Brew Failure in Upgrading to the Development Version Neovim

I’m a big fan of Vim as my editor. Recently, I’ve started using Neovim (a modern Vim based editor). At the time of this writing, the stable release version is 0.3.5. However, there are some cool features coming in Neovim 0.4.0 (specifically floating windows) and these are available by running the development version of Neovim.

The instructions to install the development version of Neovim are

$ brew install --HEAD neovim

Unfortunately, this failed for me.

$ brew install --HEAD neovim
Error: neovim 0.3.5 is already installed
To install HEAD, first run `brew unlink neovim`.
$ brew unlink neovim
$ brew install --HEAD neovim
...
Last 15 lines from /Users/sal/Library/Logs/Homebrew/neovim/16.luarocks:
[ 78%] Building C object CMakeFiles/uv.dir/deps/libuv/src/unix/proctitle.c.o
[ 81%] Building C object CMakeFiles/uv.dir/deps/libuv/src/unix/darwin.c.o
[ 84%] Building C object CMakeFiles/uv.dir/deps/libuv/src/unix/fsevents.c.o
[ 87%] Building C object CMakeFiles/uv.dir/deps/libuv/src/unix/darwin-proctitle.c.o
[ 90%] Building C object CMakeFiles/uv.dir/deps/libuv/src/unix/kqueue.c.o
[ 93%] Linking C static library libuv.a
/usr/local/Cellar/cctools/855/bin/ranlib: object: libuv.a(fs-poll.c.o) malformed object (unknown load command 1)
/usr/local/bin/ar: internal ranlib command failed
make[2]: *** [libuv.a] Error 1
make[2]: *** Deleting file `libuv.a'
make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/uv.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [all] Error 2

Error: Build error: Failed building.

READ THIS: https://docs.brew.sh/Troubleshooting

The initial instructions I followed were

Run brew update twice and brew doctor (and fix all the warnings)
from https://docs.brew.sh/Troubleshooting

I did this but still no luck.

Success

Based on https://github.com/commercialhaskell/stack/issues/4380, I ran

$ brew uninstall cctools
$ brew install --HEAD neovim

and I’m now running Neovim 0.4.0.

Sal Ferrarello (@salcode)

Sal is a PHP developer with a focus on the WordPress platform. He is a conference speaker with a background including Piano Player, Radio DJ, Magician/Juggler, Beach Photographer, and High School Math Teacher. Sal can be found professionally at WebDevStudios, where he works as a senior backend engineer.