Fix Homebrew (Brew) on macOS 11 Big Sur
1 min readDec 2, 2020
If you encounter issues with brew on macOS 11 Big Sur, than it has a high chance of being a similar issue that I ran into.
One of the many error messages regarding brew on macOS 11:
Traceback (most recent call last):
11: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/brew.rb:23:in `<main>'
10: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/brew.rb:23:in `require_relative'
9: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/global.rb:37:in `<top (required)>'
8: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/vendor/portable-ruby/2.6.3/lib/ruby/2.6.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:54:in `require'
7: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/vendor/portable-ruby/2.6.3/lib/ruby/2.6.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:54:in `require'
6: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/os.rb:3:in `<top (required)>'
5: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/os.rb:21:in `<module:OS>'
4: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/os/mac.rb:58:in `prerelease?'
3: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/os/mac.rb:24:in `version'
2: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/os/mac.rb:24:in `new'
1: from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/os/mac/version.rb:26:in `initialize'
/usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/version.rb:368:in `initialize': Version value must be a string; got a NilClass () (TypeError)
How to fix this?
Remove old xcode command line tools
sudo rm -rf /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools
Install new xcode command line tools
sudo xcode-select --install
Update brew
brew upgrade
Note: I had to run it twice
If you still get an error message try to reinstall brew via:
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
Test if brew works
brew doctor
Now brew should work just fine under macOS Big Sur!