Apple Silicon MATLAB R2026a: COBRA Toolbox GLPK solver issue (missing glpkcc.mexa64)

[Bethany Holland]

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping someone can help me with a COBRA Toolbox installation issue after updating my Mac and MATLAB.

I previously had COBRA Toolbox working successfully with MATLAB 2024. After updating macOS and installing MATLAB R2026a, I tried to set everything up again. The COBRA Toolbox itself initializes successfully with:

initCobraToolbox(false)

However, when I try:

changeCobraSolver('glpk','LP')

I get:

Undefined function 'glpkcc' for input arguments of type 'struct'. Error in glpk [xopt, fmin, status, extra] = glpkcc(...)

I am using an Apple Silicon Mac. MATLAB R2026a reports:

computer ans = 'MACA64'

My COBRA Toolbox binary folder contains:

binary/ all glnxa64 maci64 win32 win64

but there is no maca64 folder. The available GLPK binary is:

binary/maci64/bin/glpkcc.mexmaci64

which I assume cannot be loaded by native Apple Silicon MATLAB.

As a test, I opened my older MATLAB 2024 Intel installation (which reports MACI64) and COBRA works correctly there:

initCobraToolbox(false) changeCobraSolver('glpk','LP')

So it appears to be an Apple Silicon compatibility issue rather than a COBRA installation problem.

Could someone advise on the recommended solution for using COBRA Toolbox with native Apple Silicon MATLAB? Is there a newer COBRA version/branch with an maca64 GLPK binary, or is there a recommended way to build the required MEX file for Apple Silicon?

I would appreciate any guidance.

Thanks!
Bethany