries from macOS (arm64) to Linux (arm64) - I'm sure this worked fine before. The binary builds fine, but when running exits without any message.

Expected Behavior

Cross-compilation used to work fine

To Reproduce

❯ cat hello.js
console.log('Hello World')
❯ npx -y @yao-pkg/pkg hello.js -t node22-linux-arm64 -o hello
> pkg@6.9.0
❯ ls -lha hello
-rwxr-xr-x@ 1 niek  staff    65M Oct 16 14:33 hello
❯ docker run --rm -it -v $(pwd):/mnt ubuntu:latest /mnt/hello

The issue is the same with node24-linux-arm64 or node24-linuxstatic-arm64.

However, node20-linux-arm64 still seems to work fine.

[robertsLando]

Please show me package.json content and also share pkg command output with --debug flag. Then run the result package with DEBUG_PKG=2 env var and share the run output as well

cc @faulpeltz

[faulpeltz]

Cross compilation from and to macOS (without --public) doesnt work since Node 22 and I wasn't able to fix this in the latest Node 24 changes...
Basically the code cache generated is not compatible between many OS/arch combinations because the V8 readonly heap snapshots are no longer the same - in Node 20 and earlier this works fine

[Niek]

There is no package.json, see the reproducible script in a fresh dir.

❯ npx -y @yao-pkg/pkg hello.js -t node22-linux-arm64 -o hello --debug
> pkg@6.9.0
> [debug] Bytecode of /Users/niek/test/hello.js is added to queue.
> [debug] Stat info of /Users/niek/test/hello.js is added to queue.
> [debug] Directory /Users/niek/test is added to queue.
> [debug] Stat info of /Users/niek/test is added to queue.
> [debug] Directory /Users/niek is added to queue.
> [debug] Stat info of /Users/niek is added to queue.
> [debug] Directory /Users is added to queue.
> [debug] Stat info of /Users is added to queue.
> [debug] Directory / is added to queue.
> [debug] Stat info of / is added to queue.
> [debug] Deleting record file: /
> [debug] Deleting record file: /Users
> [debug] The file was included as bytecode (no sources)
  /Users/niek/test/hello.js
> [debug] The file was included as bytecode (no sources)
  /Users/niek/test/hello.js
> [debug] files & folders deduped =
  hello.js
> [debug] The directory files list was included (1 item)
  /Users/niek/test
> [debug] The directory files list was included (1 item)
  /Users/niek/test
> [debug] files & folders deduped =
  test
> [debug] The directory files list was included (1 item)
  /Users/niek
> [debug] The directory files list was included (1 item)
  /Users/niek
> [debug] Targets:
  [
  {
    "nodeRange": "node22",
    "platform": "linux",
    "arch": "arm64",
    "output": "/Users/niek/test/hello",
    "forceBuild": false,
    "fabricator": {
      "nodeRange": "node22",
      "platform": "macos",
      "arch": "arm64",
      "binaryPath": "/Users/niek/.pkg-cache/v3.5/fetched-v22.20.0-macos-arm64-signed"
    },
    "binaryPath": "/Users/niek/.pkg-cache/v3.5/fetched-v22.20.0-linux-arm64"
  }
]
❯ docker run --rm -it -v $(pwd):/mnt -e DEBUG_PKG=2 ubuntu:latest /mnt/hello
[]
------------------------------- virtual file system
/snapshot
  test                                    27 Bytes
    hello.js                              27 Bytes
Total size =  27 Bytes
fs.existsSync [ '/snapshot/test/hello.js' ]
fs.statSync [ '/snapshot/test/hello.js' ]
fs.readSync []
fs.realpathSync [ '/snapshot/test/hello.js' ]
fs.readFileSync [ '/snapshot/test/hello.js', 'utf8' ]
fs.readSync []

[Niek]

Cross compilation from and to macOS (without --public) doesnt work since Node 22 and I wasn't able to fix this in the latest Node 24 changes... Basically the code cache generated is not compatible between many OS/arch combinations because the V8 readonly heap snapshots are no longer the same

Ah, that makes sense then. Might be worth adding a note to the README with this info (at least until there is a fix)?

[faulpeltz]

Yes but currently its unfortunately trial and error to sort out which versions are compatible or not. (currently linux/win/linuxstatic x64 seems to work)
This behavior is caused by the new V8 versions included in Node and is probably not fixable because V8 code cache / snapshot data is not designed to be portable.

If you don't mind including your source bundle (with --public) than this restriction does not apply because the code cache is discarded by Node when its not valid for the current binary and it falls back to the source.

[robertsLando]

I added it here: #87