I'm planning out a game that requires multiple users and I was wondering if there's a way to fire up multiple instances of the iPhone Simulator. I didn't see anything in menus or in Google search results, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything.
It is possible but only with multiple users.
Read this: http://www.coderebel.com/2010/08/31/iphone_simulator
Assuming you have two projects (P1,P2) which you want to debug simultaneously, do as follows.
Steps to set up:
Create a new user (U2) on your Mac
Give it R/W access to P2, especially to its build folder.
Download the launcher app from the site above and copy it to Applications.
Steps to debug:
Close Xcode and the simulator if running
Launch the iPhone Launcher.app with U1.
Start Xcode with U1, load P1, start debugging.
Launch the iPhone Launcher.app with U2.
Start Xcode with U2, load P2, start debugging.
Unfortunately it's a P.I.T.A. having to change users every now and then but so far I haven't found any better solution. Hope this helps.
There is a way to do this easily without using multiple users. Keep in mind you will not be connected to the debugger though. Keep in mind the explanation below is for XCode 6+. You can skip this explanation and just scroll down to the wrapping-it-up section below.
From an answer here we can see that you can launch any simulator from command line:
open -a "iOS Simulator" --args -CurrentDeviceUDID
You can find the deviceID (as well as all your simulators) by running the xcrun simctl list command on console. It will generate a list like this. The device ID is the code in braces:
== Runtimes ==
iOS 8.3 (8.3 - 12F69) (com.apple.CoreSimulator.SimRuntime.iOS-8-3)
== Devices ==
-- iOS 8.3 --
iPhone 4s (99Z06AC6-A2D6-46E7-B4F7-BA4F5F3F39C8) (Shutdown)
iPhone 5 (K262AF11-ADD2-4FDA-ACBA-8C80DD9D4AA1) (Shutdown)
iPhone 5s (337KDC51-0A4B-47DB-8966-83562FD92C93) (Shutdown)
iPhone 6 Plus (9GK714E2-F713-4F98-A96E-C72ACD6571A8) (Shutdown)
-- iOS 8.2 --
etc continued....
Therefore to run the simulator using above as example, run this command on console:
open -n /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/iOS\ Simulator.app/ --args -CurrentDeviceUDID '99Z06AC6-A2D6-46E7-B4F7-BA4F5F3F39C8'
We use the -n flag instead because the -a flag specifies the application to use for opening the file, while the -n flag opens a new instance of the application(s) even if one is already running. Use the man open command to know all this stuff.
Also make sure you have the correct path for your simulator.
One more thing to note, if you run the simulator like this, chances are that you have limited simulators. And since its limited, you might want to launch it without interrupting one that's already on the screen. We can solve this from this answer here where he shows you how to create a new simulator and delete one.
So wrapping it all up, here's what you do to launch them.
A) First Create a simulator before launching it.
Usage: simctl create "name" "device type id" "runtime id"
xcrun simctl create "mynewsimulator" "iPhone 6" "com.apple.CoreSimulator.SimRuntime.iOS-8-3"
You will find the runtime id from the command xcrun simctl list command I ran above. After running the above command, the deviceID will be printed on the console screen. Take note of it as you will need as the last argument to launch the simulator shown below. Let's assume this ID was 99Z06AC6-A2D6-46E7-B4F7-BA4F5F3F39C8
B) launch it
open -n /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/Simulator.app/ --args -CurrentDeviceUDID '99Z06AC6-A2D6-46E7-B4F7-BA4F5F3F39C8'
C) delete it once you're finished with your simulator
xcrun simctl delete 99Z06AC6-A2D6-46E7-B4F7-BA4F5F3F39C8
All this can be placed in a single .sh file for easy running.
Please note to put wait or sleep commands after each command if you decide to put all this into a sh file.
[EDIT 2017]
I see that XCode 9 will now support multiple simulators. Awaiting to see how it will all work.
As near as I can tell, not only can you not have multiple instances of the simulator running, but when time comes for actual device testing you can't have multiple instances of the debugger running either.
This means to do multi-device apps, you'll need to have a single Mac assigned to a single iPhone/touch device (or simulator instance) each running your app.
I've started looking into whether VMWare or Parallels can somehow be brought into this, but there's not much that can be done without hacking the OS.
I suggest filing a feature request with http://bugreporter.apple.com.
Another option (albeit probably overkill) if you have a Mac OS X server license is to virtualize an instance of Mac OS X Server, and run a second simulator in the VM.
Hmm...I don't think you are missing anything here. As far as I know there is no technology within the SDK that is able to emulate multiple devices -- though that would be a useful feature to have. I think your only options would be to get a second iPhone OS device, or get a friend who also has an iPhone OS device to let you use it for testing.
In XCode 4 you can run multiple instances while having both be in debug mode.
What I did was create a duplicate of my target and ran both the original and the duplicate. If you're using the output window you can toggle which output you are looking at.
Follow these steps to test your app.
You have to do one thing for whole process first :
Go to Project - > Edit Project Settings -> tick on option - Build independent targets in parallel.
Debug code that will create your app in simulator For Example your App name is - Instance
Close Simulator
Go to Project->New Target -> Instance2
Add "Bundle display name : Instance2" in Instance2.info.plist file
Set Executable Name : Instance2
Select Instance2 Target -> Go to Project -> Set Active Target -> Instance2
Build with Instance2
Note : Do all carefully otherwise you have to reset your simulator
For Reset Simulator -> Run Simulator -> iPhone Simulator -> Reset Content & Settings...
Now You have two apps in simulator and you can test app on all instance.
Hope it will help you :)
I managed to get it to work combining answer by Ivsty with this one.
Basically, what you do is create two users (A and B), run simulators in each of them, run VNC server on user B, and then connect from user A to access screen B without needing to switch users.
Yes, now it's possible and is also quite easy.
The only thing you need is xctool, the build tools from Facebook and a ruby gem. The ruby gem helps to create/destroy the simulator needed during the test.
You can read the full documentation on this link:
https://github.com/plu/parallel_ios_tests
I'm using this approach and I run my test on 4 iOS simulator on the same time.
Supported from Xcode 9 on.
(Source: WWDC 2017)
Related
When building and running my app from Xcode on our iPhone 7's, I can't get the logs to show up in the debugging area. I've tested both mine and my wife's iPhone 7's. It's completely blank. They show up for other devices (iPhone 5, iPad, etc.) and for the simulators but not for the 7's.
When I view logs in Window > Devices > (select device), or in the system's Console, I also don't see logs for my app. There's only references to the app from symptomsd, etc. But no process even appears with my apps name.
It seems there is some incompatibility between my app and these specific devices. I've been using and updating the same app since around 2012 so maybe there is some sort of cruft in there that is blocking logs on these very latest devices.
Things I've tried:
Building and running other apps (logs show up)
Testing other devices (logs show)
Re-powering iPhone and restarting Xcode
Setting a breakpoint and running a command in the debugger (I got response from that command)
Any other steps to try would be appreciated.
You can use alsodump to log. You may try this, maybe this one works. What may help you:
1. Create new building scheme.
2. Try running it on simulator. Use many iOS versions. Maybe the latest one have a bug.
3. Remove Derived data in this project.
I have an app built using XCode 7.3 and it works fine with iOS 10.But, the NSLog() statements that I had used for debugging earlier aren't showing up.I could see them earlier inside apple configurator and now all I can see are so many kernel process messages.The same is still working when I test an iOS 9.x device.Kindly, update if this is resolved or is there any workaround.
If you have use XCode 8 then solution is below...
Goto -> Product -> Scheme -> Edit Scheme -> Run -> Arguments -> Environment Variables
In the Environment Variables: Perhaps you once added the Name "OS_ACTIVITY_MODE" and the Value "disable" and check it. But this way can lead to the Console cannot NSLog when the real iPhone debugging.
I solve it in this way: Only add "OS_ACTIVITY_MODE" and check it（Don't add the Value）
You can also see in below image
For XCode 7 You don't have any solution.
Alternative for this problem: I can't see NSLog output in real iOS 10 device neither. If you're using real devices, you can open Devices window from Xcode (Shift + Command + 2) and see device logs there, but it's hard to look at your app's logs because the console shows logs from system and all apps.
NOTE: If you check the Xcode 8 beta release notes, you'll find that it says:
When debugging an app running on Simulator, logs may not be visible in the console. Workaround: Use command + / in Simulator.app to open the system log in the Console app to view NSLogs. (26457535)
Is it possible to run an app on two devices with one click on the build and run button?
E.g. I have an application that has to run on two devices to test some networking functions between the devices.
It is really annoying to select each device separately from the scheme selector and then click the "build and run"-button.
So I'd like to configure my build process to let the app automatically build and run on both devices. Is this possible? And if it is, how?
Versions: Xcode5, OSX Mavericks
I found this Question but it doesn't seem to work anymore since I get the the following error message when I open the .app file:
You can’t open the application “Run” because the Classic environment is no longer supported.
Furthermore I can't select the .app file for the launch application service in the automator.
I don't know if it's possible, but perhaps to speed it up, a quick keyboard shortcut:
Switch build target HOLD: cmd + opt + ctrl THEN PRESS [ or ] -- switches target
Then, build it with cmd + r
Not exactly what you're looking for, but should cut your time fairly significantly!
Choose your Device at the top, build and run (Cmnd+R) and while running it, select a different device without stopping the other device, then build and run it again (Cmnd+R) on that device.
It definitely works with a real device and a simulator, but I don't know about 2 real devices.
Goodluck! :)
in order to automate testing an application, I want to repeatedly launch an iOS app with different arguments to it's main function from my mac; for simplicity let's just say it takes a file as argc and I have 100 files that I need to test. In theory, all I'd want to reproduce is the behaviour of xcode build & run - on the device, not jailbroken; the app is closely tied to the hardware, so the simulator alone will not suffice.
There are a couple of pages that do something similar, but none of them use the device, and none of them actually spell out how the command line on the console would actually look like.
1) http://blog.carbonfive.com/2011/04/06/running-xcode-4-unit-tests-from-the-command-line/
this page sets up a unit test that eventually runs in the simulator; he goes on to say that
The “Run Script” build phase of a unit test build target just runs >“${SYSTEM_DEVELOPER_DIR}/Tools/RunUnitTests”
I checked that, but neither RunPlatformUnitTests nor RunUnitTests is executed from Xcode 4 (I renamed the scripts to make sure).
2) http://longweekendmobile.com/2011/04/17/xcode4-running-application-tests-from-the-command-line-in-ios/
this page picks up where 1) left but only builds for the simulator and doesn't specify how the app is actually launched. It describes well how it's build from command line though.
3) Debugging iOS app built from commandline
What I see in Xcode 4 is the build phase, which stops at signing and validating the application. The next thing I see is the gdb debugger that runs on the device. However, I don't know how to access debugserver - I didn't jailbrake my iPhone so I have no access to just about anything on it, neither debugserver nor the IP adress.
What I can verify is that gdb is called from xcode4/platforms/iPhoneOS.platform so the remote debugger must attach itself to something, somehow ...
For command line remote GDB (or just upload to device) you can use this little tool, choose the fork closest to what you need, the original author will not support it anymore:
https://github.com/ghughes/fruitstrap
You may not be able to use it as-is (I had to tweak the gdb parameters for my use) but its a good start.
You can further automate things by automatically run this script
for i in $(system_profiler SPUSBDataType | grep "Serial Number: " | grep -Po "[A-Za-z0-9]{40,}$") ; do
echo "Installing on: $i"
#use fruitstrap with device $i
end
this will simply check all USB port and keep only the ones that are currently connected to an iOS device and return its UDID.
From there you should be able to automate the testing with several different arguments for your app.
This question already has answers here:
Is there a way to simulate multiple iphones using xcode/iphone sim?
(10 answers)
Closed 8 years ago.
For example, to test features that have several users interacting. All I've come up with is multiple OS X VM's with an iOSS in each, but that seems like a sledgehammer missing the obvious right in front of me?
AFAICT, it does not support multiple instances running at the same time.
I tried two methods, but both failed.
$ open -n /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/iPhone\ Simulator.app
LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -10829 for the file /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/iPhone Simulator.app.
Using an alias (http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/71/860074) brings up a dailog box saying "Only one iOS Simulator can run at a time. Please quit iOS Simulator and try again."
http://www.coderebel.com/2010/08/31/iphone_simulator
You may want to checkout this tool. I can run multiple emulators with its help in different VNC consoles with different user on my mac mini.
We have multiple Xcode developers logging on a centralized Mac and each users have own account. Each users can start a seperated Simulator window by running below command (" s should be included):
"/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/iPhone Simulator.app/Contents/MacOS/iPhone Simulator"
After simulator window is opened, runining your project will automatically attach Xcode to this window.
Only thing that I'm not sure about, I've ran below script below before. I don't know if it fixed something on our sytem that allows us to run above command:
http://coderebel.com/2010/08/31/iphone_simulator
So I suggest first try the command, if it does not help, try script, fix your system, then use the command after.