VScode mix.exs error - Could not compile with “make”

Question

Background

I have an umbrella app where I am making a build for windows using bakeware: https://github.com/bake-bake-bake/bakeware

I have followed the normal setup for windows:

choco install -y zstandard make mingw

I have installed elixir and erlang otp via their official website installers:

• https://elixir-lang.org/install.html#windows
• https://www.erlang.org/downloads

Problem

I am able to run and do everything normally, but my VSCode marks my mix.exs file as a huge red error blob:

an exception was raised:
    ** (Mix.Error) Could not compile with "make" (exit status: 2).

        (mix 1.13.1) lib/mix.ex:515: Mix.raise/2
        (elixir_make 0.6.3) lib/mix/tasks/compile.make.ex:154: Mix.Tasks.Compile.ElixirMake.run/1
        (mix 1.13.1) lib/mix/task.ex:397: anonymous fn/3 in Mix.Task.run_task/3
        (mix 1.13.1) lib/mix/tasks/compile.all.ex:92: Mix.Tasks.Compile.All.run_compiler/2
        (mix 1.13.1) lib/mix/tasks/compile.all.ex:72: Mix.Tasks.Compile.All.compile/4
        (mix 1.13.1) lib/mix/tasks/compile.all.ex:59: Mix.Tasks.Compile.All.with_logger_app/2
        (mix 1.13.1) lib/mix/tasks/compile.all.ex:36: Mix.Tasks.Compile.All.run/1
        (mix 1.13.1) lib/mix/task.ex:397: anonymous fn/3 in Mix.Task.run_task/3ElixirLS

Question

In Bakeware's page there is a section:

Change the default MAKE environment variable used by elixir_make from nmake to make (set it permanently to get rid of the errors in VSCode)

• But how do I do this?
• Is something wrong with my VSCode setup?

Answer 1

The elixir_make docs say to set the make_executable in your mix.exs to the make command installed on the system.

And then in your shell, either set the environment variables the Windows Way (If you already set the environment variables but they aren't taking, you may need to restart your terminal or VS Code), or if you're using bash , you can put them in your .bash_profile as the bakeware docs show.

Command Prompt:

set MAKE=make
set CC=gcc

or MinGW

export MAKE=make
export CC=gcc
mix release

Answer 2

Answer

I was able to somehow fix the issue. Bakeware, the dependency, really likes Powershell. But not any powershell. A powershell with admin rights. To get rid of the warning one must perform the following steps while VSCode is closed :

1. Open Windows Powershell in admin mode
2. set $env:CC="gcc"
3. set $env:MAKE="make"
4. set MIX_ENV to something. It doesnt have to be prod , but since powershell does not set this value by default, you have to manually set it yourself. Before running tests, fetching dependencies or anything.
5. mix deps.get

After this, if you still get the red wall of death, trying deleting your .elixir_ls folder to force to go again. Then open VSCode with code.

Hope it works for you, it did for me. Trying this with any other terminal will result in seeing the red wall of death. According to my experiments, powershell is the only that works.