How to manually install iOS 26 Simulator download archive?

Question

Created 4w

Replies 3

Boosts 1

Participants 3

For difficult reasons I won’t get into, I ended up manually downloading the latest iOS 26 simulator runtime. I now have a file named 78756498-8AB4-4E5A-986C-7AA435758657.aar copied to my Mac.

How do I get this archive installed so Xcode 26 recognizes it as a proper simulator runtime component?

All searching I‘ve done for manually installing simulators references dmg files and older versions of Xcode. There’s no mention of aar files.

When I tried the command:

sudo xcrun simctl runtime add ./78756498-8AB4-4E5A-986C-7AA435758657.aar

I get the result:

An error was encountered processing the command (domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain, code=22):
Error while creating AEA backend
Invalid argument

I tried to use Archive Utility to open the file but that just says it is unable to expand the file.

I even tried renaming the file with a dmg extension and then tried mounting the file and I get the same “AEA backend” error.

My Mac doesn’t have sufficient Internet access to let me download and install this normally through Xcode. I need to find a way to get this file installed manually.

Boost

Answer 1

Product Manager OP

Apple

4w

Hi!

You can't directly install .aar files, but it's possible to download individual components (from your machine or from another computer) with the xcodebuild -downloadPlatform command, and then copy those components to your machine if needed.

All the steps are described in this documentation.

0

Answer 2

RickMaddy OP

4w

I don’t have access to another computer.

Xcode downloads and installs the aar file. There must be a way to trick Xcode into thinking it downloaded the file itself and then completing the installation. I would think it’s just a matter of putting the aar file in the right directory.

2

Answer 3

Ifeoluwachukwu OP

3w

@Product Manager I get this when I try run the download command

ifeoluwachukwu@Ifeoluwami ~ % xcodebuild -downloadPlatform iOS -verbose
Finding content...
Automatically resolved architecture variant for platform iOS as 'arm64'.
Downloading iOS 26.0 Simulator (23A343) (arm64): Preparing to download...2025-09-20 10:30:41.335 xcodebuild[19628:642810]  DVTDownloadable: Download Failed. Downloadable: {
    architectures =     (
        arm64
    );
    authentication = none;
    category = simulator;
    contentType = cryptexDiskImage;
    dictionaryVersion = 2;
    downloadMethod = mobileAsset;
    fileSize = 7986028446;
    identifier = "com.apple.dmg.iPhoneSimulatorSDK26_0_arm64";
    isInternalContent = 0;
    isUserInitiated = 1;
    name = "iOS 26.0 Simulator (23A343)";
    patchableFrom =     (
    );
    platform = "com.apple.platform.iphoneos";
    simulatorVersion =     {
        buildUpdate = 23A343;
        version = "26.0";
    };
    version = "26.0.0.0";
}. Download was cancelled. (Asset download for com.apple.MobileAsset.iOSSimulatorRuntime fba475a9a5476a30cfa540d09c309a0762b30467)
Downloading iOS 26.0 Simulator (23A343) (arm64): Error: Error Domain=DVTDownloadsUtilitiesErrorDomain Code=-1 "Download was cancelled. (Asset download for com.apple.MobileAsset.iOSSimulatorRuntime fba475a9a5476a30cfa540d09c309a0762b30467)" UserInfo={NSUnderlyingError=0xb48eddc80 {Error Domain=com.apple.MobileAssetError.Download Code=48 "Download was cancelled. (Asset download for com.apple.MobileAsset.iOSSimulatorRuntime fba475a9a5476a30cfa540d09c309a0762b30467)" UserInfo={requeryIsHelpful=true, NSLocalizedDescription=Download was cancelled. (Asset download for com.apple.MobileAsset.iOSSimulatorRuntime fba475a9a5476a30cfa540d09c309a0762b30467)}}, NSLocalizedDescription=Download was cancelled. (Asset download for com.apple.MobileAsset.iOSSimulatorRuntime fba475a9a5476a30cfa540d09c309a0762b30467), DetailedAssetAttributes=Failed downloading asset with attributes ({
    Architectures =     (
        arm64
    );
    ArchiveDecryptionKey = "fe2Tmu3y6/gIAO5mCaD9p0HxdkqfBYMxu3IOjOBp5UM=";
    ArchiveID = "qHvCLWKZSmn8YQW5jFCX1BHj6DjPeyGXmYNbqQvF5So=";
    AssetFormat = AppleArchive;
    AssetType = "com.apple.MobileAsset.iOSSimulatorRuntime";
    Build = 23A343;
    Ramp = 0;
    SimulatorVersion = "26.0";
    TrainName = Luck;
    "_CompressionAlgorithm" = AppleArchive;
    "_DownloadSize" = 7985954816;
    "_Measurement" = {length = 20, bytes = 0xca08c03cee60164e018953dd6141c87dd4e0635b};
    "_Measurement-SHA256" = {length = 32, bytes = 0xeabce79e a6cf3291 c9ca40fc 4b3b600a ... dd5fe5d5 11fd8625 };
    "_MeasurementAlgorithm" = "SHA-1";
    "_UnarchivedSize" = 8014811136;
    "__AssetDefaultGarbageCollectionBehavior" = NeverCollected;
    "__BaseURL" = "https://updates.cdn-apple.com/2025FallFCS/mobileassets/043-92741/D750A898-A5A0-4C2E-A916-9F106B55BD19/";
    "__CanUseLocalCacheServer" = 1;
    "__RelativePath" = "com_apple_MobileAsset_iOSSimulatorRuntime/78756498-8AB4-4E5A-986C-7AA435758657.aar";
})}

but I was able to download the .aar file of which i could not extract... Is there anything wrong with the latest xcode?

0