llvm-strip.exe error: unexpected associative section index

[encelo]

I'm the developer of nCine, a cross-platform 2D game framework that is constantly built by GitHub Actions using different compilers, on different platforms.

Since some months there is a combination in the test matrix that it consistently failing: when I compile my project on MSYS2 using clang then I have a strange issue with llvm-strip.

The error message is: C:\msys64\mingw64\bin/llvm-strip.exe: error: 'D:/a/nCine/nCine-build-DevDist/libncine.dll': unexpected associative section index. Basically my library cannot be stripped for some reason and this was not happening some months ago.

I can reproduce the issue on my machine with MSYS2 installed and Clang 13, it is not a GitHub Actions runner only issue.

[llvmbot]

@llvm/issue-subscribers-tools-llvm-objcopy-strip

[belmeopmenieuwesim]

This is still an issue today. Even on LLVM version 14.0

[belmeopmenieuwesim]

I found something that may be of value. It appears that this error is triggered when PointerToSymbolTable is set in the PE IMAGE_FILE_HEADER. If this is zeroed out, then llvm-strip will work fine. Hope this helps...

A temporary fix would be also to compile with the linker flag --discard-all, since it will avoid populating PointerToSymbolTable.

@MaskRay maybe you know a way to solve this in llvm-strip?

[loumalouomega]

Any new about this issue?, I would try the --discard-all workaround

[jh7370]

@mstorsjo, this is outside my realm of expertise. Could you take a look?

[mstorsjo]

I found something that may be of value. It appears that this error is triggered when PointerToSymbolTable is set in the PE IMAGE_FILE_HEADER. If this is zeroed out, then llvm-strip will work fine. Hope this helps...

I can successfully strip binaries with PointerToSymbolTable (that's the default for of binaries linked in mingw mode, where this tool is used a lot), so there has to be something else to it as well.

Please provide a sample input file where this issue reproduces.