SharePlay Developer Profile not working?

I have been testing my new SharePlay app for many weeks now just fine. Now with the unpleasant surprise that SharePlay is disabled in iOS 15 beta 6 and won't make the 15.0 release, I still want to continue testing my app, but I can't get the SharePlay Developer Profile to re-enabled SharePlay.

I have iOS 15 beta 6 on both devices, the new SharePlay Developer Profile installed, and rebooted both devices, and isEligibleForGroupActivities is never true even when on a FaceTime call. So it appears that SharePlay is still disabled even with the profile installed on both devices.

Has anyone gotten the new SharePlay Developer Profile to work as intended?

Do we need a new Xcode version to get it working again? There hasn't been an Xcode 13 beta 6 released yet so that's the only thing I can think of that might be missing.

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greg
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Thanks for reporting this issue. We’ve identified an issue in beta 6 versions of iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 that prevents the SharePlay Development Profile from enabling SharePlay. We have corrected this issue and will soon be releasing a revised profile that is required for SharePlay development on the beta 7 versions of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, tvOS 15, and that is also compatible with macOS Monterey beta 6.

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Frameworks Engineer
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  • Thanks for looking into this and fixing it. Hopefully beta 7 is out soon.

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    greg

  • Can confirm that beta 7 with the profile now works. Thanks for looking into and fixing this. Cheers.

    —
    greg
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Hi there,

Can you please provide with us a sysdiagnose so we can look into this?

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Frameworks Engineer
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Thanks for reporting this issue. We’ve identified an issue in beta 6 versions of iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 that prevents the SharePlay Development Profile from enabling SharePlay. We have corrected this issue and will soon be releasing a revised profile that is required for SharePlay development on the beta 7 versions of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, tvOS 15, and that is also compatible with macOS Monterey beta 6.

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Frameworks Engineer
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  • Thanks for looking into this and fixing it. Hopefully beta 7 is out soon.

    —
    greg

  • Can confirm that beta 7 with the profile now works. Thanks for looking into and fixing this. Cheers.

    —
    greg
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I'm trying with iOS beta 7 and the updated SharePlay Developer Profile and I'm getting the following error:

Error preparing group activity: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service named com.apple.group-activities.conversationmanagerhost was invalidated: failed at lookup with error 159 - Sandbox restriction." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service named com.apple.group-activities.conversationmanagerhost was invalidated: failed at lookup with error 159 - Sandbox restriction.}

The call to prepareForActivation() is returning .cancelled without any prompt on the device.

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tvOS
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OK, turns out the issue is that the SharePlay Developer Profile still requires the com.apple.developer.group-session entitlement.

The wording on https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=mxaeu6er made it sound like we should remove the entitlement, but perhaps that is only needed prior to submitting an iOS/tvOS 15 build to the App Store.

Added the entitlement back and now SharePlay is working in beta 7.

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tvOS
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  • Yeah, I agree the wording is confusing. Basically you aren't allowed to submit apps to App Store/TestFlight with the Group Activities entitlement. The build will be rejected. However, if you submit without Group Activities entitlement, then SharePlay won't work. So basically that is a note to people who have functional apps that work fine without SharePlay to let them know how to continue testing the non-SharePlay features in TestFlight. In my case, my app is a new SharePlay-only app, so I ca no longer test with TestFlight until they change this policy. I can only test using adhoc builds outside of the App Store and TestFlight.

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    greg
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Hi there, a new SharePlay development profile that is compatible with beta 7 versions of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and tvOS 15 has been released. Download it now from the Apple Developer Website.

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Frameworks Engineer
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  • Sadly this profile doesn't seem to work to enable SharePlay in Monterey beta 6. Is that going to be fixed?

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    greg
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Is anyone able to use SharePlay in the RC builds? The SharePlay Developer Profile doesn't seem to be working anymore. I don't even see the SharePlay Developer Profile in developer.apple.com/download anymore.

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tvOS
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  • It looks like SharePlay doesn't work in the RC build and likely won't work in the final 15.0 build either. My guess is that iOS 15.1 beta 1 will be released soon and SharePlay will be enabled in that one without a profile. In the meantime we are stuck yet again without the ability to test SharePlay until this happens. Hopefully we don't have to wait a week or more for this.

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    greg
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Hi there,

SharePlay is disabled for use in the release candidates of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and tvOS 15. SharePlay will also be disabled for use in their initial public releases this fall. SharePlay will be reinstated in an upcoming developer beta release — please stay tuned for more details! A new development profile will be made available to allow for developing SharePlay support for your apps in the beta 7 release of macOS Monterey, coming soon.

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Frameworks Engineer
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  • Hi there,

    Thanks for letting us know. I appreciate you giving us updates like this on this forum.

    However, I would also like to let you and your team know how incredibly frustrating this entire ordeal has been. I'm working on a new app that is based entirely on SharePlay and is useless without it. And now I have had several weeks where I am completely unable to test the app because of broken profiles and now having to test 15.0 RC and not being able to test at all until a new beta is released. And all the while I am unable to test my app using TestFlight because that is blocked as well. This whole experience has made me regret ever attempting to create a new app using beta features at all and I will not recommend this to any other developers in the future.

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    greg

  • And again, SharePlay is disabled in the macOS Monterey betas and the SharePlay profile to enable it expired on Oct 15, so I cannot test my app at all this weekend. This whole SharePlay Development Profile has been a complete disaster. I've gone weeks without being able to test and now with iOS 15.1 almost out, when I need to test the most, I am unable to because of arbitrary restrictions that make testing impossible. What a disappointment this whole process has been.

    Yes, I understand there is an Apple event on Monday morning and the RCs will likely come out that afternoon and SharePlay will likely work in them, but seriously this is such garbage and I feel like no one at Apple cares about any one actually testing their software. It's just roadblock after roadblock for no reason and it's broken literally half the time.

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    greg
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The new profile hasn't been released yet right? Was hoping I would be able to test everything out starting today but so far no dice..

Posted by
jordi
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  • Well you don't need it for iOS 15.1 at all, so I assume you are asking about it for macOS.

    I assume that is what they are going to do with macOS Monterey what they did with iOS 15. My guess is that SharePlay won't be enabled in macOS 12.0 and there won't be a profile anymore to enable it, but when the 12.1 beta comes out (likely in the next week or two), it will be enabled by default. In the meantime we can't test at all on macOS. This is a great system they have set up here.

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    greg

  • Yep, sure seems like it. (And yes, working on a macOS version). If you want to connect to exchange tips, you can reach met at jordi at goodsnooze com or on twitter > jordibruin!

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    jordi
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Hi @greg, shareplay is re-enabled in macOS 12.1 just as you guess. But we still can't create an experience on our website by using safari. Because APIs of navigator.mediaSession on safari are still not enough. There is no navigator.mediaSession.coordinator api. See https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10189/. Do you guys have any progress?

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cammy_tang
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  • Sorry, I'm not using Safari playback for my app, so I haven't tried this.

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    greg
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