Some Macs recently received a macOS system update which disabled the simulator runtimes used by Xcode 15, including the simulators for iOS, tvOS, watchOS, and visionOS. If your Mac received this update, you will receive the following error message and will be unable to use the simulator:
The com.apple.CoreSimulator.SimRuntime.iOS-17-2 simulator runtime is not available.
Domain: com.apple.CoreSimulator.SimError
Code: 401
Failure Reason: runtime profile not found using "System" match policy
Recovery Suggestion: Download the com.apple.CoreSimulator.SimRuntime.iOS-17-2 simulator runtime from the Xcode
To resume using the simulator, please reboot your Mac. After rebooting, check Xcode Preferences → Platforms to ensure that the simulator runtime you would like to use is still installed. If it is missing, use the Get button to download it again.
The Xcode 15.3 Release Notes are also updated with this information.
Simulator
RSS for tagRapidly prototype and test builds of your app during the development process using Simulator.
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I downloaded the Xcode Beta 3 on my MacBook Pro M4 Base today and tested out some iOS26 mechanics of my app. And when I came back to my main Xcode to continue developing in iOS18, I couldn't build my app. I went to Product > Destination > Manage run destinations and then tried to create a simulator with iOS18 but it didn't show up, only choice that's showing up was iOS26. I tried deleting iOS18 platform and downloading it again but it didn't solve, I tried deleting Xcode Beta but it didn't solve the problem either. I deleted Runtimes folder, it didn't solve too. I can not create a simulator of iOS18 or below too, the error says "The iOS 18.5 simulator runtime is not available. Try reinstalling Xcode or the simulator runtime." How can I fix this problem?
Hello Apple Developer Community,
I'm experiencing an issue with file download functionality in the iOS Simulator after updating to Xcode 26 RC (Build 17A321).
Issue Description:
When attempting to download files in the iOS Simulator via Safari, the download prompt appears correctly, but after tapping the 'Download' button, files are not being saved to the Files app. The download appears to do nothing with no error message, no indication of failure, but the file simply doesn't appear in Downloads or anywhere in the Files app.
Environment:
Xcode Version: 26.0 RC (17A321)
iOS Simulator Version: 26.0 RC (23A339)
Device Simulated: iPhone Air
Steps to Reproduce:
Open Safari in the iOS Simulator
Navigate to a downloadable file (PDF, ZIP, etc.)
Tap to initiate download
Download prompt appears as expected
Tap the 'Download' button
Check the Files app → Downloads folder (empty)
Expected Behavior:
Files should download normally as they do on physical devices and as they did in previous Xcode versions.
Actual Behavior:
The download prompt dismisses after tapping 'Download', but no file appears in the Files app. No error message is shown, and there's no indication that the download failed, it simply appears as if nothing happened.
Additional Information:
Downloads work correctly on physical device (iOS 26 RC 23A340)
This functionality worked properly in previous Xcode versions
I have created a bug report to Feedback assistant: FB20190927
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
We were having an issue wrb the system rotate and scale gestures (two-handed gestures / RotateGesture3D and MagnifyGesture) were extremely difficult to register (make work) in the visionOS simulator.
The solution we found was to:
Launch your app in the simulator
Move the pointer on top of the 3D object for which you are testing rotation and scaling gestures.
Press and hold the Option key to display touch points (ie: the two-handed gesture points).
While maintaining the option key pressed, release the pointer and re-enable it again. I am using a track pad with tap-to-click enabled and three-finger to drag enabled in accessibility, so "release the pointer and re-enable it again" translates simply to removing the three finger and placing them again on the trackpad.
If you have maintained the option key pressed, then you should now be able to rotate and scale the 3D object.
Context if you are interested:
Our issue was also occurring in Apple's own sample project relating to gestures "Transforming RealityKit entities using gestures", at below link.
On Apple's article "Interacting with your app in the visionOS simulator" at the below link, for two-handed gestures it states "Press and hold the Option key to display touch points. Move the pointer while pressing the Option key to change the distance between the touch points. Move the pointer and hold the Shift and Option keys to reposition the touch points."
This simply did not work anymore for rotation and scaling gestures.
These gestures used to be a lot more responsive in Sonoma. Either the article should be updated to what I described above, or there is an issue. Our colleague who is using macOS Sonoma 14.6.1 with the latest release of Xcode is not having these issues.
Here is the list of configurations (troubleshooting we tried!) where it is difficult to achieve rotation and scaling gestures in the visionOS simulator:
macOS Sequoia 16.1 Beta, Xcode 16.1 RC w visionOS 2.1
macOS Sequoia 16.1 Beta, Xcode 16.1 RC w visionOS 2.0
macOS Sequoia 16.1 Beta, Xcode 16.2 Beta 1 w visionOS 2.1
macOS Sequoia 16.1 Beta, Xcode 16.2 Beta 1 w visionOS 2.0
macOS Sequoia 16.1 Beta, remove all Xcodes and installed the build from AppStore (Xcode 16.1)
macOS Sequoia 16.1 Beta, Xcode 16.0 w visionOS 2.0
completely wiped out, and reset entire development machine, re-installed latest releases of sequoia (15.1) and xcode (15.1))
Throughout these troubleshooting I often:
restarted both xcode and sim
erased all derived data
erased all contents and settings from sims
performed fresh git clones
None of the above worked, only the workaround described above works atm. As you can maybe deduce, it was very time consuming to find the workaround, we also wasted some development effort thinking our gesture development was no-good.
Hopefully this will help other devs.
Article Link:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/interacting-with-your-app-in-the-visionos-simulator
Gesture sample project link:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/realitykit/transforming-realitykit-entities-with-gestures
Since the latest Xcode has become available users in our environment are seeing this error any time they try to launch a simulator (Primarily iOS devices, but others provided the same error) We have tested on 16.4 and 26.0.1 with various suggested fixes including uninstalling and reinstalling all of Xcode. Nothing has helped.
Up until some point relatively recently, I have been able to use Safari's web inspector to connect to the iOS simulator in order to debug our web application in development at http://localhost:8088.
Now, the web inspector still OPENS, but it opens in a broken state. The context is available to select from Safari's "Develop" menu: Develop > "iPhone 16 Pro (Simulator)" > "localhost - login". It appears under the Safari heading if I have navigated to the web app in the browser, or under the Expo heading if I am accessing it through the webview in our React Native wrapper app. When I select it, the web inspector window does appear.
However, once it opens, the Elements pane is empty, the Console pane is empty, expressions entered into the console are not evaluated, there's no content in Sources, Network, Storage, etc.
Important notes:
This broken state happens at http://localhost:8088 as well as http://127.0.0.1:8088, and it seems that the insecure context is the issue.
The web inspector DOES work for HTTPS sites. If I navigate to, e.g., https://example.com in the simulator and connect the web inspector, everything works fine.
The web inspector also works fine in Safari on macOS (OUTSIDE the simulator) when accessing non-HTTPS sites. It's only a problem for non-HTTPS sites when connecting to the simulator.
A coworker has the same problem, so it is not isolated to my machine.
I would enable TLS locally as a workaround, but this web app is very complex, and I know from experience that it is very difficult for various reasons to set it up properly for our project in development, and it will take significant non-trivial work to do so.
So... Why is this happening? Is this expected behavior? Is there a way that I can debug my site on localhost without HTTPS?
I am experiencing an issue where my Mac's speakers will crackle and pop when running an app on the Simulator or even when previewing SwiftUI with Live Preview.
I am using a 16" MacBook Pro (i9) and I'm running Xcode 12.2 on Big Sur (11.0.1).
Killing coreaudiod temporarily fixes the problem however this is not much of a solution.
Is anyone else having this problem?
My app uses SwiftUI Map and draws Markers, MapPolyline and MapPolygons over it. These all work on actual devices. On the iOS 26.0.1 Simulator running on macOS 26.0.1 Polylines and Polygons do now show.
Do others see the same thing?
Looking for a way to overcome this issue when starting UI tests that used to be working:
Source was stale 337 times within the last 500 ms (12 (latestGeneration) != 22 (lastKnownShmemState)): CFPrefsPlistSource<0x600003004c60> (Domain: com.apple.Accessibility, User: kCFPreferencesCurrentUser, ByHost: No, Container: ###/data, Contents Need Refresh: Yes)
...
Failed to initialize for UI testing: Error Domain=XCTDaemonErrorDomain Code=18 "Timed out waiting for AX loaded notification" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Timed out waiting for AX loaded notification}
Message from debugger: killed
The environment is Xcode 16.3 with iOS Simulator 18.0. Not using the latest Simulator 18.4 because of another bug with network requests: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/777999
When running unit tests or UI tests that cause a crash (even intentionally), the simulator itself crashes and can't be booted again in subsequent runs.
This started happening from Xcode 26, our project never had this issue before (we had crashes before as well).
Steps to Reproduce:
Run the unit test with fatalError().
Observe the simulator crashes.
On the next test run, the simulator fails to boot, remaining in a crashed or stuck state.
Example error:
error = Error Domain=FBSOpenApplicationServiceErrorDomain Code=1 "Simulator device failed to launch com.xxx.xctrunner." UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Simulator device failed to launch com.xxx.xctrunner., NSUnderlyingError=0x600009895830 {Error Domain=FBSOpenApplicationServiceErrorDomain Code=1 "The request to open "com.xxx.xctrunner" failed." UserInfo={BSErrorCodeDescription=RequestDenied, NSLocalizedDescription=The request to open "com.xxx.xctrunner" failed., NSUnderlyingError=0x6000085d9500 {Error Domain=FBProcessExit Code=64 "The process failed to launch." UserInfo={NSUnderlyingError=0x60000850b360 {Error Domain=RBSRequestErrorDomain Code=5 "Launch failed." UserInfo=0x600008999340 (not displayed)}, BSErrorCodeDescription=launch-failed, NSLocalizedFailureReason=The process failed to launch.}}, FBSOpenApplicationRequestID=0xbe36, NSLocalizedFailureReason=The request was denied by service delegate (SBMainWorkspace).}}, NSLocalizedFailureReason=The request was denied by service delegate (SBMainWorkspace)., FBSOpenApplicationRequestID=0xbe36, SimCallingSelector=launchApplicationWithID:options:pid:error:, BSErrorCodeDescription=RequestDenied})
When I start a Simulator (iPhone 13 mini) with iOS 26 and activate "Use the Same Keyboard Language as macOS", it still sets the keyboard to US (my Mac keyboard is in German). This makes the Mac keyboard unusable. It looks like a bug, because it clearly ignores the settings. When I type “@”, I get “¬”. Restarting the simulator did nothing, changing the settings back and forth also.
BTW: Why does every single update of XCode come with a bug nowadays? I always have to spend half a day after an update to fix a problem I didn't have before. Highly frustrating.
I am fallowing the steps mention here
https://developer.apple.com/wallet/get-started-with-verify-with-wallet/
and https://developer.apple.com/documentation/passkit/requesting-identity-data-from-a-wallet-pass
to run a POC in simulator but I am getting a crash
DigitalPresentmentSession requestDocument fatal error from xpc: This app has crashed because it called an API it is not entitled to use.
:0: Fatal error: This app has crashed because it called an API it is not entitled to use.
Context
Host: macOS 14.7.6 on Apple Silicon (Mac mini M2)
Xcode 15.4
Simulator runtimes installed: iOS 17.2, 17.4, 17.5
Tech stack: Kivy/kivy-ios, SDL2 (OpenGL ES/EAGL), Python 3.11
App type: minimal Kivy “Hello World” (no special entitlements, no camera/mic)
Observed
On iOS 17.5 Simulator the app often shows a black screen or exits immediately (no crash dialog).
On iOS 17.2 Simulator the same build runs fine (after a clean rebuild of SDL2 and proper xcodebuild flags).
What fixed it for 17.2
Clean rebuild of SDL2 (no cached artifacts), then build python/kivy/app.
xcodebuild WITHOUT OTHER_CFLAGS="-Umain -DSDL_MAIN_HANDLED".
Typical flags: ONLY_ACTIVE_ARCH=YES, EXCLUDED_ARCHS="i386 x86_64", IPHONEOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=16.0.
Optionally enforcing EAGL RGBA8 + retained backing + opaque helped when testing, but the clean SDL2 rebuild already resolved black screen on 17.2.
Still problematic
17.5 Simulator still exhibits black screen/early exit for this OpenGL ES path (no clear console/crash signal).
Real devices are fine.
Questions
Is there a known regression or change in iOS 17.5 Simulator related to EAGL/OpenGL ES contexts or presentation?
Any recommended Simulator settings/workarounds for GL/EAGL apps on 17.5?
References
Repro, scripts and notes (GitHub Discussion): <https://github.com/orgs/kivy/discussions/62 >
Gist with scripts (create/boot iOS 17.2 simulator, clean scripts, recipe notes): https://gist.github.com/wolfgang-coder/7e88636fb3f19b492d565e982575939d
(We avoid posting Bundle IDs, certificate details, or real UDIDs. Happy to provide sanitized logs if useful.)
I'm trying to sign-in with a Sandbox account with my iOS simulator. Using Xcode 26 beta 7. After I sign in, the button goes inactive for a few seconds but then nothing happens. It does not actually sign me in.
After upgrading to macOS 26.0 Tahoe and Xcode 26.0.1, I’ve noticed an issue with audio playback whenever the iOS Simulator is running.
Device: MacBook Pro 13" (2020, Intel, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD)
Issue: Any sound played on the Mac (system sounds, music, videos) begins to break/distort once the Simulator is active.
App Sounds: If the app running inside the Simulator plays audio, that audio also breaks/distorts.
Previous Version: This issue did not occur on macOS Sequoia 15 or with Xcode 16. Everything was working fine before the upgrade.
Attempting to bring up the access point yields the following error log:
[GameCenterOverlayService] Failed to create GameOverlayUI Dashboard Remote Proxy
[GameCenterOverlayService] Could not create endpoint for service name: com.apple.GameOverlayUI.dashboard-service
[GameCenterOverlayService] Failed to create GameOverlayUI Dashboard Remote Proxy
[GameCenterOverlayService] Could not create endpoint for service name: com.apple.GameOverlayUI.dashboard-service
[GameCenterOverlayService] Failed to create GameOverlayUI Dashboard Remote Proxy
[GameCenterOverlayService] Failed to create GameOverlayUI Dashboard Remote Proxy
The same code (which is a single line setting 'active' to true) works on physical devices and on the simulator in iOS 18.6
I haven't been able to find any mention of this issue online. Any suggestions or help greatly appreciated.
Hey there, I just upgraded to Mac OS Tahoe ,son an apple MacBook Pro 2019 16inch. am using IntellijIDEA and Flutter to develop a mobile app which I test on the simulator app running iOS 18.4 .
the issue:
when I start the simulator app. ( while in the loading phase and in the operation phase as well ), the audio from an already open YouTube tab on safari (this happens on chrome browser as well). the sound glitches and becomes Noise.
a fix I found online is to kill the audio deamon on Mac OS, This works using the command: "sudo killall coreaudiod" this kills the audio process, (while the emulator is operational), then the macOS restarts the audio deamon then the audio works fine alongside with the simulator being open.
I just want to ask is there a permanent fix for this? is Apple working on a fix for this in the upcoming update?
I'm updating our app to support metal 4, but the metal 4 types don't seem to get recognized when targeting simulator. Is it known if metal 4 will be supported in the near future, or am I setting up the app wrong?
In previous versions of the simulator, it was possible to import files into the Files app by dragging them from the Finder into the Simulator. It appears that in the iOS 26 Simulator, this opens the file in Safari.
I've only tried it with .json files so far.
The documentation at https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/sharing-data-with-simulator says that the original behaviour should happen:
To add files to Simulator, select one or more files in Finder on your Mac, then click the Share button. Select Simulator from the share destination list. Choose the simulated device from the drop-down list. Simulator opens the Files app, and lets you select where to save the files.
I'd love to learn if this is intentional behaviour, and if so, what workarounds there might be. I use this pattern quite a lot, as I have a HealthKit app, and I've built a system that allows me to export workouts as JSON files from a real device, that I can then import into a simulator for testing.
Edit: I found a workaround. Make a folder in Files.app, then search for it within ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices. Open the folder in Finder, then add any files you want to be available in the Simulator.
Hello, been beating my head against the wall for a few days with this. Originally got the error in Xcode 16, through the course of troubleshooting uninstalled and reinstalled Xcode multiple times, upgraded Xcode to 23 - same result. Create a different user on my computer and try, same result.
Xcode > Settings > Components show both iOS 26.0 and iOS18.6 simulator, however no simulators show in Xcode, and Xcode hangs when you try to create one.
'xcrun simctl list runtimes' shows this:
iOS 18.6 (18.6 - 22G86) - com.apple.CoreSimulator.SimRuntime.iOS-18-6 (unavailable, liblaunch_sim.dylib could not be opened)
iOS 26.0 (26.0 - 23A343) - com.apple.CoreSimulator.SimRuntime.iOS-26-0 (unavailable, liblaunch_sim.dylib could not be opened).
Does anyone have any ideas on what the issue could be?
What I am trying to do is very simple.
Environment description:
macOS Catalina version 10.15.7 iOS Simulator version 12.3 Target device iPhone 11 (iOS 13.2.2)
Open Safari > go to website > mictests.com
Result: "Could not find any media devices. It is very likely that your browser does not allow access to these devices."
The Simulator does have access to the microphone. I can use Siri just fine. Only Safari cannot access the mic. I'm really stuck here, any ideas are welcome.