Zendesk & Ionic - cordova-plugin-zendesk doesn't build for IOS

Question

I have a hybrid app and I need to implement a Zendesk Tool there. There is a plugin that I thought that I am trying to use: https://github.com/fleetio/cordova-plugin-zendesk

The problem is that I am able to make it work on Android but on IOS the build fails with an error:

❌ /Users/ionic/builds/casasoft/jobmate-frontend/ios/capacitor-cordova-ios-plugins/sources/CordovaPluginZendesk/Zendesk.m:3:9: module 'ZendeskSDK' not found

I tried to provide the integrator using CocoaPods too according to what is written in the release notes and I am experimenting a lot trying to change some things but unfortunately without any success.

• This plugin is using Zenbox in version 3.0.1 Swift 5.1 GM: https://developer.zendesk.com/embeddables/docs/ios_support_sdk/release_notes#3.0.1-swift-5.1-gm-compatible-build
• I use Ionic 5 & Capacitor. It works on Android but not on IOS .

I am completely out of ideas right now and I started to shoot in the dark but really nothing helps.

Was anyone using it on IOS before? I am trying to build with XCode 11 but even with XCode 10, the error is always the same, even with Appflow Service (Ionic product to build ios files).

What am I missing? Do you have any idea what might be wrong? Maybe it rings a bell in someone's head... Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

That plugin uses cordova-plugin-cocoapods-support as a dependency to configure CocoaPods dependencies instead of using the official Cordova tags.

Capacitor doesn't support those custom tags, there is an issue open for considering it, so add a +1 reaction if you are interested https://github.com/ionic-team/capacitor/issues/2773

But the ideal fix would be for the plugin authors to move to the official syntax

Answer 2

I tried to investigate a bit on my own. Eventually, I was able to build on IOS but I did this only as an out-of-curiosity check.

This is a sort of a workaround (with the 'official syntax' mentioned in the @jcesarmobile comment).

This is not a fully solved problem and I am not an IOS developer so I am not sure if this code makes 100% sense (but it worked). I am just giving a hint here to everyone who may encounter a similar problem.

In the plugin.xml

1) removed this line

<dependency id="cordova-plugin-cocoapod-support" />

2) inside 'platform name="ios" remove this line:

<pod name="ZendeskSDK" version="~> 3.0.1" />

3) instead of this deleted line (from point 2) paste this:

 <podspec>
  <config>
    <source url="https://cdn.cocoapods.org/"/>
  </config>
  <pods>
    <pod name="ZendeskSDK" git="https://github.com/zendesk/zendesk_sdk_ios.git" branch="3.0.1-swift5.1-GM" />
  </pods>
</podspec>