[BUG]: Build fails on Windows: minizip-ng CustomBuild exits with code 1 (MSB8066)

[HugoQuadrado82]

Summary

Build fails on Windows: minizip-ng CustomBuild exits with code 1 (MSB8066)

Interface type

Command-line interface (CLI)

Application version

v1.6.0

Operating system

Windows 11

Hardware configuration

System
Intel Core Ultra 7 155U with 40GB RAM

Steps to reproduce

Environment

OS | Windows 10/11 x64
Visual Studio | 2022 Community (v17)
MSBuild | v170
CMake | (bundled with VS)
Branch | main
Commit | latest

---

Steps to reproduce

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/mlcommons/mlperf_client.git
cd mlperf_client
mkdir build
cmake -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64 -S . -B "build"
cd build
msbuild mlperf.sln -p:Configuration=Release

---

Error

The build fails consistently during the minizip-ng dependency download/build step with the following error:

Build FAILED.
"...\build\mlperf.sln" (default target) (1) ->
"...\build\ALL_BUILD.vcxproj.metaproj" (default target) (2) ->
"...\build\src\CIL\CIL.vcxproj.metaproj" (default target) (3) ->
"...\build\src\CIL\minizip-ng.vcxproj.metaproj" (default target) (31) ->
"...\build\src\CIL\minizip-ng.vcxproj" (default target) (32) ->
(CustomBuild target) ->
  Microsoft.CppCommon.targets(254,5): error MSB8066: Custom build for
  '...minizip-ng-download.rule;...minizip-ng-update.rule;
   ...minizip-ng-patch.rule;...minizip-ng-configure.rule;
   ...minizip-ng-build.rule;...minizip-ng-install.rule;
   ...minizip-ng-complete.rule;...minizip-ng.rule;
   ...\src\CIL\CMakeLists.txt'
  exited with code 1.

    0 Warning(s)
    1 Error(s)
Time Elapsed 00:06:21.50

---

Notes

• The error occurs every time without exception, across multiple clean attempts.
• The build runs for ~6 minutes before failing, suggesting the download step may be partially completing or timing out.
• No more detailed error message is surfaced — MSB8066 with exit code 1 is the only diagnostic shown.
• This may be related to network access during build time (CMake's ExternalProject_Add / FetchContent for minizip-ng), a missing dependency, or a CMake configuration issue on Windows.

---

Questions

1. Is there a known workaround to pre-download or vendor minizip-ng locally before building?
2. Is there a way to get more verbose output from the minizip-ng build step to diagnose the root cause?
3. Are there any undocumented prerequisites for Windows builds (e.g. specific Windows SDK version, Perl, NASM, or other tools)?

---

Additional context

The README_BUILD.md does not mention any prerequisites beyond Visual Studio 2022 and CMake for the Windows CLI build. A more detailed prerequisites section or a known-issues note for this step would help future contributors.

Expected behavior

No response

Logs or screenshots

Contact information (optional)

No response

[mrxmartino]

minizip-ng is a git submodule.

Have you updated git submodules after cloning?

git submodule status
55f93686c01528224f448c19128836e7df245f72 deps/JSON (v3.12.0)
c780404a84dd9ba978ba26bc58d17cb43fa7bc80 deps/JSONSchema (2.4.0)
bd95e67c234930cd6d6bb11309588c5462c63cec deps/cpp-httplib (v0.30.1)
c0d04303400e64a798506e3f2342940ae268db15 deps/llama.cpp (gguf-v0.17.1-2390-gc0d043034)
cf4b58e17ebdcff8c6fbce1a9c3af5bf0485423c deps/minizip-ng (4.1.0)
6ba4827fb82c97d012eec9ab4b2de21f85c3b33d deps/mlx-swift (0.30.6)

[HugoQuadrado82]

First, thanks for your reply and support!

Yes, submodules are fully initialized. The git submodule status output shown above confirms all submodules are present and checked out correctly — none have the - prefix that would indicate an uninitialized submodule, and deps/minizip-ng is at tag 4.1.0 with all source files present.
The issue appears to be in the configure step of minizip-ng, not in the submodule checkout. Running the configure command manually reveals the actual error:
cmake -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" "-A x64"
-S C:/Users/DEV/source/repos/mlperf_client/deps/minizip-ng
-B C:/Users/DEV/source/repos/mlperf_client/build2/minizip-ng-build
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=.../minizip-ng-install
-DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=OFF
-DMZ_FETCH_LIBS=ON -DMZ_FORCE_FETCH_LIBS=ON
-DMZ_LIBCOMP=OFF
-DCMAKE_C_FLAGS_RELEASE=/MT -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_RELEASE=/MT
Could you confirm if this configure step is expected to work standalone, or if there are additional prerequisites needed on Windows?

[HugoQuadrado82]

git submodule status
55f93686c01528224f448c19128836e7df245f72 deps/JSON (v3.12.0)
c780404a84dd9ba978ba26bc58d17cb43fa7bc80 deps/JSONSchema (2.4.0)
bd95e67c234930cd6d6bb11309588c5462c63cec deps/cpp-httplib (v0.30.1)
c0d04303400e64a798506e3f2342940ae268db15 deps/llama.cpp (gguf-v0.17.1-2390-gc0d043034)
cf4b58e17ebdcff8c6fbce1a9c3af5bf0485423c deps/minizip-ng (4.1.0)
6ba4827fb82c97d012eec9ab4b2de21f85c3b33d deps/mlx-swift (0.30.6)

[mrxmartino]

Thanks @HugoQuadrado82, I see the issue now.

Root cause: The build system expects a patch file at src/CIL/minizip-patch.diff that fixes a CMake compatibility issue in the minizip-ng dependency. Unfortunately, this file was excluded from the repository by *.diff in .gitignore and was never committed.

Workaround: I'm attaching the missing minizip-patch.zip file. Unzip and place it at src/CIL/minizip-patch.diff in your clone, then do a clean reconfigure/rebuild.

Alternatively, you can apply the fix manually by editing deps/minizip-ng/CMakeLists.txt line 238 — change zlib to zlib-ng:

#Before
 list(APPEND MINIZIP_DEP zlib)
#After
 list(APPEND MINIZIP_DEP zlib-ng)

This should resolve the build failure. Let me know if you run into any other issues.

We will push the fix separately. Thanks for reporting this!

[HugoQuadrado82]

Hello,

thanks for your support.

I was able to compile it.

but the result is a 12MB .exe file and the size of the file from the oficial release, is 400MB

Will it work the same way? Why the size difference?

Thanks,

[mrxmartino]

The size difference likely comes from some missing EPs not being compiled - likely CUDA, which is the largest. Please check if you have the CUDA Toolkit installed. By default, if it's not found, the cmake configure step will pass, but won't enable CUDA support - you can check the cmake output.

Original issue is solved, the missing file was pushed, closing.