iOS Build Failure with Google Mobile Ads SDK 9.14.0 - duplicate symbols for architecture arm64

[REQUIRED] Step 1: Describe your environment

• Unity version: 2021.3.9f1
• Google Mobile Ads Unity plugin version: 7.3.1
• Platform: Unity Editor
• Platform OS version: -
• Any specific devices issue occurs on: -
• Mediation ad networks used, and their versions: none

Additional information:

• Xcode version: Xcode 14.1 (Build version 14B47b)
• CocoaPods version: 1.11.3
• External Dependency Manager for Unity version: 1.2.175
• Firebase version: 10.1.0

[REQUIRED] Step 2: Describe the problem

Starting today (december 9), our iOS builds suddenly started to fail due to the release of the Google Mobile Ads SDK 9.14.0 for iOS.

Steps to reproduce:

Try to build an iOS app with Google Mobile Ads (Unity) 7.3.1. Observe that during CocoaPods dependency resolution, it pulls the Google Mobile Ads (iOS) SDK version 9.14.0. The following error is thrown in XCode:

▸ Linking UnityFramework
❌  duplicate symbol '_OBJC_IVAR_$_GADPAIDIdentifier._identifier' in
> GoogleMobileAds(GADPAIDIdentifier.o)
> unity-plugin-library.a(GADPAIDIdentifier.o)
❌  duplicate symbol '_OBJC_CLASS_$_GADPAIDIdentifier' in
> GoogleMobileAds(GADPAIDIdentifier.o)
> unity-plugin-library.a(GADPAIDIdentifier.o)
❌  duplicate symbol '_OBJC_METACLASS_$_GADPAIDIdentifier' in
> GoogleMobileAds(GADPAIDIdentifier.o)
> unity-plugin-library.a(GADPAIDIdentifier.o)
❌  duplicate symbol '_OBJC_IVAR_$_GADPAIDIdentifier._timestamp' in
> GoogleMobileAds(GADPAIDIdentifier.o)
> unity-plugin-library.a(GADPAIDIdentifier.o)
❌  duplicate symbol '_OBJC_IVAR_$_GADPAIDManager._userDefaults' in
> GoogleMobileAds(GADPAIDManager.o)
> unity-plugin-library.a(GADPAIDManager.o)
❌  duplicate symbol '_OBJC_CLASS_$_GADPAIDManager' in
> GoogleMobileAds(GADPAIDManager.o)
> unity-plugin-library.a(GADPAIDManager.o)
❌  duplicate symbol '_OBJC_METACLASS_$_GADPAIDManager' in
> GoogleMobileAds(GADPAIDManager.o)
> unity-plugin-library.a(GADPAIDManager.o)
❌  duplicate symbol '_OBJC_IVAR_$_GADPAIDManager._storageAllowed' in
> GoogleMobileAds(GADPAIDManager.o)
> unity-plugin-library.a(GADPAIDManager.o)
❌  duplicate symbol '_OBJC_IVAR_$_GADPAIDManager._PAIDV2' in
> GoogleMobileAds(GADPAIDManager.o)
> unity-plugin-library.a(GADPAIDManager.o)
❌  duplicate symbol '_OBJC_IVAR_$_GADPAIDManager._PAIDV1' in
> GoogleMobileAds(GADPAIDManager.o)
> unity-plugin-library.a(GADPAIDManager.o)
❌  ld: 10 duplicate symbols for architecture arm64
❌  clang: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see invocation)

Workaround:

Since my latest working build used the Google Mobile Ads (iOS) SDK version 9.13.0, I’ve decided to freeze that version in the GoogleMobileAdsDependencies.xml file:

  <iosPods>
-    <iosPod name="Google-Mobile-Ads-SDK" version="~> 9.11">
+    <iosPod name="Google-Mobile-Ads-SDK" version="9.13">
      <sources>
        <source>https://github.com/CocoaPods/Specs</source>
      </sources>
    </iosPod>
  </iosPods>

Freezing it to the version 9.13.x, fixed the iOS builds for me.

[CreaProjects]

Thank you so much! It’s working with this fix 😃

[dcosmin-97]

Thank you for the workaround! It would be nice to add in the title duplicate symbols for architecture arm64