tvOS icon missing layers

Question

Created Jan ’24

Replies 7

Boosts 0

Views 1.4k

Participants 3

I have an AppleTV app which I released in 2016. I've updated it and released a new version every year without much hassle.

This year, with tvOS 17.2, the layered app icon isn't working right. This is a two-layer image made with PNGs.

When it's selected, it looks right and the layers move correctly:

But when it's not selected, the background layer disappears:

Screenshots are from the simulator but it also happens on the device. It's inconsistent; sometimes it's the front layer that disappears. Occasionally both layers work, but I can't tell why.

I've spent a day trying everything. Very frustrated.

The icon previews correctly in Xcode and in Parallax Viewer.
The image sizes are correct: 400 x 240 for Small, 800 x 480 for Small@2x, 1280 x 768 for Large.
The back layer is a non-transparent PNG.
I tried adding a Large@2x set. Didn't help.
Originally I had a three-layer image with no middle layer PNG. I deleted the empty middle layer, but that didn't help.
All the PNG files are from GnuIMP. Same color space, even.
I was using the filenames tvicon-back-s.png and tvicon-back-s@2x.png. I tried taking out the @ sign in case that was confusing Xcode. (It never has before, but I am flailing here.)

Anybody have any clues? If it's an Apple bug and there's nothing I can do, I'm going to just push the release button and hope it fixes itself someday.

Boost

Answer 1

pabugeater OP

Jan ’24

Yes, yes, yes. On all accounts except that my images come (came) from Affinity Photo. My 3-layer images have worked for years, but now fail, in various, inconsistent, mysterious ways. Thank you for reporting this. The version on the App Store works, with the identical assets. (Aside: I've stopped working on this and moved on to my screen saver, but its location services no longer work. So I stopped working on that and moved onto a Mac catalyst app, but it also no longer works either, been a rough week here.) I spent a lot of time working on this but have no good news for you, it previews just fine in Xcode and Parallax Viewer. I tried even more layers to no avail.

I don't have the nerve to put the tvOS App up for review, I want the iOS and macOS versions to be consistent.

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Answer 2

erkyrath OP

Jan ’24

Well, it's nice to have a new friend, in the xkcd-2881 sense. :)

My app is also ObjC (as you can tell from the fact that it dates from 2016!) I doubt that has any effect on how the app icon is treated, anyhow.

tvOS 17.3 release notes (https://feedbackassistant.apple.com/news/7213) make no mention of this.

I guess I will file a bug report, I mean a Feedback, and then submit the app as is.

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Answer 3

erkyrath OP

Jan ’24

It passed this morning.

(Also, I checked the behavior after installing 17.3 on the device. No change.)

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Answer 4

Supergonk OP

Jan ’25

Yep, I'm getting this too. It's happening on two different apps. Did you file the Feedback report to Apple? Any news?

Thanks, Ben

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Answer 5

Supergonk OP

Jul ’25

Just to follow up on this one: I'm still seeing this issue in tvOS 26. Still haven't been able to figure out why it's not rendering correctly. Things I have tried:

Different hardware: same issue occurs on both
Different apps: same issue occurs in some instances, but not in others.
Different number of layers: doesn't seem to make any difference.
Different export formats: doesn't seem to make any difference either.

Just posting my findings here should anybody else find it useful. Has anybody else figured it out?

Ben

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Answer 6

Supergonk OP

Aug ’25

More findings:

sRGB and P3 colour profiles don’t make any difference. Both are consistently broken.

Ben

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Answer 7

Supergonk OP

Aug ’25

Finally managed to fix it. My problematic title is a Unity game, so for me the solution was to update to Unity 6. I guess the previous version of Unity I was using (2022.3) had some issue with tvOS icon exporting. Oh well!

Ben

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