An update of my app has just been approved by Apple and users are now complaining the app does not launch anymore. It also happens to some new users.
I have absolutely no idea where the problem is nor can I reproduce the problem. I have tested the update on various devices (& simulator) before submitting the update: iPhone 2G running 3.1.3, iPod Touch 2G running 4.3 , iPhone 3G and iPhone 4 running 4.3.1. They ALL work as expected. The update has a few new features like random picking photos from user's photo library using AssetsLibrary framework, I have weak-linked the framework to support iOS 3 and the feature does not load until selected by the user so it should not be the problem. After all, the update has been tested and approved by Apple.
I have difficulty collecting crash information from users with the problem, but I know one of them uses iPhone 4 with iOS 4.3.2. A quick google search reveals that iOS 4.3.2 has problems launching third party apps, I suspect my problem has something to do with this but I can not confirm it. I am planning to downgrade my dev iPhone 4 to iOS 4.3.2 to test it.
Does anybody here experienced similar problem? My app's ranking has dropped significantly because of the negative reviews so I need to fix this as soon as possible.
Edit:
There should not be any watch dog problem, I tested the update on the above mentioned devices with and without Xcode/debugger.
Memory management. I can not reproduce the problem (I tried quite hard) so I can not confirm if it's EXC_BAD_ACCESS, I did check reference count and nil released objects (safely release) when applicable, I am absolutely not a pro in memory management so I take it seriously, I checked leaks and allocations with instruments, stress-tested and did memory warning simulations, no problem was found.
I have UIApplicationWillEnterForegroundNotification in -loadview, it's only available after iOS 4.0 so I check if it exists with & operator because I use it.
I do not persist data other than saving facebook connect token and expiry date (NSDate) in NSUserDefaults, since the problem also happens to new users so I think it's something else
We're going to need more info, unfortunately. But just off the top of my head:
Watch dog? What sorts of stuff are you loading when you launch your app? It may be that resources are constrained on the devices having this issue and you are doing work that should be done a separate thread, or otherwise delayed until after the app has launched.
EXC_BAD_ACCESS. There could be a race condition going on that is resulting in most people able to launch OK, but for some it just isn't working because of bad references. I know, you write good code and manage your references like a pro, but sometimes a non-obvious slip-up can creep in.
Are you safely instantiating some types of classes? An example that bit me once was with the MFMailComposeViewController class. Before instantiating you're suppose to call its static method canSendMail. If a user hasn't setup any mail accounts on their device (hard to figure there would be anyone that fits this scenario, but hey! found out after an update that there are quite a few!) then the app would crash.
What data persistence (if any) do you have? Are you using Core Data? Serialized objects in a plist? NSUserDefaults? Your strategy may be corrupting data you are persisting and that is leading to a crash.
Related
I created my first app back in July. It came out to be 55mb. I have recently noticed that the Documents and Data section for my app is 150mb, nearly 3 times the app size. Doing more tests I have realized that each time I play the game it increases by 1mb. It is now at 170mb.
I am using Unity 5.6.1p4 and Google Admob.
My app does not download any update files to run the game so that isn't the issue.
I have a couple of guesses but none seem very likely:
1) My game is only about half as optimized as it should be. I still use a lot of instantiate and destroy. An other post said that the memory issue is due to Apple's inability to garbage collect. That is a possibility but I cannot understand why the data from instantiate/destroy would be cached. I also find it hard to believe no one else has had that issue.
2) When the game first starts, it automatically loads a banner ad and a video ad so that there is no delay when the user first requests a reward video. Some people have said that Google Admob caches ads so there is less data usage. That seems like it would cause some increase in file size but 170mb is too much data to be cached. Again I find it hard to believe no one would have complained to Google about this before.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I cannot figure out what would be causing it. If you are interested in seeing the problem first hand, the App Store link is https://appsto.re/us/nco9gb.i
Ok, here is my findings: This is either an issue for older phones, or iOS 10.x.
However, I do not know which. I am able to test iOS 10 on older phones (5, 5s and ipad 1). I am not able to find any newer device still running iOS 10. This memory glitch does not seem to happen on iOS 11. I was able to test it on 3x iphone 6s, 2x iphone 7 all running iOS 11.It is not as clear as I would like it to be but iOS 11 does not appear to have the memory issue. As much as I would like to find the cause and fix it, I think the majority of people should be safe because they update.
I've got an app that uses Core Data that sporadically stops launching so I have to reinstall it using XCode and then it launches again like normal for a while, with all the Core Data information still preserved.
I have seen that an app often stops launching when the target of an app is too low in comparison to the device software version, however this is not so for this app and device (iPhone 6s).
Have you had such an issue before? What do you think could be causing this problem?
There are many, many, many things that could cause an app to fail to launch. You need to narrow things down and collect some data so that you can find out what the problem is and do something about it. Right now you don't even know that it's related to Core Data, you're just guessing.
For a crash on launch, look at the device console and see what messages appear when you try to launch the app and it fails. You can get the device console messages by
Connecting your device to your Mac
Opening Xcode's "Devices" window (cmd-shift-2)
Looking in the bottom half of the window
A better way to watch the console is to use the free iOS Console app.
The problem was that, as mentioned by dan in the comments, the code was being signed for a short period of time (7 days) and so I had to keep re-installing it on the iOS device to keep it working. Thus to keep the app working indefinitely a paid developer account is needed.
Also mentioned in this reddit forum:
https://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/4hotx3/news_free_developer_account_installs_reduced_to_7/
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
I've had a fairly large app (50mb) in the App Store for several years now with many updates and thousands of users. Before each release I do a lot of testing, analyzing and beta-testing on all sorts of devices and situations before releasing an update.
Every once in a while I get a horrific bug report that says the app is crashing ALL the time and is completely unusable. What seems to fix this EVERY TIME is telling the user to delete the app, power cycle the device and reinstall the app while under wi-fi.
This means to me that under some unknown circumstances to me, my app is being installed badly. And this has been happening through iOS 4, 5, 6 and now 7.
Is this happening to anyone else? Any known causes or fixes besides my reinstall fix?
To make matters worse, this shows up in a few bad reviews that say the app crashes all the time. All the other reviews are 5 stars! I hate getting blamed for a bad install.
Thanks!
Shot in the dark here, but could it be related to wireless connectivity (ie an API timing out)? Very hard to say without more details.
I have an app that syncs data between devices. Its critical that we know the device that the user is using at all times so we can sync properly. we have implemented OpenUDID but are noticing some odd issues in some of the test users getting new openUDID's when they are installing and running a new version.
Some of the test team is on ios5 and some ios6 and we are trying to narrow down the conditions that cause a new openUDID to be generated.
Out loud thinking - could it be any of these scenarios.
On install of a new app (version of our app) would ios5 or 6 make a diff here?
Using testflight for it to install the new version for us. does that flow cause a new oUDID
Other apps on the phone while we update the version?
Hard reboots of the phone (Power + home) for 15 seconds
App crash, uninstall then reinstall
Any help in advance would be awesome!
OpenUDID uses the UIPasteboard method to store a unique value but there are some limitations. It should not reset when the phone is powered off and restarted but I would think there is a good chance the install of iOS6 resets the pasteboard storage.
If you are able to find a user who consistently does not have the same value even when they are not updating to a new OS version there could be the unlikely situation where another app is messing with the value or if iOS6 is more likely to reset or expire the UIPasteboard.
You could consider making your own code to save to the pasteboard. The benefit of OpenUDID is that other networks can share the same ID for cross app tracking so if you don't plan on using it for that purpose you may consider implementing your own solution. I assume it isn't possible to target iOS6 only but if you could then you could use their new Organization Unique Identifier which would probably be far more reliable.