I’m seeing a regression in Xcode 26.4 where Interface Builder will not allow connecting IBOutlets or IBActions.
Symptoms:
- The usual gutter circle/dot does not appear next to IBOutlet / IBAction in the code editor
- Because of this, I cannot:
-
- drag from storyboard → code
-
- drag from code → storyboard
- The class is valid and already connected to the storyboard (existing outlets work)
- Assistant Editor opens the correct view controller file
Important: The exact same project, unchanged, works perfectly in Xcode 26.3. I can create and connect outlets/actions normally there.
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Environment
- Xcode: 26.4
- macOS: 26.4
- Mac Mini M4 Pro 64G Ram
- Project: Objective-C UIKit app using Storyboards
- This is a long-running, ObjC, project (not newly created)
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What I’ve already tried
To rule out the usual suspects:
- Verified View Controller Custom Class is correctly set in Identity Inspector
- Verified files are in the correct Target Membership
- Verified outlets are declared correctly in the .h file:
@property (weak, nonatomic) IBOutlet UILabel *exampleLabel;
Opened correct file manually (not relying on Automatic Assistant) Tried both:
- storyboard → code drag
- code → storyboard drag
- Tried using Connections Inspector
- Clean Build Folder
- Deleted entire DerivedData
- Restarted Xcode
- Updated macOS to 26.4
- Ran:
sudo xcodebuild -runFirstLaunch
- Confirmed required platform components installed
- Reopened project fresh
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Observations
- In Xcode 26.4 the outlet “connection circles” are completely missing
- In Xcode 26.3 they appear immediately for the same code
- Existing connections still function at runtime — this is purely an Interface Builder issue
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Question
The gutter circles appearance has always been flaky in Xcode over the 13+ years I've been using it but now with 26.4 they have completely disappeared.
Has anyone else seen this in Xcode 26.4, or found a workaround?
At this point it looks like a regression in Interface Builder, but I haven’t found any mention of it yet.