Error attribute 'alex' missing when building in parallels on Mac

Question

I am getting this error when building Plutus-apps on Ubuntu 20.04 in Parallels on Mac M1:

    trace: WARNING: 8.8.2 is out of date, consider using 8.8.4.
    error: attribute 'alex' missing

    at /nix/store/8n76c1c3nz2wl6dzxmxdz2y5xrx70flw-source/overlays/haskell.nix:554:34:

      553|                             then components.library
      554|                             else components.${haskellLib.prefixComponent.${builtins.elemAt m 0}}.${builtins.elemAt m 1};
         |                                  ^
      555|

I found this post which seems to have the same problem but it didn't help much in resolving it: https://issueexplorer.com/issue/input-output-hk/haskell.nix/1189

Answer 1

This issue has already been filed with the plutus-apps project. According to the feedback nix-build should be called with --argstr system x86_64-darwin to use rosetta - as ARM isn't supported yet.

Answer 2

I solved this by cleaning nix install and starting from scratch following: https://github.com/renzwo/cardano-plutus-apps-install-m1/blob/main/README.md

I am still getting one issue at the last step (starting Plutus client) but that is a different issue.