How to avoid "cannot load such file -- utils/popen" from homebrew on OSX
homebrew, macos, ruby, rubygems
Solution
Original Answer
The problem mainly occurs after updating OS X to El Capitan (OS X 10.11) or macOS Sierra (macOS 10.12).
This is because of file permission issues with El Capitan’s or later macOS's new SIP process. Try changing the permissions for the `/usr/local` directory:
$ sudo chown -R $(whoami):admin /usr/local
If it still doesn't work, use these steps inside a terminal session and everything will be fine:
cd /usr/local/Homebrew
git reset --hard origin/master
brew update
If `/usr/local/Library/Homebrew` doesn't work, try `/usr/local/Homebrew`. The problem might be that Homebrew is outdated.
Apr 2021 Update
The command above doesn't work for macOS High Sierra or above, as explained in this GitHub issue. You have to run this instead:
sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(brew --prefix)/*
Problem
I'm getting an error when I run `brew` in the terminal: ``` /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require': cannot load such file -- utils/popen (LoadError) from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require' from /usr/local/Library/Homebrew/utils.rb:6:in `<top (required)>' from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require' from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require' from /usr/local/Library/Homebrew/global.rb:9:in `<top (required)>' from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require' from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require' from /usr/local/Library/brew.rb:16:in `<main>' ``` These are my gem settings: ``` - RUBYGEMS VERSION: 2.0.14 - RUBY VERSION: 2.0.0 (2014-02-24 patchlevel 451) [universal.x86_64-darwin13] - INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0 - RUBY EXECUTABLE: /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/bin/ruby - EXECUTABLE DIRECTORY: /usr/bin - RUBYGEMS PLATFORMS: - ruby - universal-darwin-13 - GEM PATHS: - /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0 - /Users/ronaldkwan/.gem/ruby/2.0.0 - /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/gems/2.0.0 - GEM CONFIGURATION: - :update_sources => true - :verbose => true - :backtrace => false - :bulk_threshold => 1000 ```