make check failure on x64 with MacOS 10.14.3, qt stable 5.12.1. #15480

I get this error, on x64 with MacOS 10.14.3, qt stable 5.12.1.

$ brew info qt | head -n1
qt: stable 5.12.1 (bottled), HEAD [keg-only]
$ uname -a
Darwin f008.local 18.2.0 Darwin Kernel Version 18.2.0: Thu Dec 20 20:46:53 PST 2018; root:xnu-4903.241.1~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

$ make check
Making check in src
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/make  check-TESTS check-local
FAIL: qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt
============================================================================
Testsuite summary for Bitcoin Core 0.17.99
============================================================================
# TOTAL: 1
# PASS:  0
# SKIP:  0
# XFAIL: 0
# FAIL:  1
# XPASS: 0
# ERROR: 0
============================================================================
See src/test-suite.log
Please report to https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues
============================================================================
make[4]: *** [test-suite.log] Error 1
make[3]: *** [check-TESTS] Error 2
make[2]: *** [check-am] Error 2
make[1]: *** [check-recursive] Error 1
make: *** [check-recursive] Error 1

Promag's comment in #14011 to specify -platform minimal did not work for me:

$ src/qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt -platform minimal
-bash: src/qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt: Permission denied
$ sudo src/qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt -platform minimal
Password:
sudo: unable to execute src/qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt: Permission denied

Note that this is not a file permissions issue:

$ ls -l src/qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt 
-rwxr-xr-x  1 brent  staff  15815180 24 Feb 01:54 src/qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt

I also get "permission denied" when trying to copy the binary from the https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.17.1/bitcoin-0.17.1-osx.dmg image. Attempting to run it directly from the disk image produces the error message, "You can't open the application "Bitcoin Core" because it is not supported on this type of Mac."

Originally posted by @brentkearney in #14349 (comment)

@brentkearney What is in src/test-suite.log when make check fails?

$ cat src/test-suite.log 
==============================================
   Bitcoin Core 0.17.99: src/test-suite.log
==============================================

# TOTAL: 1
# PASS:  0
# SKIP:  0
# XFAIL: 0
# FAIL:  1
# XPASS: 0
# ERROR: 0

.. contents:: :depth: 2

FAIL: qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt
=============================

../build-aux/test-driver: line 107: ./qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt: Permission denied
FAIL qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt (exit status: 126)

Again, not a file permissions issue, despite the same error message:

$ ls -l ./src/qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt
-rwxr-xr-x  1 brent  staff  15815180 24 Feb 01:54 ./src/qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt

$ ./src/qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt 
-bash: ./src/qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt: Permission denied

$ sudo ./src/qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt 
sudo: unable to execute ./src/qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt: Permission denied

Googling for qt build issues turned up this post. Is this helpful?

$ spctl --assess --verbose ./src/qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt 
./src/qt/test/test_bitcoin-qt: invalid API object reference

I finally discovered what was going on here: Sophos Anti-Virus blocks access to Bitcoin binaries! 🤦‍♂️

It has a feature called on-access scanning, and one Scan option is "Adware and PUAs" ("potentially unwanted application"), and "When threat is found" was set to "Deny access". When I disabled it, make check worked, and I am now running the GUI client. The Sophos software has an "Excluded Items" feature, so Bitcoin can be added to an exception list.