X Code 9.3 multiple problems

I suggest you try running Activity Monitor and leaving it running. When Xcode seems to misbehave, look at what's using CPU time.

For example, if Xcode is crashing, things lock up while the crash dump is taken, and if you get impatient and force your way out, then restart Xcode, you're basically in a loop of getting nothing done.

Similarly, Source Kit may crash, which will also make Xcode appear to be unresponsive for a while, and there seems to be a problem where multiple copies of 'diagnosticd' run using lots of CPU time, which is also likely to have side effects.

I suggest you try to get up and going in small steps. Can you run Xcode without opening a project? (I think Shift or Command prevents it from re-opening the last project at startup.) Can you create a playground with 1 simple line of code? Can you create a new iOS project from a template, then run it in the simulator?

It's not uncommon for Xcode to behave badly just after a version update. (I suspect it's something to do with older projects having some internal inconsistency, but I don't really know.) Usually, once you can get things going, things continue to behave properly.

Hi Quincy

Thanks for the answer.

Today, when I first launced x code the project came up and same problem, select storyboard and spinning wheel starts. On activity monitor nothing special was happening. I was, however, able to quit the application normally, usually it locks up when I select quit.

I then tried a new playground - usual problem, just says 'launching simulator'. The difference now is that in x code 9.2 it would take about 5 minutes before it was ready, now it never came out of 'launching simulator'. Activity monitor showed xcode as using 0.0 to 0.1% cpu during this time and nothing else special happening.

I then tried various tips from a 1 year old stack overflow thread, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39978092/xcode-playground-gets-stuck-on-running-playground-or-launching-simulator-and, requiring much restarting but none of this did anything till I deleted all the lines above 'import UIKit'. Then an error appeared, saying there was no such thing as UIKit. Very weird! So I deleted UIKit and imported Foundation and viola, my playground worked instantly. I then checked with another playground, while it was 'launching simulator' I deleted UIKit and imported Foundation and about 20 seconds later it worked. I was still unsure so tested a third playground. This fired up almost instantly with the original 'import UIKit', so I am none the wiser re the merits of Foundation.

Regarding 'diagnosticd'. During all the mucking around and spinning wheels etc only once did it show high cpu useage. It was while the playground was 'launching simulator' and not long after the UIKit error occurred. I had just selected and copied the error readout when 'diagnosticd' shot up to 150% and a second one was using about 50%. I deleted 'homed' which got rid of both 'diagnosticds' but that didn't improve playgrounds.

I then tried a new iOS project. This worked fine, including launching simulator - still very slow, but it fired up first time... very rare for that to happen!!

Next was to fire up the project I had been working on and lo and behold it worked.

This was all very confusing so I started again. Quit X code, restarted a new playground and still the old problem, 'launching simulator'. Tried Foundation, did nothing. Then I saw 'diagnosticds' running 150% and 80%. Quit those but the only change is instead of reading 'launching simulator' it now reads 'Running'. There is no change to playgounds performance, it spent many minutes sitting there running but not executing the code (var x = 2 * 5) before I got bored and quit.

I launched my project. This time it was just like v 9.2, project launched but couldn't run simulator, after several minutes I get the following error....

Failed to initiate service connection to simulator (How many times have I seen that in the last 9 months!)

To sum up - Playgrounds is useless, projects appear to be working, simulator is still very slow to load and fails on first attempt.

And this from the worlds richest company - thank dog they don't build aeroplanes

Another day wasted trying to fix x code

cheers

Geoff

Yes, I think there is something wrong with playgrounds in particular in Xcode 9.3. Maybe you could submit a bug report with your experiences?

Having same issue with Xcode 9.3 on MacOS 10.13.4. Saw on other forums that people kill process in Activity Monitor called "homed" which seem apparently seems to help.

I have done so but not sure if it will have a lasting effect.

Fingers crossed the superheroes at Apple Xcode team are working on a patch.