SWAT+ executable crashes with SIGILL (Illegal instruction) on macOS when running official example dataset

[Shih-Yao Lee]

Hi,

Does anyone have the experience of compiling SWAT+ Editor and QSWAT+  for MacOS (M2) and using the executable file from GitHub and encounter the same error?

1. Primary Issue Location

• Component: SWAT+ Executable

• Area of impact: Model run / executable behavior on macOS

2. Software Versions

• GIS Interface: QSWAT+ (compiled from GitHub source) on QGIS 3.44

• SWAT+ Editor: SWAT+ Editor (compiled from GitHub source)

• SWAT+ Revision: 61.0.2.61

• Executable source: SWAT+ release binary for macOS ARM64

• Download link: https://github.com/swat-model/swatplus/releases/download/61.0.2.61/swatplus-61.0.2.61-gnu-mac_arm64-Rel.zip

3. Project Characteristics

• Watershed Details: Example dataset (Robit) from the official SWAT+ Editor example datasets folder.

• Modeling Aim: General test run of the example project to verify the workflow on macOS

4. Description of Issue

• The Problem:

The project setup appears to complete successfully in QSWAT+ and SWAT+ Editor, but the SWAT+ executable crashes immediately when starting the model run (run directly in Editor). The error shown is:

Program received signal SIGILL: Illegal instruction.
Backtrace for this error:
#0 0x103525d57
#1 0x103524d83
#2 0x1847157a3
#3 0x102d89c3f
#4 0x102d89b0b
#5 0x10277eef7
#6 0x102c84f0f
#7 0x1027bf227
#8 0x102d188af
#9 0x102a8210b
#10 0x102d8b053

This looks like the executable is encountering an illegal CPU instruction rather than a normal model-input or formatting error.

5. Supporting Data

See the attachment.