I have a strange problem with a number of my app users that I’m struggling to figure out.
I’ve had reports from a small portion of my app users that their app starts to crash when they open it. It shows the splash screen but as soon as it is about to engage the main form it crashes back to the home screen of the phone.
The strange thing is that the exact same build prior to submitting to Apple, if installed through TestFlight opens fine. As soon as an affected user then installs the exact same build from the Live Store over it, the app crashes on load again 100%
I’d like to understand what happens technically to an app binary when it transitions from TestFlight to Production in the Apple App Store and wonder if anyone knows?
This may be a red herring and no doubt it’s a bug in my code but I’m suspicious that TestFlight builds behave differently and I’d like to determine if it’s related.
Related
I started messing around with react-native. I've built a small application and it seems to work fine (package.json). I can work on it in Debug or Release mode, using the simulator or my iPhone 6S device, and all is well.
This app is just for me so I don't pay for the Apple Developer thing, and I just run the app in Release mode on my device, and it...seems to be fine? I can quit xcode and go places and the app works fine.
After a week or so, it's hard to tell, the app stops loading. It'll display the splash screen for a split second and then it's gone back to the home screen.
I setup Rollbar, but it doesn't catch anything. I look in the Privacy -> Analytics area and don't see anything there either.
I'm not really looking for an answer to my exact problem since various SO questions and other places suggest it's probably something weird and specific. My main problem is I don't know even where to look/how to debug this kind of thing. If I build the app and run it on device again, it'll run fine. I need to try to debug without loading new code, and have no idea how that works on iOS. I've tried poking around at the Debug -> Attach to Process by Name, but the app never gets far enough to do anything with that.
Alternatively, I throw react-native in the garbage and use something that works...
App provisioning with a free developer license (?) is 7 days. See: Why does my free XCode Provisioning Profile only last 7 days?
You can likely verify this by looking at error messages in the console window. Connect your device, and in Xcode go to Window/Devices and Simulators/Open Console, then launch your app.
Apple have rejected my React Native app for external beta testing because:
when reviewed on iPad running iOS 11.2.5 on Wi-Fi connected to an IPv6
network….the app launches to a white screen and no content is loaded.
After some weeks of back and forth, they’ve admitted that it was not related to IPV6, and have given me some further info:
The app’s initial React Native view controller loads with no defined
‘loadingView’ or ‘contentView’ elements. It appears that there is code
in place for Javascript updating, but as stated, we’re not seeing any
attempt at the app to reach out - it appears likely something was
disconnected between the executable and associated bundle files
between your project and the submission.
I have not seen this issue when testing on my own devices or on the iOS Simulator. Even when submitting the app to TestFlight for internal beta testers, and then installing on my iPhone via the TestFlight iOS app, it always works fine. So, I'm baffled as to why Apple sees this and I don't, and I don't really know where to start with debugging it.
Okay, case closed, I think. And it was procedural issue rather than a technical one, down to my misunderstanding of Apple's process.
I only thought I'd ever submitted my builds for External Beta review. I hadn't intended to submit it for actual inclusion in the App Store just yet. But I think that's what I must have done, and that's the version that Apple have been referring to all along. They haven't actually been looking at my subsequent builds, where the problem was fixed, as a part of this process. That's because those builds were submitted as External Beta test builds, which is a different review process.
Apple clarified this to me by sending me screen shots of the TestFlight version of the app (all good) vs the App Store submission binary (blank screen). And the penny dropped.
I have developed an app and have it successfully released on App Store. I have downloaded it from the App Store onto my device. At first everything worked perfectly, until after a few days, when some parts of (not all of) the app stops working properly, specifically, the device returns to its home screen when certain buttons are clicked.I have received reports from users about this issue as well.
After using XCode to build and run the app on my device, everything goes back to normal. Since this only happens after several days have passed, I cannot recreate this problem right now, hence apologies for not having error messages to show. Any ideas on possible reasons of this issue?
I have hundreds of people using my app, but a handful are reporting that the app does not make it past the black launch screen (it immediately closes, before entering into my app). I'm using Crittercism but it's not even getting far enough to catch any exception, which makes it sound like a springboard / backboard problem.
Here's what I've asked the users to do:
Reinstall the app
Delete some apps (to free some space)
Restart the device
None of the above worked. I'm completely at a loss as to what's wrong. The app is in the AppStore and works fine for most users. Furthermore, I can't find anything unique about these users (they're using recent versions of iOS with fairly modern hardware).
Crittercism doesn't show anything, because after the crash - log will be send only at the next launch, so if user doesn't open your app anymore (or can't do it, because he has constant crash).
I advice your to try next ideas:
Do use use keychain or store smth there? It's not cleared after uninstall
Maybe your data is backed up in icloud
Did it begin with the new iOs version (9.0 for example)
Maybe it's some cache problem after installing one version on another,
Can it be the problem of different timezones
Can it be a crash with local settings
If you have feedback with users with crash - contact them and ask about device, iOs version and other
your have crash sections in your itunesconnect profile, maybe there you'll get some information
A user has reported that my app suddenly won't launch on their device. They sent me a video, and they launch the app, the launch image screen shows for a split second, but then crashes back to the iOS home screen.
The user tried deleting and reinstalling the app with no benefit.
I use Crashlytics, and am not getting any reports of crashes from them (or any other user- although I've seen them in prior versions so I know it's working correctly). I'm also not seeing any crashes in iTunes connect.
I asked the user to send me any crash reports in the Settings Diagnostics section and they said there are none listed for my app.
I have confirmed that their iOS version is supported by my app. (iOS 8.4).
I'm not sure where to go next, and would appreciate any pointers. Sorry for the vague question but I have posted everything that I know about the situation.
Just wanted to provide some closure on this. The user ended up wiping and restoring their device, and it solved the problem. It seems extreme to me but it was their own suggestion and didn't take them long to do. So I'm not sure what caused this but that's one (albeit brute force) way to fix it.