xcode 15 Beta 5 iOS Simulators... Springboard Crash & High CPU

me too , simulators are pretty much unusable on my intel mac, i would submit a feedback, i did as well about the transparency issue.

If you change the GPU Selection to use "Prefer Integrated GPU" it solved both issues.

I'm having similar issues with XCode 15 beta 5 and CPU usage while running simulators. For me, diagnosticd is the prime culprit, every time a simulator (preview) updates, or I open a new one. It does tend to quiet down after a while, but it pegs my CPU pretty badly for a good minute or two.

I'm on a 2018 13 inch Macbook Pro, 2.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7. Running an iPhone 14 (iOS17) simulator.

I've uninstalled other versions of XCode, and uninstalled and reinstalled XCode 15 beta 5.

Console doesn't give me any clear picture. Probably unrelated, but I do see a number of consecutive crashes for "AegirPoster" (identifier "com.apple.NanoUniverse.AegirProxyApp.AegirPoster") with responsible process "SimulatorTrampoline".

Posting in case others have similar symptoms.

Also seeing a similar issue. Noticed my MacBook Pro M1 (2020) was getting ridiculously hot, saw one SpringBoard process and two diagnosticsd processes each taking between 70%-103%. I'm running macOS 14.0 Beta (23A5301h) and Xcode Version 15.0 beta 5 (15A5209g), and had the Simulator open.

Console shows a near constant spamming of the following messages from SpringBoard:

default	12:42:48.635344-0500	SpringBoard	[0x1363526c0] invalidated on xpc_connection_cancel()
default	12:42:48.635365-0500	SpringBoard	[0x1363526c0] activating connection: mach=false listener=false peer=true name=com.apple.systemstatus.peer.0x1363526c0

Closing my Simulator was the only thing that got it chill out.

Also having performance issues and SpringBoard errors with simulators. I've reinstalled Xcode 15 beta 5 after removing Developer folder content in system and user libraries to try to workaround those issues, but that didn't help. Besides what has been said in this thread, I did noticed iOS SDK is not properly registered in Xcode ever. SDK version remains 21A5291f and is not updated with 21A5291g for the latest SDK. I'm attaching a screenshot with that particular issue.

Xcode 15 Beta 6 seems to improve some of these issues. Previews and simulators are still slow but I have not seen springboard crashes in this Xcode release so far.

I'm seeing similar issues with beta 4, 5 and 6 now with symptoms similar to @jtfrench.

I've taken a sample of SpringBoard and it always seems to be consuming all of the CPU in STStatusDomainXPCClientHandle, trying to do something with simulator entitlements.

xcode 15 Beta 6 iOS Simulators practically unresponsive. Tried on both iMac and MacBook Pro. Not viable to work with.

Xcode Version 15.0 beta 7 (15A5229h) has the same problem.

It's burning my legs!

I've got the same Console infinite spam from SpringBoard:

default	12:42:48.635344-0500	SpringBoard	[0x1363526c0] invalidated on xpc_connection_cancel()
default	12:42:48.635365-0500	SpringBoard	[0x1363526c0] activating connection: mach=false listener=false peer=true name=com.apple.systemstatus.peer.0x1363526c0

Switching the simulator to "Prefer Integrated GPU" fixed that.

My machine is MBP 14" M2 16GB

To me, simulator performance improved so much after removing all content on /Library/Developer and /Users/<user>/Library/Developer folders. It seems like there were remaining files on those folders interfering between the latest xcode beta version.

Currently, I see many of the following simulator log errors, but don't seem to cause major performance issues.

21:41:37.870260+0200 apsd <APSUserCourier 0x10e506160 development 0> invalid presence without server timestamp. Rolling token... 21:41:37.977540+0200 familycircled Connection for <APSConnection: 0x600003b0c2a0> differs from current queue!!

Adding a launch argument "-OS_ACTIVITY_MODE disable" has fixed the high cpu usage in my case.

This issue seems to go away on my M1 Mac (Xcode Release Candidate) by running the following command:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy /Applications/Xcode-beta.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Profiles/Runtimes/iOS.simruntime/Contents/Resources/RuntimeRoot/Library/Wallpaper/Collections/Collections.plist -c "add order array" -c "add order: string 23EC2CF1-0188-49FC-B214-EC1AB37FE5C4"

This command was taken from a blog post regarding a similar issue regarding the iOS 16 simulator.

The issue is still present in the GM Release of Xcode 15. (This is my shocked face.) It manifests for me anytime I run a playground.

@zettlunic - do you know what "-OS_ACTIVITY_MODE disable" does, precisely?

@riccardo_p - do you have a link or a description of what, exactly, we're adding there?

I'm a little hesitant to use these fixes without a better understanding of exactly what the changes are doing. Thanks!

I am seeing a similar issue on my MacBook Pro 2020 (M1), with macOS 13.5.2, Xcode 15 GM, iOS 17.0 simulator. It goes away temporarily after running killall Simulator, but it keeps coming back. Looking at my top processes by CPU usage in Activity Monitor, I see:

diagnosticd - 87.5% - 2:08.25 SpringBoard - 85.6% - 7:27.90 diagnosticd - 67.5% - 6:36.72 UnityPosterExtension - 20.2% - 1:40.86 PhotosPosterProvider - 19.7% - 1:38.08 ExtragalacticPoster - 19.7% - 1:37.34 CollectionsPoster - 19.5% - 1:40.69

Recently I have very bad experience with simulators. I can't run them at all, almost immediately crash upon launching. Preview in Xcode works occasionally. I tried today to reinstall macOS, Xcode, (I erased my HDD before that). I started a fresh new project in Xcode and I can't run it on the simulator, it crashes instantly.

What I noticed from the logs is that:

Sep 27 22:07:14 Vasils-MacBook-Pro CoreSimulatorService[810] <Notice>: com.apple.CoreSimulator.CoreSimulatorService 920.6 starting.

Sep 27 22:07:23 Vasils-MacBook-Pro CoreSimulatorService[810] <Error>: Unable to load device.plist: /Users/bacata.borisov/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/DC8880C0-5D67-4DAA-95B6-75043F690485/device.plist Sep 27 22:07:23 Vasils-MacBook-Pro CoreSimulatorService[810] <Error>: Failed to create device at path /Users/bacata.borisov/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/DC8880C0-5D67-4DAA-95B6-75043F690485. Sep 27 22:07:23 Vasils-MacBook-Pro CoreSimulatorService[810] <Notice>: Device iPhone 12 Pro Max (1319CD25-F09C-4BC4-8E8C-E1A7D810BDC0, iOS 17.0, Booted) encountered in unexpected state at launch: Booted. Shutting down. Sep 27 22:07:23 Vasils-MacBook-Pro com.apple.Console[808] <Warning>: Unable to discover any Simulator runtimes. Developer Directory is /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer. Sep 27 22:07:23 Vasils-MacBook-Pro CoreSimulatorService[810] <Warning>: Found duplicate SDKs for appletvos17.0:

Basically it doesn't see the runtime even though it is installed. Has anybody else experienced that? I am going a little bit crazy already I don't know where exactly the runtime is supposed to be, do you have any suggestions?

In general, the only way to ensure that Xcode releases get fixed is to email Craig Federighi (head of software) or Ken Orr (head of developer tools) directly.

Filing “feedback” or discussing the problem on these forums will have no effect—unless you catch Eskimo’s attention and he runs the issue up the chain on your behalf.

I would encourage you all to email those executives. If they see enough noise, someone will force engineering to take a look. Otherwise, this issue will run for a year because Apple‘s feedback process is absolutely broken.

I've also seen this problem since the early Xcode 15 betas and I never understood why and when it happened. Today I've been investigating more in depth, trying to reproduce the problem.

The problem

After starting an iPhone simulator using iOS 17 (either by running an app or by triggering SwiftUI Previews), CPU consumption goes very high and does not come back to "background level" even after many minutes of wait. Beside the SpringBoard process we can see the following 5 other processes with high CPU consumption:

• PhotosPosterProvider
• ExtragalacticPoster
• CollectionsPoster
• two instances of diagnosticd (background processes which are consuming the logs generated by the processes?)

My current setup

Xcode Version 15.0 (15A240d) Simulator running iPhone 14 using iOS 17.0 (21A328)

Reproducible steps

Version 1: simulator using iOS 17

1. Create a new iPhone simulator using iOS 17.
2. Start it up (either from "Simulator") or by running an app.
3. Wait and see... You will see that most of the processes consuming a lot of CPU, will come down after a few minutes. But SpringBoard will stay up.

Version 2: Switching languages

1. Start "Settings" app, go to "Language & Region" and add/switch to another Language, for example to "German".
2. Poster processes will get restarted and SpringBoard will automatically start logging messages again.

Version 3: "The real cause"

Until now we have never tried to understand what those "Poster" processes are. The following steps will indicate clearly where the bug lies:

1. With the Simulator running (with no CPU hog running) lock the iPhone by pressing CMD+L (or the side-button in the UI).
2. Wake up the iPhone by touching the screen or tapping CMD.
3. Tap and hold the screen to go to the FrontBoard configuration screen.
4. Swipe to the left and select "Add new". The "Add New Wallpaper" screen will appear, starting to populate the prepared examples to select from.

==> SpringBoard will again start to log

Workaround

I use the following workaround to remediate. In the end, it is always about killing the Poster processes.

Variant 1: The annoying restart

Restart the device and hope for the best... If after a few minutes the high CPU persists, restart the device again.

Variant 2: targeted kill of the problematic processes

Use "Activity Monitor" to kill the "Poster" processes which consume CPU. Search for "Poster" check CPU consumption and stop the process.

Use the following shell command to kill all processes being part of "CoreSimulator" and having "Poster" in the name.

ps aux | grep -E '[C]oreSimulator.+Poster' | sort -r -k3 | awk '{if ($3>0.0) { print $2}}' | xargs kill -1

The only thing that brings things to normal for me is to quit the simulator app and Xcode. Then relaunch. Still getting it with Xcode 15.0.1. I don't really see the Poster process, just SpringBoard and diagnosed

In first time boot it'll take that much processor later work Fine : MacBook Air M1

For me, on my M1 Mac Mini, it was fixed by changing File > GPU Selection > Prefer Discrete GPU. Automatic / Integrated GPU didn't change much and springboard was consuming 40% of CPU per each simulator.

XCODE 15.4 using iOS 17.2 caused this for me for months and months. Now hopping to 17.4 seems to have fixed it. So many endless error loops before. This is better.