Fixing issues with MAMP, Mcrypt and CraftCMS

I’ve spent the best part of 3 hours tweaking settings in MAMP, changing PHP versions from the command line, installing Mcrypt manually and verbally pleading with Craft and MAMP to play nicely together only to be met with the puzzling message:

Can’t run Craft CMS :(

Your server doesn’t meet the following requirements to run Craft CMS: Mcrypt is required.

After wrongly directing my anger at Craft, it turns out that this is an edge case issue with MAMP 4.1. You’ve probably recently installed or upgraded to MAMP 4.1 and tried accessing Craft 2.6. Upgrading to MAMP 4.1.1 resolves the issue or alternatively you could try the Craft 3.0 beta which no longer requires mcrypt.

As an aside — I’m in the process of moving all of my articles across to Medium to smooth out the process from draft to publishing. Hopefully that means more of a mix between short notes from the field (like this) and longform stuff.