Why are .symbols files missing in the Symbols folder in ipa file when building with Xcode 16.1?

Developer Tools & Services Xcode
LiZheng2025
LiZheng2025 OP
Created 3d
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Hi, I'm encountering an issue with the .symbols files when building iOS and generating ipa file with Xcode 15.4 vs Xcode 16.1.

I built my iOS project and generated an ipa file using Xcode 15.4. After I unzipped the ipa, there are around 10 .symbols files in the Symbols folder. One of them is about 20MB and others are under 1MB.

However, when I built and generated the ipa with the newer Xcode 16.1, after unzip, there are no .symbols files in the Symbols folder.

Could anyone explain why this happened? Is there a new setting or behavior in Xcode 16.1 that affects the generation of .symbols files?

I think the .symbols files are needed for analyzing crash reports and symbolication, and I’m unsure why they aren’t present in the build generated with Xcode 16.1.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

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Apple Staff, DTS Engineer
DTS Engineer OP
Apple
3d

I just created a new project in Xcode 16.2 and exported it for App Store distribution, and the Symbols directory is present, so that points to something with your project that's unusual.

You're correct that the contents of the Symbols directory is used by the App Store to provide you with symbolicated crash reports from the field. Moving a step earlier in the process, those symbols need to be provided by the build as a dSYM file. So if you look in YourApp.xcarchive/dSYMs, what do you see? If that's empty, then work backwards from there to determine why your build is not producing dSYMs.

— Ed Ford,  DTS Engineer

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LiZheng2025
LiZheng2025 OP
2d

Thanks for your reply.

I have checked MyApp.xcarchive/dSYMs and there is nothing inside. (built by Xcode 16.1)

Then I used Xcode 15.4 to built and generated .ipa again. There are .symbols files inside Symbols folder in ipa(.zip) as before, but MyApp.xcarchive/dSYMs is also empty.

Do you have any clue why that happened?

Additionally, could you also please kindly tell me why are there two kinds of files for generating crash reports? (.symbols files and dSYM file), do they have different aims?

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LiZheng2025
LiZheng2025 OP
2d

Sorry, one more question. What if there are no .symbols files in .ipa? Will it cause problems?

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Why are .symbols files missing in the Symbols folder in ipa file when building with Xcode 16.1?
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