How to fix Error Failed to update CocoaPods repositories for iOS project (React Native on Mac OS)

On my MacBook Pro with Apple M1 Pro and macOS Monterey (12.4), I got the following error message when creating an React Native project.

Updating CocoaPods repositories (this may take a few minutes)

error Error: Failed to update CocoaPods repositories for iOS project.

Ckeck the Xcode Command Line Tools

Open Xcode

Go to Preferences -> Locations and choose the Command Line Tools if the dropdown menu is empty.

Install CocoaPods via pod command fails

cd MyReactNativeProject
cd ios
pop install

cd MyReactNativeProject
cd ios
ios % pod repo update

The two commands also throw an error message.

Error

LoadError - dlopen(/Library/Ruby/Gems/2.6.0/gems/ffi-1.15.5/lib/ffi_c.bundle, 0x0009): tried: '/Library/Ruby/Gems/2.6.0/gems/ffi-1.15.5/lib/ffi_c.bundle' (mach-o file, but is an incompatible architecture (have 'x86_64', need 'arm64e')) - /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.6.0/gems/ffi-1.15.5/lib/ffi_c.bundle

[!] CocoaPods could not find compatible versions for pod "FlipperKit/FlipperKitUserDefaultsPlugin":
  In Podfile:
    FlipperKit/FlipperKitUserDefaultsPlugin (= 0.125.0)

None of your spec sources contain a spec satisfying the dependency: `FlipperKit/FlipperKitUserDefaultsPlugin (= 0.125.0)`.

Searching for inspections failed: undefined method `map' for nil:NilClass

Initialization of the React Native project with a given architecture (arch -x86_64) also does not work

arch -x86_64 npx react-native init cd MyReactNativeProject

Error: Failed to install CocoaPods dependencies for iOS project, which is required by this template.

Solution

Delete the CocoaPods resositories and create the project

sudo rm -rf ~/.cocoapods/repos

npx react-native init cd MyReactNativeProject

cd ./cd MyReactNativeProject/ios && pod install

Pod installation complete! There are 55 dependencies from the Podfile and 46 total pods installed.

And success.