Hello, In a launched agent, I need to call into a third‑party library that may occasionally hang. At present, these calls are made from a separate thread, but if the thread hangs it cannot be terminated (pthread_cancel/pthread_kill are ineffective). Would Apple recommend isolating this functionality in a separate process that can be force‑terminated if it becomes unresponsive, or is there a preferred approach for handling such cases in launched agents? Can I use the system call fork() in launched agent? Thank you in advance!

When I run my app with XCode on my iPhone, and then moved into the background, I'm getting a EXC_BREAKPOINT exception after a few minutes, seemingly when iOS attempts to call my app with a BGAppRefreshTask: Thread 23 Queue: com.apple.BGTaskScheduler (com.mycompany.MyApp.RefreshTask) (serial) 0 _dispatch_assert_queue_fail 12 _pthread_wqthread Enqueued from com.apple.duet.activityscheduler.client.xpcqueue (Thread 23) 0 dispatch_async 20 start_wqthread I can't quite understand the reason from this crash. In the background task, I'm attempting to update live activities. In the process, it might encounter code that calls MainActor and manipulate @Observable objects. Might that be the reason?

Hi, I have some questions regarding the Background Assets Extension and DeviceCheck framework. Goal: Ensure that only users who have purchased the app can access the server's API without any user authentication using for example DeviceCheck framework and within a Background Assets Extension. My app relies on external assets, which I'm loading using the Background Assets Extension. I'm trying to determine if it's possible to obtain a challenge from the server and send a DeviceCheck assertion during this process within the Background Assets Extension. So far, I only receive session-wide authentication challenges—specifically NSURLAuthenticationMethodServerTrust in the Background Assets Extensio. I’ve tested with Basic Auth (NSURLAuthenticationMethodHTTPBasic) just for experimentation, but the delegate func backgroundDownload( _ download: BADownload, didReceive challenge: URLAuthenticationChallenge ) async -> (URLSession.AuthChallengeDisposition, URLCredential?) is never called with that authentication method. It seems task-specific challenges aren't coming through at all. Also, while the DCAppAttestService API appears to be available on macOS, DCAppAttestService.isSupported always returns false (in my testing), which suggests it's not actually supported on macOS. Can anyone confirm if that’s expected behavior?

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!

This is the functionality I am trying to achieve with libxpc: There's one xpc server and two xpc clients. When the xpc server receives a particular dictionary item from clientB, the server needs to send a response to both clientA and clientB. This is the approach I am currently using: First, clientA creates a dictionary item that indicates that this item is from clientA. Now, clientA sends this dictionary to server. When server receives this item, it stores the connection instance with clientA in a global variable. Next, when clientB sends a particular dictionary item, server uses this global variable where it perviously stored clientA's connection instance to send a response back to clientA, alongside clientB. Only one edge case I can see is that when clientA closes this connection instance, server will be trying to send a response to an invalidated connection. Question: Is this approach recommended? Any edge cases I should be aware of? Is there any better way to achieve this functionality?

I have followed these steps as mentioned in this link :(https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/721737) My projects app bundle structure is like this : TWGUI.app TWGUI.app/Contents TWGUI.app/Contents/_CodeSignature TWGUI.app/Contents/_CodeSignature/CodeResources TWGUI.app/Contents/MacOS TWGUI.app/Contents/MacOS/TWAgent TWGUI.app/Contents/MacOS/TWGUI TWGUI.app/Contents/Resources TWGUI.app/Contents/Library TWGUI.app/Contents/Library/LaunchAgents TWGUI.app/Contents/Library/LaunchAgents/com.example.TWGUI.agent.plist TWGUI.app/Contents/Info.plist TWGUI.app/Contents/PkgInfo TWGUI is my main GUI App , i which i want to embed TWAgent (a command line tool target) and register it using SMAppServices so that launchd can launch it. In TWGUI, code for registering to launchd using SMAppServices is structure as follow : import SwiftUI import ServiceManagement struct ContentView: View { let agent = SMAppService.agent(plistName: "com.example.TWGUI.agent.plist") var body: some View { VStack { Button("Register Agent") { RegisterAgent () } .padding() Button("Unregister Agent") { UnregisterAgent () } .padding() } } func RegisterAgent() { DispatchQueue.global(qos: .background).async { do { print("Registering Agent. Status: \(agent.status.rawValue)") try agent.register() print("Agent registered") } catch { print("Failed to register agent: \(error)") } } } func UnregisterAgent() { DispatchQueue.global(qos: .background).async { do { print("Unregistering Agent. Status: \(agent.status.rawValue)") try agent.unregister() print("Agent unregistered") } catch { print("Failed to unregister agent: \(error)") } } } } com.example.TWGUI.agent.plist : <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs$ <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>Label</key> <string>com.example.TWGUI.agent</string> <key>ProgramArguments</key> <array> <string>Contents/MacOS/TWAgent</string> </array> <key>RunAtLoad</key> <true/> <key>KeepAlive</key> <true/> </dict> </plist> I have used ProgramArguements instead of using Program in above plist because i was getting this error when i was using Program earlier : Registering Agent. Status: 3 Failed to register agent: Error Domain=SMAppServiceErrorDomain Code=111 "Invalid or missing Program/ProgramArguments" UserInfo={NSLocalizedFailureReason=Invalid or missing Program/ProgramArguments} TWGUI apps Info.plist is : <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>BuildMachineOSBuild</key> <string>23C71</string> <key>CFBundleDevelopmentRegion</key> <string>en</string> <key>CFBundleExecutable</key> <string>TWGUI</string> <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key> <string>com.example.TWAgent</string> <key>CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion</key> <string>6.0</string> <key>CFBundleName</key> <string>TWGUI</string> <key>CFBundlePackageType</key> <string>APPL</string> <key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key> <string>1.0</string> <key>CFBundleSupportedPlatforms</key> <array> <string>MacOSX</string> </array> <key>CFBundleVersion</key> <string>1</string> <key>DTCompiler</key> <string>com.apple.compilers.llvm.clang.1_0</string> <key>DTPlatformBuild</key> <string></string> <key>DTPlatformName</key> <string>macosx</string> <key>DTPlatformVersion</key> <string>14.2</string> <key>DTSDKBuild</key> <string>23C53</string> <key>DTSDKName</key> <string>macosx14.2</string> <key>DTXcode</key> <string>1510</string> <key>DTXcodeBuild</key> <string>15C65</string> <key>LSMinimumSystemVersion</key> <string>14.2</string> </dict> </plist> TWAgent target has main.swift file which does this : import Foundation let startTime = CFAbsoluteTimeGetCurrent() func logTimeSinceStart() { let elapsedTime = CFAbsoluteTimeGetCurrent() - startTime NSLog("Time since program started: \(elapsedTime) seconds") } func startLoggingTime() { Timer.scheduledTimer(withTimeInterval: 1.0, repeats: true) { _ in logTimeSinceStart() } } // Start logging time startLoggingTime() // Keep the run loop running CFRunLoopRun() I followed these exact same steps in another project earlier and my agent was getting registered, although i lost that project due to some reasons. But now i am getting this error when i am registering or unregistering agent using SMAppServices from the code above : Registering Agent. Status: 3 Failed to register agent: Error Domain=SMAppServiceErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted" UserInfo={NSLocalizedFailureReason=Operation not permitted} I tried diffrent fixes for like this : Moved app bundle to /applications folder Gave permission for full disc access to this app . Code sign again (both agent and TWGUI ... But nothing seems to work , getting same error. I tried to launch agent using : Launchctl load com.example.TWGUI.agent.plist and it worked , so there is no issue with my plist implementation. Can someone help me understand how can i solve this issue ? or if i am following right steps ? Can give steps need to follow to implement this and steps so that i can register and start my agent using SMAppServices? And i also tried the project give in apples official documentation : [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/servicemanagement/updating-your-app-package-installer-to-use-the-new-service-management-api) but got same error in this project as well .

I'm specifically focused on Live Activity, but I think this is somewhat a general question. The app could get a few callbacks when: There's a new payload (start, update, end) There's a new token (start, update) There's some other lifecycle event (stale, dismissed) Assuming that the user didn't force kill the app, would the app get launched in all these scenarios? When OS launches the app for a reason, should we wrap our tasks with beginBackgroundTask or that's unnecessary if we're expecting our tasks to finish within 30 seconds? Or the OS may sometimes be under stress and give you far less time (example 3 seconds) and if you're in slow internet, then adding beginBackgroundTask may actually come in handy?

The same code built in a regular Mac app (with UI) does get paired. The characteristic properties are [.read, .write, .notify, .notifyEncryptionRequired] The characteristic permissions are [.readEncryptionRequired, .writeEncryptionRequired] My service is primary. In the iOS app (central) I try to read the characteristic, but an error is reported: Error code: 5, Description: Authentication is insufficient.

Hi, I am programming in C and would like to use Grand Central Dispatch for parallel computing (I mostly do physics based simulations). I remember there used to be example codes provided by Apple, but can't find those now. Instead I get the plain documentation. May anyone point me to the correct resources? It will be greatly appreciated. Thanks ☺.

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.

Hi all, Our company has an application that runs on several machines, this app is launched via a deamon that keeps it alive. One of the feature of this app, is to start a headless electron application to run some tests. When spawning this electron application with the new arm64 OS, we are getting this issue: Silent Test Agent Worker exited with code: 133 [ERROR] [75873:0205/135842.347044:ERROR:mach_port_rendezvous.cc(384)] bootstrap_look_up com.hivestreaming.silenttestagent.MachPortRendezvousServer.1: Permission denied (1100) [ERROR] [75873:0205/135842.347417:ERROR:shared_memory_switch.cc(237)] No rendezvous client, terminating process (parent died?) [ERROR] [75872:0205/135842.347634:ERROR:mach_port_rendezvous.cc(384)] bootstrap_look_up com.hivestreaming.silenttestagent.MachPortRendezvousServer.1: Permission denied (1100) [ERROR] [75872:0205/135842.347976:ERROR:shared_memory_switch.cc(237)] No rendezvous client, terminating process (parent died?) Both application (main app and electron one) are signed and notarized, but it seems that there is some other permission issue. If we run the electron application manually, all runs as expected. I added the crash report as attachment CrashReport.log

My load average on a largely idle system is around 22, going up to 70 or so periodically; SSMenuAgent seems to be consuming lots of CPU (and, looking at spindump, it certainly seems busy), but... it's not happening on any other system whose screens I am observing. (Er, I know about load average limitations, the process is also consuming 70-98% CPU according to both top and Activity Monitor.) Since this machine (although idle) has our network extension, I'm trying to figure out if this is due to that, or of this is generally expected. Anyone?

I’m currently porting a Chrome Extension to Safari and integrating it with native messaging in a Safari Web Extension. As part of this, I’m building a proxy to forward messages between the web extension and a socket in another application, both ways. Additionally, the socket occasionally broadcasts messages that also need to be sent to the web extension. The issue I’m facing is that the app extension terminates whenever I call context.completeRequest(returningItems: nil), which prevents me from listening for incoming messages from the socket (I'm using the Network Framework). To work around this, I’ve tried not calling context.completeRequest(returningItems: nil), which keeps the app extension running. However, I’m unsure if this is the right approach—currently, I’m simply ignoring the response and relying entirely on SFSafariApplication.dispatchMessage. According to the documentation, the app extension lifecycle ends when the system terminates it, but I need to keep the socket listener active. Has anyone encountered a similar issue, or does anyone have suggestions for maintaining the socket connection while adhering to the app extension lifecycle? Any insights would be greatly appreciated!

I am using C APIs for XPC communication. When my XPC server gets a xpc_dictionary as a message, I use xpc_dictionary_get_string to get the string which is of type const char*. Afterwards, when I try to free up the memory for the string, I get an error. I could not find any details on why this happens. Does XPC handle the lifecycle of these C strings ? I did some tests to see the behaviour. The following code snippet prints a string temp before and after releasing the dictionary memory. char* string = "dummy-string"; xpc_object_t dict = xpc_dictionary_create(NULL, NULL, 0); xpc_dictionary_set_string(dict, "str", string); const char* temp = xpc_dictionary_get_string(reply, "str"); printf("temp before release: %s\n", temp); xpc_release(reply); printf("temp after release: %s\n", temp); output: # temp before release: dummy-string # temp after release: I tried to free the variable temp before and after releasing dict . char* string = "dummy-string"; xpc_object_t dict = xpc_dictionary_create(NULL, NULL, 0); xpc_dictionary_set_string(dict, "str", string); const char* temp = xpc_dictionary_get_string(dict, "str"); printf("temp before release: %s\n", temp); free((void *)temp); // case 1 xpc_release(dict); // free((void *)temp); // case 2 printf("temp after release: %s\n", temp); in both the cases i got the output: # temp before release: dummy-string # app(18502,0x1f02fc840) malloc: Double free of object 0x145004a20 # app(18502,0x1f02fc840) malloc: *** set a breakpoint in malloc_error_break to debug # SIGABRT: abort # PC=0x186953720 m=0 sigcode=0 # signal arrived during cgo execution # ... # ...

Say I want to sync a toggle in my app with SMAppService's .status property. If the status changes from my app I can track it. But if user toggles it from System Settings, I don't see a notification so then the UI in my app is out of date. The status property is not key value observable and there doesn't appear to be a SMAppServiceStatusDidChangeNotification ? I can re-read it every time my app will become active but feels kind of wrong to do it this way.

I’ve been experimenting with Dispatch, and workloops in particular. I gather that they’re similar to serial queues, except that they reorder work items by QoS. I suspect there’s more to workloops than meets the eye, though; calling dispatch_set_target_queue on them has no effect, in spite of the <dispatch/workloop.h> saying that workloops “can be passed to all APIs accepting a dispatch queue, except for functions from the dispatch_sync() family”. Workloops keep showing up in odd places like Metal and Network.framework backtraces, and <dispatch/workloop.h> includes functionality for tying workloops to os_workgroups (?!). What exactly is a workloop beyond just a serial queue with priority ordering, and why can’t I set the target queue of one?

Is the title possible ? I tried [[thread valueForKey:@"_private"] valueForKey:@"tid"] but the tid was not kvc compliant. private apis are alright because this is just for testing remote process thread creation. I already have a working method but it has hardcoded assembly so you can't do anything else. this question is mainly for Quinn (figured he may know something about this)

I have an app that I'm using for my own purposes and is not in the app store. I would like to run an http server in the background for more than the allotted 3 minutes to allow persistent communications with a connected Bluetooth device. The Bluetooth device would poll the service at intervals. Is this possible to do? This app does not need app store approval since it's only for personal use.

Hello Apple Developer Community, I am developing a medical app that is classified as Class B according to FDA regulations. The app connects to a medical device using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to collect critical medical data such as ECG readings. To ensure accurate data collection and maintain the quality of the medical readings, the app needs to wake up every five minutes in the background and perform tasks for approximately 30 seconds. I understand that iOS has strict limitations on background execution to preserve battery and system performance. However, due to the medical nature of the app and the need for periodic data collection, I am seeking guidance on the following: If I can provide documentation that the app is associated with an FDA-approved Class B medical device, would Apple allow more lenient background task execution policies? Are there specific APIs, such as BackgroundTasks, CoreBluetooth, or other recommended strategies, that could help me achieve this behavior reliably? Is there a process to apply for an exception or special consideration for medical apps that require periodic background activity? Any insights or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

When using the continuation API, we're required to call resume exactly once. While withCheckedContinuation helps catch runtime issues during debugging, I'm looking for ways to catch such errors at compile time or through tools like Instruments. Is there any tool or technique that can help enforce or detect this requirement more strictly than runtime checks? Or would creating custom abstractions around Continuation be the only option to ensure safety? Any suggestions or best practices are appreciated.