ninja: error: loading 'build.ninja': No such file or directory

[MRYangY]

environment :Mac
Install ninja with the brew intsall ninja command
then on terminal execute ninja occur ninja: error: loading 'build.ninja': No such file or directory 。
➜ ~ ninja
ninja: error: loading 'build.ninja': No such file or directory
➜ ~

Why is this problem still occurring when you have successfully installed ninja?

[mydongistiny]

Are you just running ninja with no arguments?

[MRYangY]

@mydongistiny yes ! Need to take parameters?

[SrNetoChan]

I got the same. I have install using apt-get install ninja-build on ubuntu 18.04.

The error occurs with or without arguments

[LuQQiu]

I have the same issue and also using apt-get install ninja-build on ubuntu 18.04.

[AmjadHD]

on windows too.

[mydongistiny]

Depending on what project you're building and what arguments you are using you may need to set

GYP_GENERATORS=ninja

Nobody is giving any other information about full command, project you're trying to build etc. There's a few reasons why you could get this error.

[ThanushreeEG]

even i have come across this issue.
when i was trying to download fuse

and i get the same error when i give the command ninja or apt-get install ninja

[mydongistiny]

@ThanushreeEG what was the output of meson --reconfigure? Did it run ninja for you?

[PkuRainBow]

@AmjadHD Have you solved this problem? I am also meet this error on Windows.

[jhasse]

@ThanushreeEG Does the build.ninja file exist in the CWD though? If not, this sound's like a Meson bug to me.

[jhasse]

To answer the original question:

Why is this problem still occurring when you have successfully installed ninja?

Because Ninja needs a build definition file in the current working directory.

[dmenig]

Same problem on ubuntu 18.04

ninja: error: loading 'build.ninja': No such file or directory
damien@Earth2:~$ meson --reconfigure
Error during basic setup:

Must specify at least one directory name.

[jhasse]

@hyperfraise It seems you're running meson in your home directory.

[Praveer1981]

I too encounter the same problem when I tried to build LLVM on windows.

cmake -G ninja ../llvm

[hongyx11]

+1 tried on two mac and install from brew or source, all get error loading

[Solved] Generate build.ninja file first and execute the binary. It works.

[leonsaber]

I got how to work use gn gen out/Default , then you will find build.ninja file in /out/Default
run ninja under /out/Default

[imshengli]

I got how to work use gn gen out/Default , then you will find build.ninja file in /out/Default
run ninja under /out/Default

In this case, same error happened. ninja: error: loading 'build.ninja': No such file or directory
We can use -f FILE specify input build file.

[hanzhaogang]

I got how to work use gn gen out/Default , then you will find build.ninja file in /out/Default
run ninja under /out/Default

What is gn, and how can we get it?

[nix-universe]

What is gn, and how can we get it?

I got it from
https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chrome-infra-docs/flat/depot_tools/docs/html/depot_tools_tutorial.html#_setting_up

[qingdujun]

same problem~

qingdujun@MacBook-Pro src % gn gen out/Release
ERROR at //third_party/fontconfig/fontconfig.gni:7:1: Assertion failed.
assert(is_linux)
^-----
See //third_party/fontconfig/BUILD.gn:6:1: whence it was imported.
import("//third_party/fontconfig/fontconfig.gni")
^-----------------------------------------------
See //headless/BUILD.gn:200:7: which caused the file to be included.
      "//third_party/fontconfig",
      ^-------------------------




qingdujun@MacBook-Pro src % autoninja -C out/Release/ headless_shell
ninja: Entering directory `out/Release/'
ninja: error: loading 'build.ninja': No such file or directory
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/qingdujun/repos/workspace/depot_tools/ninjalog_uploader_wrapper.py", line 118, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
  File "/Users/qingdujun/repos/workspace/depot_tools/ninjalog_uploader_wrapper.py", line 76, in main
    config = LoadConfig()
  File "/Users/qingdujun/repos/workspace/depot_tools/ninjalog_uploader_wrapper.py", line 31, in LoadConfig
    'chromium-build-stats.appspot.com'),
  File "/Users/qingdujun/repos/workspace/depot_tools/ninjalog_uploader.py", line 44, in IsGoogler
    _, content = h.request('https://'+server+'/should-upload', 'GET')
  File "/Users/qingdujun/.vpython-root/867170/lib/python2.7/site-packages/httplib2/__init__.py", line 1659, in request
    (response, content) = self._request(conn, authority, uri, request_uri, method, body, headers, redirections, cachekey)
  File "/Users/qingdujun/.vpython-root/867170/lib/python2.7/site-packages/httplib2/__init__.py", line 1399, in _request
    (response, content) = self._conn_request(conn, request_uri, method, body, headers)
  File "/Users/qingdujun/.vpython-root/867170/lib/python2.7/site-packages/httplib2/__init__.py", line 1355, in _conn_request
    response = conn.getresponse()
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 1108, in getresponse
    raise ResponseNotReady()
httplib.ResponseNotReady

[qingdujun]

Building on Mac only works without headless.gn.

The reason for that is that the headless windowing system (ozone's headless platform in particular) that we use on Linux/Win and is configured in headless.gn isn't yet supported on Mac.

On Wed, Aug 9, 2017, 17:04 brandon.kobel via headless-dev headle...@chromium.org wrote:
When attempting to build the headless-shell on mac and performing the following step from Usage as a C++ library:

[agalod]

In case of building Chromium, try generating build.ninja with gn gen out/Default in directory src.

[xiaozhiming2233]

the same problem on ubuntu 18.04

[twitchplaystrading]

Same on MX Linux 4.19.0-16-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.181-1. I've tried to use ninja on and debian and arch. Got it barely working on arch but no avail in debian.

[Tekh-ops]

Is there a fix for this

[erichodges]

OS X 11.3 I also have this issue. It's unclear to me how to fix this. I don't understand why this was closed as I don't see a clear fix above.

I saw this comment:
[Solved] Generate build.ninja file first and execute the binary. It works.

Ok, how do I generate the build.ninja file and where does it go? What binary do I need to execute and where is it?

[kbot]

For anyone still finding this thread first in search results, the solution here worked for me google/filament#1810

[Akhil564]

Hi, in the process of installing GTK stress testing tool i need to do install dependencies. but when I am executing with ninja command i am getting an issue...anyone could you please help me out.. thanks in advance.

following are the dependencies need to install....
git clone --recurse-submodules -j4 https://gitlab.com/leinardi/gst.git
cd gst
git checkout release
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
meson . build --prefix /usr
ninja -v -C build
ninja -v -C build install

getting an issue with ninja
#ninja -v -C build
ninja: Entering directory `build'
ninja: fatal: chdir to 'build' - No such file or directory

[ashokkaladi]

environment :Mac
Install ninja with the brew intsall ninja command
then on terminal execute ninja occur ninja: error: loading 'build.ninja': No such file or directory 。
➜ ~ ninja
ninja: error: loading 'build.ninja': No such file or directory
➜ ~

Why is this problem still occurring when you have successfully installed ninja?

Did you try to locate the build.ninja file and run ninja in that folder?

[ThisIsMython]

this problem still there

[passos]

~ ❯ brew reinstall ninja
==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/ninja/manifests/1.10.2_1
Already downloaded: /Users/xxx/Library/Caches/Homebrew/downloads/3d885b06ee8943649e1e4f3edebcca2003dc2e9e332202cc2a0b16ccce4f8cae--ninja-1.10.2_1.bottle_manifest.json
==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/ninja/blobs/sha256:b3e0b14cffa2d227c0b4140c1a3742a2a4e7e3966a429e1d253b0e29acfb6293
Already downloaded: /Users/xxx/Library/Caches/Homebrew/downloads/ecdaa7d4e110c91481ede9ce38cf5a8fd3b025c3943ec3efefc1c4ff99b0fc6e--ninja--1.10.2_1.big_sur.bottle.tar.gz

~ ❯ ninja
ninja: error: loading 'build.ninja': No such file or directory

macOS 11.6.1

[Arthur151]

I have successfully fix this, finally!!!!!

If you follow the README of https://github.com/ninja-build/ninja to build the ninja from source, then you can use command like ninja -v just inside the ninja folder, you will see the build.ninja file just in there.

To use ninja in other place, I copy and paste all ninja files (not include the build folder and other txt files) to where I want to use ninja command.

B.T.W., if this is helpful to you, could you please visit my own repositories? Maybe there are something interesting.

[gmolkho]

At U20 was resolved for me only when using "pip install ninja" rather than "sudo apt install ninja-build"

[HriGrit]

I got how to work use gn gen out/Default , then you will find build.ninja file in /out/Default
run ninja under /out/Default

In this case, same error happened. ninja: error: loading 'build.ninja': No such file or directory We can use -f FILE specify input build file.

Can you show how the command line code will look like?

[razeek-j]

i got the solution

just type : sudo apt install generate-ninja

that's it

[Gamer069]

In case of build

i have the same problem, and i already did that ofc, the out/Default directory exists, gn gen out/Default didn't provide any output, autoninja -C out/Default complains about the build.ninja file not being a thing in the directory, (I double-checked, yeah it doesn't exist.), also i'm doing this on ubuntu.

[Gamer069]

sudo apt install generate-ninja

that doesn't work for me.

[morebray]

Lösung für MACos
cp /Users/username/gst/build/build.ninja /usr/local/Cellar/ninja/1.11.1/bin
dann
ninja -v

[haciMMicah]

sudo apt install generate-ninja

that doesn't work for me.

You probably just have the generated build.ninja file in a different directory.

[IceAsteroid]

The output of meson setup build said the system lacks some dependencies.

something like "meson.build:72:8: ERROR: Dependency "xcb-aux" not found, tried pkgconfig and cmake"

After installing those critical packages or just simply disabling the functionalities, I managed to run ninja -C build successfully.

[nguyenph194812]

is there a fix for this, i met this problem when running vcpkg installation

[tunm1228]

You try gn gen out/debug --args='import("//with_pw_rpc.gni")'

[manojgit31792]

~/AndroidStudioProjects/COAT
$ sudo apt install generate-ninja
bash: sudo: command not found

I am getting this error when trying to install on android studio by using git bash. Can anyone help how to solve this?

[ramardoautistin]

i am going insane trying to compile aseprite on linux cause i keep getting this exact same error even after supposedly installing ninja :/

[LuftRev]

i am going insane trying to compile aseprite on linux cause i keep getting this exact same error even after supposedly installing ninja :/

Likewise but on mac, I'm not a dev in any way shape or form so this all basically moon runes to me. Rather infuriating...

[sealpp]

Try to clean your project's build dir and re run cmake ..

[visualblind]

i got the solution

just type : sudo apt install generate-ninja

that's it

🥳 I confirm sudo apt install generate-ninja fixes the problem on Ubuntu 22.04/Mint 21.3 and generates the build.ninja file, but only after re-running meson setup ....

Maybe one of these days I should figure out what exactly meson and ninja actually are. I assume they're the equivalent of ./configure and make/make install.