M1 mac, cannot install binary, c++ exception (unknown reason) when using source install

Summary:

rstan, which was working 3 weeks ago, suddenly stopped providing informative error messages, instead giving c++ exception (unknown reason). Attempting to reinstall fails with various errors depending on the installation method.

Description:

1. The initial error causing my problem was that I have suddenly started getting c++ exception (unknown reason) on any error when trying to run a stan model. Following the advice I found from searching around, e.g., here, I tried to reinstall rstan from source:

install.packages("rstan", type = "source")

This seemingly successfully compiles, but fails at the end when it tries to load the package:

Error: package or namespace load failed for ‘rstan’:
 .onLoad failed in loadNamespace() for 'rstan', details:
  call: dyn.load(tbbmalloc_proxy, local = FALSE, now = TRUE)
  error: unable to load shared object '/private/var/folders/6w/y9r4gl_x4hs80gtsj4k7ynbh0000gn/T/Rtmp8BXbOH/R.INSTALL1128151514a75/rstan/':
  dlopen(/private/var/folders/6w/y9r4gl_x4hs80gtsj4k7ynbh0000gn/T/Rtmp8BXbOH/R.INSTALL1128151514a75/rstan/, 10): no suitable image found.  Did find:
	/private/var/folders/6w/y9r4gl_x4hs80gtsj4k7ynbh0000gn/T/Rtmp8BXbOH/R.INSTALL1128151514a75/rstan/: not a file
	/private/var/folders/6w/y9r4gl_x4hs80gtsj4k7ynbh0000gn/T/Rtmp8BXbOH/R.INSTALL1128151514a75/rstan: not a file
Error: loading failed
Execution halted

I tried editing CXX in ~/.R/Makevars to try different compilers (I have g++, apple clang, and macports clang), but this did not change the compiler messages (i.e., it still compiles with clang even when I change CXX to g++).

2. Next I tried to clone the GitHub repository, run make build, then use R CMD INSTALL to install the package. This succeeds. However, running a test model with a syntax error again gives me c++ exception (unknown reason).

3. Finally, I tried to re-install the CRAN binary. The installation also succeeds (and is correctly getting the arm64 build). However, I cannot load the package:

> library("rstan")
Loading required package: StanHeaders
Loading required package: ggplot2
Error: package or namespace load failed for ‘rstan’:
 .onLoad failed in loadNamespace() for 'rstan', details:
  call: dyn.load(tbbmalloc_proxy, local = FALSE, now = TRUE)
  error: unable to load shared object '/Users/mtalluto/':
  dlopen(/Users/mtalluto/, 10): no suitable image found.  Did find:
	/Users/mtalluto/: not a file
	/Users/mtalluto: not a file

The directory indicated is my working directory!

Reproducible example

I can only run this after installing using method 2 above.

library(rstan)
code = "
data {
vector [5] x // syntax error, no ;
}
parameters {
real mu;
}
model {
x ~ normal(mu, 1)
}
"

stan_model(model_code = code)

## Error in stanc(file = file, model_code = model_code, model_name = model_name,  : 
##    c++ exception (unknown reason)

RStan Version:

2.21.3

R Version:

4.1.0 (2021-05-18)

Operating System:

macOS 11.4, arm64 version

Start with the macOS arm64 installation paths in the report, especially ~/.R/Makevars, make build, and R CMD INSTALL, then reproduce loading rstan and the stan_model syntax-error example. Done means the package installs and loads correctly from the relevant methods and the malformed model produces an informative diagnostic instead of a generic C++ exception.