Hello, dear Apple engineers.
We have recently tried to pair our Android phones and iPhones via BLE SMP, but have encountered a very high probability of pairing failures. Through PacketLogger and Android phone HCI, we have determined that the issue is caused by the iOS side sending an SMP Pairing Failed message during the SMP process. Please help us analyze the reason for this.
Drivers
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Hi,
We were planning on using DriverKit to develop a USB Driver on IOS for iPhone. Within the DriverKit website, it say 'IOS16.0+' which lead us to believe it was compatible with iPhones running IOS16.0+.
However, it appears DriverKit is only available for iPads running iPadOS, and computers running macOS.
Are there any alternatives that would allow us to create a device specific USB driver for an iPhone running IOS?
Hi everyone,
We are experiencing an issue with SMS messages sent from our banking app (iOS) to our customers. The SMS are being delivered by the carrier, but on iOS devices some of them appear to be filtered or blocked, and users don’t see them in the Messages app.
This seems to be related to new SMS filtering rules on iOS (possibly affecting financial institutions and transactional SMS).
• Has anyone faced a similar situation?
• Are there specific Apple guidelines or best practices for SMS sender IDs / content to avoid being filtered?
• Is there any official documentation from Apple regarding these new SMS filtering mechanisms?
Any guidance or experiences would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
We have a management application which manages security enable and disable for an external PCIe based storage device using Kernel Extension(SCSI Architecture Model Family for External USB Mass Storage devices which deals with IOSCSIBlockCommandsDevice, IOSCSIPeripheralDeviceType00 and IOBlockStorageService)
Now the issue we are facing is when we try to unlock the device using security code (already being set) , we will relink the device using VU command (RelinkBridge). Even-though both the commands are successful , the device is not getting relinked due to which we are not able to use the device for storage.
If someone have faced similar issue or any pointer on how to resolve this issue , it would be helpful.
Thanks in advance.
Hello,
We have developed a hardware product that embeds an FTDI USB-serial converter, and an application on MacOS that communicates with this device. We would like to port our application to iPadOS. I can see that when I plug the device into the iPad, it is recognized as a serial port, based on its console logs. When I attempt to enumerate serial ports on iPadOS using IOKit, I can see matching IOSerialBSDClient services, but the properties are sandboxed, including the IOCalloutDevice property, for example:
0 error 16:36:10.922450-0700 kernel Sandbox: ***(662) deny(1) iokit-get-properties iokit-class:IOUserSerial property:IOTTYSuffix
Is there an entitlement that can be applied that allows access to the serial port properties of an attached USB device? Or do I need to implement my own USBDriverKit driver for this device, as seems to be implied in these forum threads:
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/795202
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/655527
Hi,
Is it possible for a macOS (or iOS/ipadOS) app to communicate with a CCID-compliant reader using the CCID interface (i.e., directly sending the PC_TO_RDR_* messages) instead of using the CryptoTokenKit API?
Apple's CCID driver (/System/Library/CryptoTokenKit/usbsmartcardreaderd.slotd) seems to support all the PC_TO_RDR and RDR_TO_PC messages: https://blog.apdu.fr/posts/2023/11/apple-own-ccid-driver-in-sonoma/#enable-my-ccid-driver
The background for this question is that we develop smartcard products and we'd like to use the finer grained settings provided by the CCID specification for testing/demo purposes.
Thank you.
While developing our driver, we've noticed that the *.ips report that contains the stacktrace of the crash is not always generated. I'm wondering why this report may not get generated, or if there's anything specific to do to guarantee it gets generated.
We've developed a PCIDriverKit driver for the capture card on macOS and have identified an issue: CreateMemoryDescriptorFromClient can only read data from the user space to the driver, but cannot write data back to the user.
typedef struct _MWCAP_EDID_DATA {
uint64_t size;
uint64_t uaddr;
} MWCAP_EDID_DATA;
// App
size_t xxx::GetEdid(void *buff, size_t size)
{
MWCAP_EDID_DATA edid;
edid.size = size;
edid.uaddr = (uint64_t)buff;
kr = IOConnectCallStructMethod(
connect,
kUserGetEdid,
&edid,
sizeof(MWCAP_EDID_DATA),
NULL,
NULL
);
// kr is 0. But However, the data in the buffer remains unchanged;
// it does not reflect the EDID copied from the DEXT.
return size;
}
// Driver
MWCAP_EDID_DATA *edid = (MWCAP_EDID_DATA *)input;
IOMemoryDescriptor *user_buf_mem = NULL;
IOAddressSegment segment;
segment.address = edid->uaddr;
segment.length = edid->size;
// We have verified that the values in edid->uaddr and edid->size are consistent with what was set by the application.
ret = CreateMemoryDescriptorFromClient(kIOMemoryDirectionOutIn, 1, &segment, &user_buf_mem);
if (ret != kIOReturnSuccess) {
os_log(OS_LOG_DEFAULT, "Failed to create memdesc with error: 0x%08x", ret);
break;
}
IOMemoryMap* user_buf_map = nullptr;
ret = user_buf_mem->CreateMapping(0, 0, 0, 0, 0, &user_buf_map);
if (ret != kIOReturnSuccess) {
os_log(OS_LOG_DEFAULT, "Failed to create mapping with error: 0x%08x", ret);
OSSafeReleaseNULL(user_buf_mem);
break;
}
// ... fill the user_buf_map with edid data ...
// For example:
// memcpy(user_buf_map->GetAddress(), source_edid_data, edid->size);
// At this point we have also verified the data in user_buf_map->GetAddress(), which matches our expectations.
OSSafeReleaseNULL(user_buf_map);
OSSafeReleaseNULL(user_buf_mem);
Please help take a look, thank you!
I want to turn off this effect and maintain the style before iOS18. Do I need to add content about iOS26 to the info.plist? Specifically, which content is it? I want to turn off the glass effect on the button
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
Drivers
Hi everyone,
We are in the process of migrating a legacy KEXT for our external multi-disk RAID enclosure to the modern DriverKit framework. During the performance validation of our KEXT, we observed a large and consistent maximum throughput difference between Intel-based Macs and Apple Silicon-based Macs. We would like to share our findings and hope to discuss with others in the community to see if you have had similar experiences that could confirm or correct our understanding.
The Observation: A Consistent Performance Gap
When using the exact same external RAID hardware (an 8-HDD RAID 5 array), driven by our mature KEXT, we see the following results in high-throughput benchmarks (AJA System Test, large sequential writes):
On a 2020 Intel-based Mac: We consistently achieve a throughput of ~2500 MB/s.
On modern M-series Macs (from M1 to M4): The throughput is consistently capped at ~1500 MB/s.
This performance difference of nearly 40% is significant and is present across the entire Apple Silicon product line.
Our Hypothesis: A Shift in Architectural Design Philosophy
Since the KEXT and external hardware are identical in both tests, we believe this performance difference is not a bug but a fundamental platform architecture distinction. Our hypothesis is as follows:
1. The Intel Mac Era ("Dedicated Throughput")
The Intel-based Macs we tested use a dedicated, discrete Intel Thunderbolt controller chip. This chip has its own dedicated PCIe lanes and resources, and its design appears to be singularly focused on maximizing raw, sustained data throughput for external peripherals.
2. The Apple Silicon Era ("Integrated Efficiency")
In contrast, M-series Macs use a deeply integrated I/O controller inside the SoC. This controller must share resources, such as the total unified memory bandwidth and the chip's overall power budget, with all other functional units (CPU, GPU, etc.).
We speculate that the design priority for this integrated I/O controller has shifted from "maximizing single-task raw throughput" to "maximizing overall system efficiency, multi-task responsiveness, and low latency." As a result, in a pure, single-task storage benchmark, its performance ceiling may be lower than that of the older, dedicated-chip architecture.
Our Question to the Community:
Is our understanding correct? Have other developers of high-performance storage drivers or peripherals also observed a similar performance ceiling for external storage on Apple Silicon Macs, when compared to high-end Intel Macs?
We believe that understanding this as a deliberate architectural trade-off is crucial for setting realistic performance targets for our DEXT. Our current goal has been adjusted to have our DEXT match the KEXT's ~1500 MB/s on the M-series platform.
Any insights, confirmations, or corrections from the community or Apple engineers would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much!
Charles
I am developing a DriverKit driver with the goal of sending vendor-specific commands to a USB storage device.
I have successfully created the DriverKit driver, and when I connect the USB storage device, it appears correctly in IORegistryExplorer.
My driver class inherits from IOUserSCSIPeripheralDeviceType00 in the SCSIPeripheralsDriverKit framework.
I also created a UserClient class that inherits from IOUserClient, and from its ExternalMethod I tried sending an INQUIRY command as a basic test to confirm that command transmission works.
However, the device returns an ILLEGAL REQUEST (Sense Key 0x5 / ASC 0x20).
Could someone advise what I might be doing wrong?
Below are the logs output from the driver:
2025-11-14 21:00:43.573730+0900 0x26e9 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (SampleDriverKitApp.SampleDriverKitDriver.dext) [DEBUG] Driver - NewUserClient() - Finished.
2025-11-14 21:00:43.573733+0900 0x26e9 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (SampleDriverKitApp.SampleDriverKitDriver.dext) [DEBUG] UserClient - Start()
2025-11-14 21:00:43.573807+0900 0x26e9 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (SampleDriverKitApp.SampleDriverKitDriver.dext) [DEBUG] UserClient - Start() - Finished.
2025-11-14 21:00:43.574249+0900 0x26e9 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (SampleDriverKitApp.SampleDriverKitDriver.dext) [DEBUG] UserClient - ExternalMethod() called
2025-11-14 21:00:43.574258+0900 0x26e9 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (SampleDriverKitApp.SampleDriverKitDriver.dext) [DEBUG] UserClient - ----- SCSICmdINQUIRY -----
2025-11-14 21:00:43.574268+0900 0x26e9 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (SampleDriverKitApp.SampleDriverKitDriver.dext) [DEBUG] UserClient - command.fRequestedByteCountOfTransfer = 512
2025-11-14 21:00:43.575980+0900 0x26e9 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (SampleDriverKitApp.SampleDriverKitDriver.dext) [DEBUG] UserClient - SCSICmdINQUIRY() UserSendCDB fCompletionStatus = 0x0
2025-11-14 21:00:43.575988+0900 0x26e9 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (SampleDriverKitApp.SampleDriverKitDriver.dext) [DEBUG] UserClient - SCSICmdINQUIRY() UserSendCDB fServiceResponse = 0x2
2025-11-14 21:00:43.575990+0900 0x26e9 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (SampleDriverKitApp.SampleDriverKitDriver.dext) [DEBUG] UserClient - SCSICmdINQUIRY() UserSendCDB fSenseDataValid = 0x1
2025-11-14 21:00:43.575992+0900 0x26e9 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (SampleDriverKitApp.SampleDriverKitDriver.dext) [DEBUG] UserClient - SCSICmdINQUIRY() UserSendCDB VALID_RESPONSE_CODE = 0x70
2025-11-14 21:00:43.575994+0900 0x26e9 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (SampleDriverKitApp.SampleDriverKitDriver.dext) [DEBUG] UserClient - SCSICmdINQUIRY() UserSendCDB SENSE_KEY = 0x5
2025-11-14 21:00:43.575996+0900 0x26e9 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (SampleDriverKitApp.SampleDriverKitDriver.dext) [DEBUG] UserClient - SCSICmdINQUIRY() UserSendCDB ADDITIONAL_SENSE_CODE = 0x20
2025-11-14 21:00:43.575998+0900 0x26e9 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (SampleDriverKitApp.SampleDriverKitDriver.dext) [DEBUG] UserClient - SCSICmdINQUIRY() UserSendCDB ADDITIONAL_SENSE_CODE_QUALIFIER = 0x0
Here is the UserClient class:
class SampleDriverKitUserClient: public IOUserClient
{
public:
virtual bool init(void) override;
virtual kern_return_t Start(IOService* provider) override;
virtual kern_return_t Stop(IOService* provider) override;
virtual void free(void) override;
virtual kern_return_t ExternalMethod(
uint64_t selector,
IOUserClientMethodArguments* arguments,
const IOUserClientMethodDispatch* dispatch,
OSObject* target,
void* reference) override;
void SCSICmdINQUIRY(SampleDriverKitDriver *driver) LOCALONLY;
};
Here is the part that sends the INQUIRY command:
void SampleDriverKitUserClient::SCSICmdINQUIRY(SampleDriverKitDriver *driver)
{
kern_return_t kr = KERN_SUCCESS;
SCSIType00OutParameters command = {};
UInt8 dataBuffer[512] = {0};
SCSI_Sense_Data senseData = {0};
Log("----- SCSICmdINQUIRY -----");
SetCommandCDB(&command.fCommandDescriptorBlock, 0x12, 0x00, 0x00, 0x24, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00);
command.fLogicalUnitNumber = 0;
command.fTimeoutDuration = 10000; // milliseconds
command.fRequestedByteCountOfTransfer = sizeof(dataBuffer);
Log("command.fRequestedByteCountOfTransfer = %lld", command.fRequestedByteCountOfTransfer);
command.fBufferDirection = kIOMemoryDirectionIn;
command.fDataTransferDirection = kSCSIDataTransfer_FromTargetToInitiator;
command.fDataBufferAddr = reinterpret_cast<uint64_t>(dataBuffer);
command.fSenseBufferAddr = reinterpret_cast<uint64_t>(&senseData);
command.fSenseLengthRequested = sizeof(senseData);
if( driver ) {
SCSIType00InParameters response = {};
kr = driver->UserSendCDB(command, &response);
if( kr != KERN_SUCCESS ) {
Log("SCSICmdINQUIRY() UserSendCDB failed (0x%x)", kr);
return;
}
Log("SCSICmdINQUIRY() UserSendCDB fCompletionStatus = 0x%x", response.fCompletionStatus);
Log("SCSICmdINQUIRY() UserSendCDB fServiceResponse = 0x%x", response.fServiceResponse);
Log("SCSICmdINQUIRY() UserSendCDB fSenseDataValid = 0x%x", response.fSenseDataValid);
Log("SCSICmdINQUIRY() UserSendCDB VALID_RESPONSE_CODE = 0x%x", senseData.VALID_RESPONSE_CODE);
Log("SCSICmdINQUIRY() UserSendCDB SENSE_KEY = 0x%x", senseData.SENSE_KEY);
Log("SCSICmdINQUIRY() UserSendCDB ADDITIONAL_SENSE_CODE = 0x%x", senseData.ADDITIONAL_SENSE_CODE);
Log("SCSICmdINQUIRY() UserSendCDB ADDITIONAL_SENSE_CODE_QUALIFIER = 0x%x", senseData.ADDITIONAL_SENSE_CODE_QUALIFIER);
if( response.fServiceResponse == kSCSIServiceResponse_TASK_COMPLETE ) {
Log("SCSICmdINQUIRY() UserSendCDB complete success!!");
}
for( int i=0; i < 5; i++ ) {
Log("data [%04d]=0x%x [%04d]=0x%x [%04d]=0x%x [%04d]=0x%x [%04d]=0x%x [%04d]=0x%x [%04d]=0x%x [%04d]=0x%x",
i*8+0, dataBuffer[i*8+0],
i*8+1, dataBuffer[i*8+1],
i*8+2, dataBuffer[i*8+2],
i*8+3, dataBuffer[i*8+3],
i*8+4, dataBuffer[i*8+4],
i*8+5, dataBuffer[i*8+5],
i*8+6, dataBuffer[i*8+6],
i*8+7, dataBuffer[i*8+7] );
}
char vendorID[9] = {0};
memcpy(vendorID, &dataBuffer[8], 8);
Log("vendorID = %s",vendorID);
char productID[17] = {0};
memcpy(productID, &dataBuffer[16], 16);
Log("productID = %s",productID);
}
}
My environment is:
MacBook Pro (M2), macOS 15.6
If anyone has insight into what causes the ILLEGAL REQUEST, or what I am missing when using IOUserSCSIPeripheralDeviceType00 and UserSendCDB, I would greatly appreciate your help.
Thank you.
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
Drivers
Tags:
SCSIControllerDriverKit
DriverKit
BlockStorageDeviceDriverKit
Hello
I'm testing an 'age range sharing' feature using the AgeRangeService API in an app we service.
I approved 'Age Sharing' during testing.
(For your information, my account is an adult account.)
For repeat testing, I would like to delete the our app from 'Apps that requested user age information' or cancel the sharing status.
However, there doesn't seem to be such a feature.
Is there a way I can't find, or is this a feature that Apple doesn't offer?
We are developing a DriverKit driver on Apple M1. We use the following code to prepare DMA buffer:
IODMACommandSpecification dmaSpecification;
bzero(&dmaSpecification, sizeof(dmaSpecification));
dmaSpecification.options = kIODMACommandSpecificationNoOptions;
dmaSpecification.maxAddressBits = p_dma_mgr->maxAddressBits;
kret = IODMACommand::Create(p_dma_mgr->device,
kIODMACommandCreateNoOptions,
&dmaSpecification,
&impl->dma_cmd
);
if (kret != kIOReturnSuccess) {
os_log(OS_LOG_DEFAULT, "Error: IODMACommand::Create failed! ret=0x%x\n", kret);
impl->user_mem.reset();
IOFree(impl, sizeof(*impl));
return ret;
}
uint64_t flags = 0;
uint32_t segmentsCount = 32;
IOAddressSegment segments[32];
kret = impl->dma_cmd->PrepareForDMA(kIODMACommandPrepareForDMANoOptions,
impl->user_mem.get(),
0,
0, // 0 for entire memory
&flags,
&segmentsCount,
segments
);
if (kret != kIOReturnSuccess) {
OSSafeReleaseNULL(impl->dma_cmd);
impl->user_mem.reset();
IOFree(impl, sizeof(*impl));
os_log(OS_LOG_DEFAULT, "Error: PrepareForDMA failed! ret=0x%x\n", kret);
return kret;
}
I allocated several 8K BGRA video frames, each with a size of 141557760 bytes, and prepared the DMA according to the method mentioned above. The process was successful when the number of frames was 15 or fewer. However, issues arose when allocating 16 frames:
Error: PrepareForDMA failed! ret=0xe00002bd
By calculating, I found that the total size of 16 video frames exceeds 2GB. Is there such a limitation in DriverKit that the total DMA size cannot exceed 2GB? Are there any methods that would allow me to bypass this restriction so I can use more video frame buffers?
Kevin's Guide to DEXT Signing
The question of "How do I sign a DEXT" comes up a lot, so this post is my attempt to describe both what the issue are and the best current solutions are. So...
The Problems:
When DEXTs were originally introduced, the recommended development signing process required disabling SIP and local signing. There is a newer, much simpler process that's built on Xcode's integrated code-signing support; however, that newer process has not yet been integrated into the documentation library. In addition, while the older flow still works, many of the details it describes are no longer correct due to changes to Xcode and the developer portal.
DriverKit's use of individually customized entitlements is different than the other entitlements on our platform, and Xcode's support for it is somewhat incomplete and buggy. The situation has improved considerably over time, particularly from Xcode 15 and Xcode 16, but there are still issues that are not fully resolved.
To address #1, we introduced "development" entitlement variants of all DriverKit entitlements. These entitlement variants are ONLY available in development-signed builds, but they're available on all paid developer accounts without any special approval. They also allow a DEXT to match against any hardware, greatly simplifying working with development or prototype hardware which may not match the configuration of a final product.
Unfortunately, this also means that DEXT developers will always have at least two entitlement variants (the public development variant and the "private" approved entitlement), which is what then causes the problem I mentioned in #2.
The Automatic Solution:
If you're using Xcode 16 or above, then Xcode's Automatic code sign support will work all DEXT Families, with the exception of distribution signing the PCI and USB Families.
For completeness, here is how that Automatic flow should work:
Change the code signing configuration to "Automatic".
Add the capability using Xcode.
If you've been approved for one of these entitlements, the one oddity you'll see is that adding your approved capability will add both the approved AND the development variant, while deleting either will delete both. This is a visual side effect of #2 above; however, aside from the exception described below, it can be ignored.
Similarly, you can sign distribution builds by creating a build archive and then exporting the build using the standard Xcode flow.
__
Kevin Elliott
DTS Engineer, CoreOS/Hardware
Have a 2019 Ford Edge w/ Sync 3.4, wired carplay. Worked fine w/ iPhone 16 Pro on iOS 18. Upgraded to iPhone 17 Pro, came w/ iOS 26, carplay hasn't worked since.
I've kept trying throughout new iOS 26 releases, lately with iOS 26.3 Public Beta 1, still not working.
Have a long running issue with updates and system diagnostics as I've tried over the last few months: FB20739050
There is also a Apple support community thread with issues like this (and a ton of others) - my first post there was https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256138283?answerId=261613103022&sortBy=oldest_first#261613103022
I'm hoping here in the developer forums someone can maybe take a look at the feedback item and various system diagnostics to pin-point the issue. I'm a little concerned it's still not fixed this far into the follow-up point releases of iOS 26.
Appreciate any help, thanks!
--Chuck
Why hasn't the watchOS app updated immediately after the iPhone app was updated? It remains stuck in "Installing" status on the Apple Watch.
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
Drivers
Hello!
I have app (macos and iPadOS platforms) with empbedded DEXT. The DEXT executable runs fine on both platforms (ver 26.2).
Trying to execute from iPad App code:
let sysExtWs = OSSystemExtensionsWorkspace.shared
let sysExts = try sysExtWs.systemExtensions(forApplicationWithBundleID: appBudleId)
but always getting OSSystemExtensionError.Code.missingEntitlement error.
Which entitlement am I missing?
Thank You!
I am developing a macOS virtual audio device using an Audio Server Plug-In (HAL). I want the virtual device to be visible to all applications only when my main app is running, and completely hidden from all apps when the app is closed. The goal is to dynamically control device visibility based on app state without reinstalling the driver.What is the recommended way for the app to notify the HAL plug-in about its running or closed state ? Any guidance on best-practice architecture for this scenario would be appreciated.
We are looking for a solution (API, Frameworks) that would allow us to block any type of external device, including storage devices, HIDs, network adapters, and Bluetooth devices according with dynamic rules that comes from management server . This feature is important for endpoint security solutions vendors, and it can be implemented on other platforms and older versions of macOS using the IOKit framework and kexts.
I have found one solution that can control the usage only of "storage" devices with the EndpointSecurity framework in conjunction with the DiskArbitration framework. This involves monitoring the MOUNT and OPEN events for /dev/disk files, checking for devices as they appear, and ejecting them if they need to be blocked.. Also, I have found the ES_EVENT_TYPE_AUTH_IOKIT_OPEN event in EndpointSecurity.framework, but it doesn't seem to be useful, at least not for my purposes, because ES doesn't provide AUTH events for some system daemons, such as configd (it only provides NOTIFY events). Furthermore, there are other ways to communicate with devices and their drivers apart from IOKit.
DriverKit.framework does not provide the necessary functionality either, as it requires specific entitlements that are only available to certain vendors and devices. Therefore, it cannot be used to create universal drivers for all devices, which should be blocked.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
Drivers
We are developing an iOS app that communicates with a device using an NXP NTAG 5 chip in ISO15693 pass-through mode. While the app works flawlessly on older iPhone models (iPhone 8, SE, X) and most Android devices, we are experiencing severe reliability issues on iPhone 12, 13, 14, and 15.
Issue Summary
On newer iPhones (12–15), 90% of communication attempts fail.
Retry strategies do not work, as the NFC session is unexpectedly canceled while handling CoreNFC custom commands.
The issue is not consistent—sometimes all requests fail immediately, while other times, a batch of reads might succeed unexpectedly before failing again.
Technical Details
The failure occurs while executing the following request, which should return 256 bytes:
tag.customCommand(requestFlags: .highDataRate, customCommandCode: commandCode, customRequestParameters: Data(byteArray)) { (responseData, error) in
}
The returned error is:
-[NFCTagReaderSession transceive:tagUpdate:error:]:897 Error Domain=NFCError Code=100 "Tag connection lost" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Tag connection lost}
For reference, we tested a comparable STM ST25 chip in ISO15693 and NDEF mode, and the exact same issue occurs.
Observations and Debugging Attempts
Positioning of the NFC antenna has been tested extensively.
Disabling Bluetooth and Wi-Fi does not improve reliability.
Rebooting the device or waiting between attempts sometimes improves success rates but does not provide a structural fix.
When reading multiple blocks (e.g., 15 blocks of 256 bytes each):
The process often fails within the first three blocks.
After multiple failures, it may suddenly succeed in reading all blocks in one go before returning to a series of failures.
The nfcd logs suggest issues at the low-level NFC and SPMI layers, indicating potential hardware or firmware-related problems:
error 17:36:18.289099+0100 nfcd phOsalNfc_LogStr:65 NCI DATA RSP : Timer expired before data is received!
error 17:36:18.292936+0100 nfcd NFHardwareSerialQuerySPMIError:1339 "Invalid argument" errno=22 setsockopt: SYSPROTO_CONTROL:IO_STOCKHOLM_SPMIERRORS
error 17:36:18.293036+0100 nfcd phTmlNfc_SpmiDrvErrorStatus:1157 "Invalid argument" errno=22 Failed to query SPMI error registers
error 17:36:18.293235+0100 nfcd phOsalNfc_LogStr:65 phLibNfc_SpmiStsRegInfoNtfHandler: Read Spmi Status Failed - pInfo set to NULL
error 17:36:18.293313+0100 nfcd _Callback_NFDriverNotifyGeneral:2353 Unknown notification: 0x5b
error 17:36:18.294163+0100 nfcd phOsalNfc_LogStr:65 Target Lost!!
error 17:36:18.294678+0100 nfcd -[_NFReaderSession handleSecureElementTransactionData:appletIdentifier:]:164 Unimplemented
error 17:36:18.294760+0100 nfcd -[_NFReaderSession handleSecureElementTransactionData:appletIdentifier:]:164 Unimplemented
error 17:36:18.320132+0100 nfcd phOsalNfc_LogStr:65 ISO15693 XchgData,PH_NCINFC_STATUS_RF_FRAME_CORRUPTED Detected by NFCC during Data Exchange
error 17:36:18.320291+0100 nfcd phOsalNfc_LogU32:74 phNciNfc_ChkDataRetransmission: Re-transmitting Data pkt Attempt..=1
error 17:36:18.622050+0100 nfcd phOsalNfc_LogStr:65 NCI DATA RSP : Timer expired before data is received!
error 17:36:18.625857+0100 nfcd NFHardwareSerialQuerySPMIError:1339 "Invalid argument" errno=22 setsockopt: SYSPROTO_CONTROL:IO_STOCKHOLM_SPMIERRORS
error 17:36:18.625919+0100 nfcd phTmlNfc_SpmiDrvErrorStatus:1157 "Invalid argument" errno=22 Failed to query SPMI error registers
error 17:36:18.626132+0100 nfcd phOsalNfc_LogStr:65 phLibNfc_SpmiStsRegInfoNtfHandler: Read Spmi Status Failed - pInfo set to NULL
error 17:36:18.626182+0100 nfcd _Callback_NFDriverNotifyGeneral:2353 Unknown notification: 0x5b
error 17:36:18.626899+0100 nfcd phOsalNfc_LogStr:65 Target Lost!!
error 17:36:18.627482+0100 nfcd -[_NFReaderSession handleSecureElementTransactionData:appletIdentifier:]:164 Unimplemented
error 17:36:18.627568+0100 nfcd -[_NFReaderSession handleSecureElementTransactionData:appletIdentifier:]:164 Unimplemented
error 17:36:18.833174+0100 nfcd -[_NFReaderSession handleSecureElementTransactionData:appletIdentifier:]:164 Unimplemented
error 17:36:19.145289+0100 nfcd phOsalNfc_LogStr:65 NCI DATA RSP : Timer expired before data is received!
error 17:36:19.149233+0100 nfcd NFHardwareSerialQuerySPMIError:1339 "Invalid argument" errno=22 setsockopt: SYSPROTO_CONTROL:IO_STOCKHOLM_SPMIERRORS
error 17:36:19.149353+0100 nfcd phTmlNfc_SpmiDrvErrorStatus:1157 "Invalid argument" errno=22 Failed to query SPMI error registers
error 17:36:19.149730+0100 nfcd phOsalNfc_LogStr:65 phLibNfc_SpmiStsRegInfoNtfHandler: Read Spmi Status Failed - pInfo set to NULL
error 17:36:19.149797+0100 nfcd _Callback_NFDriverNotifyGeneral:2353 Unknown notification: 0x5b
error 17:36:19.150463+0100 nfcd phOsalNfc_LogStr:65 Target Lost!!
Any solutions?
Has anyone else encountered similar behavior with CoreNFC on iPhone 12–15? Could this be related to changes in NFC hardware or power management in newer iPhone models? Any suggestions on possible workarounds or alternative approaches would be greatly appreciated.