feat: iOS static linking improvement

[sydneyagcaoili]

Description

Users who employ static linking in their applications are currently unable to successfully build their projects if they also include other statically linked libraries (e.g., Rive). The build process terminates with errors like "symbols not found" or "duplicate symbols," indicating a deep conflict in the linked binaries. This effectively prevents the use of your library in certain common application architectures.

Requirements

[ ] Ensure compatibility with static linking environments to avoid conflicts with other libraries.

Update(Dec 2, 2025):

Replication steps

• Podfile's use_frameworks:
  use_frameworks! :linkage => :static
• Dependencies (Example from @alnitak)

  rive: ^0.14.0-dev.14
  flutter_soloud: ^3.4.5

Result

Failed to build iOS app
Error (Xcode): Building for 'iOS-simulator', but linking in object file (/Users/........../.pub-cache/hosted/pub.dev/flutter_soloud-3.4.5/ios/libs/libflac_iOS-device.a[2](bitmath.o)) built for 'iOS'

[alnitak]

Hi @sydneyagcaoili, IIRC on iOS only static linking is allowed. Anyway I've tried to create and build a new project using for example:

  rive: ^0.14.0-dev.14
  flutter_soloud: ^3.4.5

It builds and run on iOS simulator. Have you experienced a build error doing something like this on an iPhone?

[sydneyagcaoili]

Hello @alnitak thank you for looking onto this.

In my Podfile setup

target 'Runner' do
  use_frameworks! :linkage => :static // static linking
  use_modular_headers!

  flutter_install_all_ios_pods File.dirname(File.realpath(__FILE__))
  target 'RunnerTests' do
    inherit! :search_paths
  end
end

Although different from previous errors I encountered, This is the error that appeared during build:

Failed to build iOS app
Error (Xcode): Building for 'iOS-simulator', but linking in object file (/Users/........../.pub-cache/hosted/pub.dev/flutter_soloud-3.4.5/ios/libs/libflac_iOS-device.a[2](bitmath.o)) built for 'iOS'

Error (Xcode): Linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)

Could not build the application for the simulator.
Error launching application on iPhone 17 Pro.

• I'm updating my issue description for better lookup.

[alnitak]

Now I can see the error. It complains about the FLAC library. Don't know why yet, but I have tried to disable OGGs libs by doing this (TL;DR add ENV['NO_OPUS_OGG_LIBS'] = '1' in your Podfile). If you don't need them for streaming capabilities, you can try this approach.

After doing this, the libs are not linked, but a bunch of other errors are coming out from Rive:

Failed to build iOS app
Error (Xcode): Undefined symbol: ReadWriteRing::currentRead()

Error (Xcode): Undefined symbol: ReadWriteRing::nextRead()

Error (Xcode): Undefined symbol: ReadWriteRing::ReadWriteRing()

Error (Xcode): Undefined symbol: _createRiveRenderer

Error (Xcode): Undefined symbol: _createRiveRendererContext

Error (Xcode): Undefined symbol: _destroyRiveRenderer

Error (Xcode): Undefined symbol: _destroyRiveRendererContext

Error (Xcode): Undefined symbol: _factoryFromRiveRendererContext

Error (Xcode): Undefined symbol: _riveLock

Error (Xcode): Undefined symbol: _riveUnlock

Error (Xcode): Undefined symbol: _setGPU

Error (Xcode): Linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)

Could not build the application for the simulator.
Error launching application on iPhone 17 Pro.

This also happens if I remove flutter_soloud from the pubspec.yaml and I try to compile with just the rive plugin.

Dynamic linking is the recommended way for apps on the App Store, so I suggest you consider using this way. I am not very familiar with Apple, so is there a particular need you have to use a static linkage?