Game Center matchmaking fails for all non-default users on Apple TV — no IDS registration for secondary users (FB24156316)

Game Center matchmaking fails for all non-default users on Apple TV — no IDS registration for secondary users (FB24156316)

On a multi-user Apple TV (tvOS 26.5, Apple TV 4K 3rd gen), Game Center real-time matchmaking fails for every user except the default user, in every app I've tested — including Apple Arcade titles. Filed as FB24156316 with full logs and sysdiagnose; posting here for visibility and in case anyone has shipped multi-user GC multiplayer on tvOS successfully.

My game adopts com.apple.developer.user-management (runs-as-current-user-with-user-independent-keychain). The entitlement itself works: on a secondary user's profile the app runs under that user's persona and GKLocalPlayer authenticates as them — the welcome banner shows the right account. But any GKMatchmakerViewController quickmatch hard-fails within ~9 seconds ("Failed to find players"), and accepting an invite fails with GKError 35 ("not signed in to iCloud") even though Settings shows that user's iCloud as signed in.

Unified logs show the root cause. When matchmaking starts, gamed can't provision the player's pseudonym because the current user has no identity-services registration:

gamed  No URI found on any account -- returning nil
gamed  Failed to fetch pseudonym for local player. Error:
       GameDaemonCore.PseudonymManagerError.failedToProvision(
         internalError: Error Domain=com.apple.ids.IDSPseudonymErrorDomain
         Code=400 "Invalid URI")

For the default user, the identical flow succeeds (identityservicesd … resultCode: 0). Across a full day of log capture — profile adds, a remove/re-add, multiple user switches — identityservicesd never once references the secondary users' accounts: registration for them is never attempted, not attempted-and-failed. Meanwhile gamed advertises the nearby-matchmaking Bonjour service with the default user's identity while the foreground app runs as the secondary user.

Reproduction matrix: two apps (my shipping game Extreme Violence and Apple Arcade's Crossy Road Castle, which also runs under the correct persona), both sandbox and production Game Center, two unrelated secondary accounts (both healthy elsewhere). Persists across reboot and profile remove/re-add. Default user unaffected.

The documentation says the entitlement is all that's needed ("each person who uses your app will have access to… their own Game Center… you don't have to make any code changes" — WWDC20 session 10645). As far as I can tell that promise is currently unfulfillable for online play: there is no API or Settings path that creates the missing IDS registration.

Has anyone seen non-default-user matchmaking work on tvOS, on any version? Is there anything an app can do here, or is this purely an OS-side fix? (Related: thread 782163 — a different tvOS matchmaking failure that DTS confirmed as a bug.)

Answered by DTS Engineer in 900237022

Hello @bdlane,

Thank you for this detailed post. This is helpful.

First, I want to clarify that in thread 782163 – no report was shared us directly in that thread. However I have seen a similar report, I might be able to relate these together.

Are you able to create a minimal sample project that you can upload in a Feedback report filed through Feedback Assistant.

It would be very helpful if you confirm if this issue is limited to AppleTV, as the only other report I saw for this issue was on iOS.

Let me know if this is the case for you, I want to make sure I understand exactly where the issue is.

Bug Reporting: How and Why? has tips on creating your bug report.

Thank you, I look forward to seeing your report and figuring this out.

 Travis

Hello @bdlane,

Thank you for this detailed post. This is helpful.

First, I want to clarify that in thread 782163 – no report was shared us directly in that thread. However I have seen a similar report, I might be able to relate these together.

Are you able to create a minimal sample project that you can upload in a Feedback report filed through Feedback Assistant.

It would be very helpful if you confirm if this issue is limited to AppleTV, as the only other report I saw for this issue was on iOS.

Let me know if this is the case for you, I want to make sure I understand exactly where the issue is.

Bug Reporting: How and Why? has tips on creating your bug report.

Thank you, I look forward to seeing your report and figuring this out.

 Travis

Hi Travis, thanks for picking this up.

Sample project: done — a minimal reproducer (GCMultiUserRepro.zip) is now attached to FB24156316, along with a fresh sysdiagnose captured immediately after reproducing with it today (tvOS 26.5, Apple TV 4K), and screenshots. The report also has the full log analysis, including one new finding: Settings flagged the secondary user's account with "Some iCloud data isn't syncing" and offered the "Update Your Apple Account" proximity flow — completing it clears the warning but doesn't fix matchmaking.

Is it limited to Apple TV? As far as I can test, yes. The trigger is specifically a non-default TV user — a precondition iOS doesn't have — and it reproduces in every GC app I tried (including Apple Arcade's Crossy Road Castle), in both GC environments, with two unrelated Apple Accounts. The same codebase plays Game Center matches fine on iPadOS 26.

That said, the failing step might interest you for the iOS report: gamed's pseudonym provisioning finds no identityservicesd registration for the secondary user's Apple Account ("No URI found on any account" → IDS 400), and the app receives GKError 35 "not signed in to iCloud" even though iCloud sign-in is healthy. If your iOS report shows that same signature, it may be the same missing-IDS-registration dependency reached by a different route.

Hello @bdlane,

Thank you for sharing, that information is helpful in our investigation.

I just confirmed – FB24156316 does not include GCMultiUserRepro.zip

Are you able to attach that project or share it here? Maybe it was caught in a filter.

Use this thread to communicate updates. If the resolution requires changes to the OS or frameworks you are using, updates will come through Feedback Assistant.

Since I am tracking this issue closely, I will do my best to update you if I hear anything, however that may come first from Feedback Assistant.

Thank you.

 Travis

Doh! My bad - I see it's missing from my previous post, I must have forgotten to attach it.

I've now attached it to FB24156316 😅.

Game Center matchmaking fails for all non-default users on Apple TV — no IDS registration for secondary users (FB24156316)
 
 
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