`appbundler` CLI fails to build QMLApp while `julia -m AppBundler` build succeeds (identical arguments)

[JanisErdmanis]

Building the examples/QMLApp example with the juliaimg bundler works when invoked via julia -m AppBundler build ..., but fails with ERROR: Unknown package: QMLApp when invoked through the appbundler CLI entry point using the same arguments.

Environment

• AppBundler: ~/.julia/packages/AppBundler/CNmKH
• Platform: macOS aarch64
• Julia (sysimg target): 1.12.5

Steps to reproduce

Works:

julia -m AppBundler build examples/QMLApp -Dbundler="juliaimg" --selfsign

Fails:

appbundler build examples/QMLApp -Dbundler="juliaimg" --selfsign

Expected behavior

Both invocations should produce an identical DMG. The appbundler CLI should be a thin wrapper over julia -m AppBundler build and should resolve the project/package context the same way.

Actual behavior

During compile_sysimg, the bundled Julia is invoked with --project pointing at the example directory, but Pkg.precompile(["QMLApp"]) fails because Pkg does not see QMLApp as part of the active project:

Fetching sources for julia-1.12.5-Pkg.BinaryPlatforms.MacOS(Platform("aarch64", "macos"; ))
Compiling sysimage for ["QMLApp"]...
Precompiling Pkg finished.
  1 dependency successfully precompiled in 21 seconds
ERROR: Unknown package: QMLApp
ERROR: failed process: Process(`.../QMLApp.app/Contents/Libraries/bin/julia --startup-file=no --pkgimages=no --project=/Users/jerdmanis/BtSync/PeaceFounder/Github/AppBundler/examples/QMLApp --eval 'import Pkg; Pkg.precompile(["QMLApp"])'`, ProcessExited(1))

Full stacktrace points to JuliaImg.compile_sysimg at src/bundlers/JuliaImg/JuliaImg.jl:245.

Analysis / hypothesis

Likely a DEPOT_PATH / LOAD_PATH discrepancy between the two entry points. The appbundler CLI probably alters (or fails to propagate) these env vars when spawning the sysimg-compilation subprocess, so the child Julia ends up without the depot/load context needed to resolve QMLApp from the example's project.

Workaround

Use julia -m AppBundler build ... directly.

[JanisErdmanis]

Debugging reveals that during the error we have:

Base.LOAD_PATH = ["/Users/jerdmanis/BtSync/PeaceFounder/Github/AppBundler/"]
Base.DEPOT_PATH = ["/Users/jerdmanis/.julia", "/Users/jerdmanis/.julia/juliaup/julia-1.12.6+0.aarch64.apple.darwin14/Julia-1.12.app/Contents/Resources/julia/local/share/julia", "/Users/jerdmanis/.julia/juliaup/julia-1.12.6+0.aarch64.apple.darwin14/Julia-1.12.app/Contents/Resources/julia/share/julia"]

wheras with julia -m AppBundler build ... we have:

Base.LOAD_PATH = ["@", "@v#.#", "@stdlib"]
Base.DEPOT_PATH = ["/Users/jerdmanis/.julia", "/private/var/folders/rk/6ms0dd4j1ks6sr9x6jm8_42w0000gn/T/jl_64EfMw/QMLApp.app/Contents/Libraries/local/share/julia", "/private/var/folders/rk/6ms0dd4j1ks6sr9x6jm8_42w0000gn/T/jl_64EfMw/QMLApp.app/Contents/Libraries/share/julia"]