Processes & Concurrency

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Discover how the operating system manages multiple applications and processes simultaneously, ensuring smooth multitasking performance.

Concurrency Documentation

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XPC Error: Underlying connection interrupted
Im using the low-level C xpc api <xpc/xpc.h> and i get this error when I run it: Underlying connection interrupted. I know this error stems from the call to xpc_session_send_message_with_reply_sync(session, message, &reply_err);. I have no previous experience with xpc or dispatch and I find the xpc docs very limited and I also found next to no code examples online. Can somebody take a look at my code and tell me what I did wrong and how to fix it? Thank you in advance. Main code: #include <stdio.h> #include <xpc/xpc.h> #include <dispatch/dispatch.h> // the context passed to mainf() struct context { char* text; xpc_session_t sess; }; // This is for later implementation and the name is also rudimentary void mainf(void* c) { //char * text = ((struct context*)c)->text; xpc_session_t session = ((struct context*)c)->sess; dispatch_queue_t messageq = dispatch_queue_create("y.ddd.main", DISPATCH_QUEUE_SERIAL); xpc_object_t message = xpc_dictionary_create(NULL, NULL, 0); xpc_dictionary_set_string(message, "test", "eeeee"); if (session == NULL) { printf("Session is NULL\n"); exit(1); } __block xpc_rich_error_t reply_err = NULL; __block xpc_object_t reply; dispatch_sync(messageq, ^{ reply = xpc_session_send_message_with_reply_sync(session, message, &reply_err); if (reply_err != NULL) printf("Reply Error: %s\n", xpc_rich_error_copy_description(reply_err)); }); if (reply != NULL) printf("Reply: %s\n", xpc_dictionary_get_string(reply, "test")); else printf("Reply is NULL\n"); } int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { // Create seperate queue for mainf() dispatch_queue_t mainq = dispatch_queue_create("y.ddd.main", DISPATCH_QUEUE_CONCURRENT); dispatch_queue_t xpcq = dispatch_queue_create("y.ddd.xpc", NULL); // Create the context being sent to mainf struct context* c = malloc(sizeof(struct context)); c->text = malloc(sizeof("Hello")); strcpy(c->text, "Hello"); xpc_rich_error_t sess_err = NULL; xpc_session_t session = xpc_session_create_xpc_service("y.getFilec", xpcq, XPC_SESSION_CREATE_INACTIVE, &sess_err); if (sess_err != NULL) { printf("Session Create Error: %s\n", xpc_rich_error_copy_description(sess_err)); xpc_release(sess_err); exit(1); } xpc_release(sess_err); xpc_session_set_incoming_message_handler(session, ^(xpc_object_t message) { printf("message recieved\n"); }); c->sess = session; xpc_rich_error_t sess_ac_err = NULL; xpc_session_activate(session, &sess_ac_err); if (sess_err != NULL) { printf("Session Activate Error: %s\n", xpc_rich_error_copy_description(sess_ac_err)); xpc_release(sess_ac_err); exit(1); } xpc_release(sess_ac_err); xpc_retain(session); dispatch_async_f(mainq, (void*)c, mainf); xpc_release(session); dispatch_main(); } XPC Service code: #include <stdio.h> #include <xpc/xpc.h> #include <dispatch/dispatch.h> int main(void) { xpc_rich_error_t lis_err = NULL; xpc_listener_t listener = xpc_listener_create("y.getFilec", NULL, XPC_LISTENER_CREATE_INACTIVE, ^(xpc_session_t sess){ printf("Incoming Session: %s\n", xpc_session_copy_description(sess)); xpc_session_set_incoming_message_handler(sess, ^(xpc_object_t mess) { xpc_object_t repl = xpc_dictionary_create_empty(); xpc_dictionary_set_string(repl, "test", "test"); xpc_rich_error_t send_repl_err = xpc_session_send_message(sess, repl); if (send_repl_err != NULL) printf("Send Reply Error: %s\n", xpc_rich_error_copy_description(send_repl_err)); }); xpc_rich_error_t sess_ac_err = NULL; xpc_session_activate(sess, &sess_ac_err); if (sess_ac_err != NULL) printf("Session Activate: %s\n", xpc_rich_error_copy_description(sess_ac_err)); }, &lis_err); if (lis_err != NULL) { printf("Listener Error: %s\n", xpc_rich_error_copy_description(lis_err)); xpc_release(lis_err); } xpc_rich_error_t lis_ac_err = NULL; xpc_listener_activate(listener, &lis_ac_err); if (lis_ac_err != NULL) { printf("Listener Activate Error: %s\n", xpc_rich_error_copy_description(lis_ac_err)); xpc_release(lis_ac_err); } dispatch_main(); }
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300
Mar ’25
Background Audio Recording
I have an app that uses background audio recording. From what others say, I have enabled the audio background mode to keep the audio session active, and this worked. But when submitting the app to the app store, the app was rejected because the audio background mode is only supposed to be used for audio playback. How do I create this background mode while following Apple's guidelines?
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119
Apr ’25
BGProcessingTask File Upload Limits
I have BGProcessingTask & BGAppRefreshTask working fine. The main purpose of my use of BGProcessingTask is to upload a file to AWS S3 using multipart/form-data. I have found that any file above about 2.5MB times out after running almost four minutes. If I run the same RESTful api using curl or Postman, I can upload a 25MB file in 3 seconds or less. I have tried to deliberately set .earliestBeginDate to 01:00 or 02:00 local time on the iPhone, but that does not seem to help. I use the delegate (yes, I am writing in Objective C) - URLSession:task:didSendBodyData:totalBytesSent:totalBytesExpectedToSend: and find that the iOS system uploads about 140kB every 15 seconds or so. I am looking for recommendations or insight into how I might enable uploads of 25MB files. I would be happy it I could do just one a day for my use case. I provide code on how I set up the NSURLSession and NSURLSessionDownloadTask, as it is my guess that if there is something that needs to be modified it is there. I have to believe there is a solution for this since I read in many posts here and in StackOverflow how developers are using this functionality for uploading many, many files. NSURLSessionConfiguration *sConf = [NSURLSessionConfiguration backgroundSessionConfigurationWithIdentifier:bkto.taskIdentifier]; sConf.URLCache = [NSURLCache sharedURLCache]; sConf.waitsForConnectivity = YES; sConf.allowsCellularAccess = NO; sConf.networkServiceType = NSURLNetworkServiceTypeVideot; sConf.multipathServiceType = NSURLSessionMultipathServiceTypeNone; sConf.discretionary = YES; sConf.timeoutIntervalForResource = kONEHOURINTERVAL; sConf.timeoutIntervalForRequest = kONEMINUTEINTERVAL; sConf.allowsExpensiveNetworkAccess = NO ; sConf.allowsConstrainedNetworkAccess = NO; sConf.sessionSendsLaunchEvents = YES; myURLSession = [NSURLSession sessionWithConfiguration:sConf delegate:self delegateQueue:nil]; And then later in the code... NSMutableURLRequest *request = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:pth]]; request.HTTPMethod = kHTTPPOST; request.HTTPBody = [NSData my body data]; request.timeoutInterval = 60; [request setValue:@"*/*" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Accept"]; [request setValue:@"en-us,en" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Accept-Language"]; [request setValue:@"gzip, deflate, br" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Accept-Encoding"]; [request setValue:@"ISO-8859-1,utf-8" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Accept-Charset"]; [request setValue:@"600" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Keep-Alive"]; [request setValue:@"keep-alive" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Connection"]; NSString *contType = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"multipart/form-data; boundary=%@",bnd]; [request setValue:contType forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Type"]; [request addValue:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%lu",(unsigned long)myData.length] forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Length"]; and here are a few lines from my logs to show the infrequent multi-part uploads of only small chunks of data by the iOS system: -[BKSessionManager URLSession:task:didSendBodyData:totalBytesSent:totalBytesExpectedToSend:]: bytesSent = 393,216 -[BKSessionManager URLSession:task:didSendBodyData:totalBytesSent:totalBytesExpectedToSend:]: totalBytesSent = 393,216 -[BKSessionManager URLSession:task:didSendBodyData:totalBytesSent:totalBytesExpectedToSend:]: task = BackgroundDownloadTask <76A81A80-4703-4686-8742-A0048EB65108>.<2>, time Fri Mar 7 16:25:27 2025 -[BKSessionManager URLSession:task:didSendBodyData:totalBytesSent:totalBytesExpectedToSend:]: bytesSent = 131,072 -[BKSessionManager URLSession:task:didSendBodyData:totalBytesSent:totalBytesExpectedToSend:]: totalBytesSent = 524,288 -[BKSessionManager URLSession:task:didSendBodyData:totalBytesSent:totalBytesExpectedToSend:]: task = BackgroundDownloadTask <76A81A80-4703-4686-8742-A0048EB65108>.<2>, time Fri Mar 7 16:25:42 2025 -[BKSessionManager URLSession:task:didSendBodyData:totalBytesSent:totalBytesExpectedToSend:]: bytesSent = 131,072 -[BKSessionManager URLSession:task:didSendBodyData:totalBytesSent:totalBytesExpectedToSend:]: totalBytesSent = 655,360 -[BKSessionManager URLSession:task:didSendBodyData:totalBytesSent:totalBytesExpectedToSend:]: task = BackgroundDownloadTask <76A81A80-4703-4686-8742-A0048EB65108>.<2>, time Fri Mar 7 16:25:56 2025 -[BKSessionManager URLSession:task:didSendBodyData:totalBytesSent:totalBytesExpectedToSend:]: bytesSent = 131,072 -[BKSessionManager URLSession:task:didSendBodyData:totalBytesSent:totalBytesExpectedToSend:]: totalBytesSent = 786,432
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101
Mar ’25
Service Showing "Not Responding" in Activity Monitor Despite Running Threads.
I am encountering an issue with my application, BloxOneEndpoint.pkg, which includes two services: rc_service_infoblox – Runs as the root user. Controller Application – Runs as a normal user. Although a thread within rc_service_infoblox is running fine and performing its expected tasks, I notice that the service appears as "Not Responding" in Activity Monitor. Despite normal functionality, this status is concerning, as it may indicate some issue to customer. I would appreciate any insights into why this might be happening and how to resolve it. Is there a specific API or mechanism I should use to ensure the service remains in a "Running" state in Activity Monitor? Thank you for your guidance.
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158
Apr ’25
Effect of app nap of Timer
I'm developing a macOS application that tracks the duration of a user's session using a timer, which is displayed both in the main window and in an menu bar extra view. I have a couple of questions regarding the timer's behavior: What happens to the timer if the user closes the application's window (causing the app to become inactive) but does not fully quit it? Does the timer continue to run, pause, or behave in some other way? Will the app nap feature stop the timer when app is in-active state? When the application is inactive and the system is either in sleep mode or locked, does the timer’s tolerance get affected? In other words, will the timer fire with any additional delay compared to its scheduled time under these conditions?
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57
Mar ’25
SMAppService - How does this work?
I'm a developer using Lazarus Pascal, so converting ObjC and Swift comes with its challenges. I'm trying to figure how to properly use SMAppService to add my application as a login item for the App Store. I have learned that the old method (&lt; macOS 13) uses a helper tool, included in the app bundle, which calls the now deprecated SMLoginItemSetEnabled. Now this is already quite a pain to deal with if you're not using XCode, not to mention converting the headers being rather complicated when you're not experienced with doing this. The "new" method (as of macOS 13) is using SMAppService. Can anyone explain how to use this? The documentation (for me anyway) is a not very clear about that and neither are examples that can be found all over the Internet. My main question is: Can I now use the SMAppService functions to add/remove a login item straight in my application, or is a helper tool still required?
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104
Mar ’25
Is background processing even possible?
Hello, aspiring programmer here. I am developing a StepCounter APP, which keeps track of how many steps I have taken and sends to an MQTT server. I am trying to make this happen even while the app is not in focus, but so far I have not been able to get this working. First tried with silent background music, which seemed pretty inconsistent and inpractical, since I usually play youtube videoes while walking, making the app stop with its silent audio. Then tried GPS, which didnt really do anything (could be implementation problem). Has anyone made background processing work for their apps?
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77
Mar ’25
How to correctly access and handle background operations on IOS
Hello, aspiring programmer here. I am developing a StepCounter APP, which keeps track of how many steps I have taken and sends to an MQTT server. I am trying to make this happen even while the app is not in focus, but so far I have not been able to get this working. First tried with silent background music, which seemed pretty inconsistent and inpractical, since I usually play youtube videoes while walking, making the app stop with its silent audio. Then tried GPS, which didnt really do anything (could be implementation problem). Has anyone made background processing work for their apps?
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112
Mar ’25
Background processing question
Hi, I have a hard time getting my head wrapped around the possibilities of running a app or a task in a app in the background. I have a app where I utilize MusicKit to create a playlist in Apple Music, and add songs to the playlist. Now the songs added are picked from choices made by the user, and the total number of songs to add is 75, and that takes some time. And if the user switches to a different app or the phone is locked, the add songs logic stops, and then starts again as soon as the app is active again. What I am trying to achieve is of course for this to keep processing also when the app is not active, so basically to keep it running in the background. But this is where I struggle to understand how I can do that - The available choice seems to be BGTaskScheduler, but that just does not seem correct. From what I understand it just schedules a task, and it will be processed whenever the app or phone "feels like it" (again, my understanding, might be wrong), and that won't work in my scenario. I want the task to start when the user taps a button, and just keep running until it is finished, regardless of if the app is active or not. Any pointers, tips, advices out there on how I can achieve this?
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63
Apr ’25
Launch daemon running but XPC is down
Hello, I have a question about a edge case scenario. Before that some info on my project- I have a launchdaemon that carries out some business logic, it also has XPC listener (built using C APIs). Question- Can there be a situation when the daemon is up and running but the XPC listener is down(due to some error or crash)? If yes then do I need to handle it in my code or launchd will handle it? when the daemon is stopped or shut down, how do I stop the XPC listener? After getting listener object from xpc_connection_create_mach_service should I just call xpc_connection_cancel followed by a call to xpc_release? Thanks! K
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115
Apr ’25
earliestBeginDate timezone
I'm trying to schedule a background task that will run on an iPhone and I'm looking into creating a task request using BGProcessingTaskRequest and scheduled it using BGTaskScheduler.shared.submit(). Per earliestBeginDate documentation, this property can be used to specify the earliest time a background task will be launched by OS. All clear here. However, the question is: how is the value interpreted with respect to timezone ? Is the specified date in device timezone ? Is GMT ? Is something else ?
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54
Apr ’25
Launch Host App from Share Extension
Hi! Could you please point me to the official documentation or recommended approach for launching the host app from a Share Extension? The scenario is: The user is sharing some text to my app. I need launch App and show this text. At the moment, I'm using the following hack: let selector = NSSelectorFromString("sharedApplication") if let app = UIApplication.perform(selector)?.takeUnretainedValue() as? UIApplication, app.responds(to: #selector(UIApplication.open(_:options:completionHandler:))) { app.open(url, options: [:], completionHandler: nil) } This does work, but it's terrible. So, the question: What is the official way to open the host app from within a Share Extension? Thanks!
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113
Apr ’25
Working with Input/Output stream with Swift 6 and concurrency framework
Hello, I am developing an application which is communicating with external device using BLE and L2CAP. I wonder what are the best practices of using Input & Output streams that are established with L2CAP connection when working with Swift 6 concurrency model. I've been trying to find some examples and hints for some time now but unfortunately there isn't much available. One useful thread I've found is: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/756281 but it does not offer much insight into using eg. actor model with streams. I wonder if something has changed in this regards? Also, are there any plans to migrate eg. CoreBluetooth stack to new swift 6 concurrency ?
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96
Apr ’25
iOS BGTaskScheduler
Hi! I'm trying to submit a task request into BGTaskScheduler when I background my app. The backgrounding triggers an update of data to a shared app groups container. I'm currently getting the following error and unsure where it's coming from: *** Assertion failure in -[BGTaskScheduler _unsafe_submitTaskRequest:error:], BGTaskScheduler.m:274 Here is my code: BGAppRefreshTaskRequest *request = [[BGAppRefreshTaskRequest alloc] initWithIdentifier:kRBBackgroundTaskIdentifier]; NSError *error = nil; bool success = [[BGTaskScheduler sharedScheduler] submitTaskRequest:request error:&error];
7
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119
Apr ’25
APP Background Keep-Alive
Dear Apple: We are developing an app for file sharing between mobile devices. We want to create an iOS app that can continue sharing files with other devices even when it is running in the background. We are using WLAN channels for file sharing. Could you please advise on which background persistence measures we should use to ensure the iOS app can maintain file transfer when it goes to the background? Thank you.
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81
Apr ’25
Question about BGAppRefreshTask approach for medication scheduling app
I'm developing a medication scheduling app similar to Apple Health's Medications feature, and I'd like some input on my current approach to background tasks. In my app, when a user creates a medication, I generate ScheduledDose objects (with corresponding local notifications) for the next 2 weeks and save them to SwiftData. To ensure this 2-week window stays current, I've implemented a BGAppRefreshTask that runs daily to generate new doses as needed. My concern is whether BGAppRefreshTask is the appropriate mechanism for this purpose. Since I'm not making any network requests but rather generating and storing local data, I'm questioning if this is the right approach. I'm also wondering how Apple Health's Medications feature handles this kind of scheduling. Their app seems to maintain future doses regardless of app usage patterns. Has anyone implemented something similar or can suggest the best background execution API for this type of scenario? Thanks for any guidance you can provide.
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111
Apr ’25
BGAppRefreshTask expires after few seconds (2-5 seconds).
I can see a number of events in our error logging service where we track expired BGAppRefreshTask. We use BGAppRefreshTask to update metadata. By looking into those events I can see most of reported expired tasks expired around 2-5 seconds after the app was launched. The documentations says: The system decides the best time to launch your background task, and provides your app up to 30 seconds of background runtime. I expected "up to 30 seconds" to be 10-30 seconds range, not that extremely short. Is there any heuristic that affects how much time the app gets? Is there a way to tell if the app was launched due to the background refresh task? If we have this information we can optimize what the app does during those 5 seconds. Thank you!.
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138
Apr ’25
NSTask-launch path not accessible
I'm trying to launch a command line app from my objective C application (sandboxed) using NSTask and I keep getting "launch path not accessible" Here is the path: [task setLaunchPath:@"/usr/local/bin/codeview"]; I have set the appropriate attributes for codeview and it is working perfectly when I use it from the command line and /usr/local/bin IS in the $PATH I know I have NSTask configured correctly because this WILL work: [task setLaunchPath:@"/usr/bin/hexdump"]; With the exception being that I'm using a command already in /usr/bin. But I can't copy codeview into /usr/bin due to SIPS. I've tried moving codeview to various other non-SIPS protected locations all to no avail. Must all NSTask commands come from /usr/bin? Where might I put codeview so that it can be launched. Today I'm going to use an older computer and disable SIPS to put my command in /usr/bin and see if that works. If it does. I will do it on my main machine.
6
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133
Apr ’25
Will an app that monitors system processes (using psutil) be approved for notarization?
Hi everyone, I’m Jaswanth. My friends and I are students working on a project where we’ve developed a website and a companion app. Here’s the key functionality: When two users enter a virtual room, one of them is prompted to download a desktop app. The app is built with Python and uses psutil to check for certain running processes. It does not send any data over the internet. It has a GUI that clearly shows the system is being monitored , it’s not hidden or running in the background silently. We want to sign and notarize the app to make sure it runs on macOS without warning users. However, we’re concerned that since the app accesses system process information, it might be flagged as malicious. Before we pay for the Apple Developer Program, we wanted to ask: Will an app like this (which only reads running processes and does not exfiltrate or hide activity) be eligible for notarization? Thanks in advance for any insights. We'd appreciate any clarity before moving forward. Best, Jaswanth
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57
Apr ’25