XPC is the preferred inter-process communication (IPC) mechanism on Apple platforms. XPC has three APIs: The high-level NSXPCConnection API, for Objective-C and Swift The low-level Swift API, introduced with macOS 14 The low-level C API, which, while callable from all languages, works best with C-based languages General: Forums subtopic: App & System Services > Processes & Concurrency Forums tag: XPC Creating XPC services documentation NSXPCConnection class documentation Low-level API documentation XPC has extensive man pages — For the low-level API, start with the xpc man page; this is the original source for the XPC C API documentation and still contains titbits that you can’t find elsewhere. Also read the xpcservice.plist man page, which documents the property list format used by XPC services. Daemons and Services Programming Guide archived documentation WWDC 2012 Session 241 Cocoa Interprocess Communication with XPC — This is no longer available from the Apple Developer website )-: Technote 2083 Daemons and Agents — It hasn’t been updated in… well… decades, but it’s still remarkably relevant. TN3113 Testing and Debugging XPC Code With an Anonymous Listener technote XPC and App-to-App Communication forums post Validating Signature Of XPC Process forums post This forums post summarises the options for bidirectional communication This forums post explains the meaning of the privileged flag XPC is mostly used on macOS but there are a few places where it comes into play on iOS: File Provider extensions can export an XPC service to arbitrary apps. For more about the File Provider side of this, see the NSFileProviderServiceSource protocol. For more about the client side, see the NSFileProviderService class. An app can move part of its code into a helper extension and talk to it using XPC. See Creating enhanced security helper extensions. Alternative browser engines can do a similar thing. See BrowserEngineKit for more about this. Apps with embedded extensions can use XPC via ExtensionFoundation. (Note that on iOS, but not macOS, an app can only use extensions embedded within the app itself.) Related tags include: Inter-process communication, for other IPC mechanisms Service Management, for installing and uninstalling Service Management login items, launchd agents, and launchd daemons Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

I want to use MapKit with App Intents, but the map does not show up.(See attached image) Can anyone help me solve this? import SwiftUI import MapKit struct ContentView: View {   @State private var region = MKCoordinateRegion(     center: CLLocationCoordinate2D(latitude: 37.334_900,                     longitude: -122.009_020),     latitudinalMeters: 750,     longitudinalMeters: 750   )       var body: some View {     VStack {       Map(coordinateRegion: $region).frame(width:300, height:300)         .disabled(true)     }   } } struct ContentView_Previews: PreviewProvider {   static var previews: some View {     ContentView()   } } import AppIntents import SwiftUI import MapKit struct test20220727bAppIntentsExtension: AppIntent {   static var title: LocalizedStringResource = "test20220727bAppIntentsExtension"       func perform() async throws -> some IntentResult {     return .result(value: "aaa", view: ContentView())   } } struct testShortcuts:AppShortcutsProvider{   @available(iOS 16.0, *)   static var appShortcuts: [AppShortcut]{     AppShortcut(       intent: test20220727bAppIntentsExtension(),       phrases: ["test20220727bAppIntentsExtension" ]     )   } }

When I startAdvertising, my localName is long, more than 8 bytes. like @"123456789".    [_peripheralManager startAdvertising:@{             CBAdvertisementDataLocalNameKey: @"123456789",             CBAdvertisementDataServiceUUIDsKey: @[[CBUUID UUIDWithString:@"bbbb14c7-4697-aaaa-b436-d47e3d4ed187"]]             }]; When running on macOS 11.x though localName exceeds 8 bytes. But it can still be scanned. {   kCBAdvDataIsConnectable = 1;   kCBAdvDataLocalName = 123456789;   kCBAdvDataRxPrimaryPHY = 0;   kCBAdvDataRxSecondaryPHY = 0;   kCBAdvDataServiceUUIDs =   (     "BBBB14C7-4697-AAAA-B436-D47E3D4ED187"   );   kCBAdvDataTimestamp = "680712553.800874";   kCBAdvDataTxPowerLevel = 12; } But running after macOS 12.x, if localName exceeds 8 bytes, it will be completely ignored. In the scanned data, localName is empty. {   kCBAdvDataIsConnectable = 1;   kCBAdvDataRxPrimaryPHY = 0;   kCBAdvDataRxSecondaryPHY = 0;   kCBAdvDataServiceUUIDs =   (     "BBBB14C7-4697-AAAA-B436-D47E3D4ED187"   );   kCBAdvDataTimestamp = "680712744.108894";   kCBAdvDataTxPowerLevel = 12; } On macOS11.x, SCAN_RSP is utilized if localName exceeds 8 bytes, while on macOS12.x, SCAN_RSP is always empty. Why are there differences between macOS11.x and macos12.x, is there any documentation? What is the maximum limit for localName? (On macOS 11.x, I verified it was 29 bytes Are there other ways to broadcast longer data? Does anyone know why? This has bothered me for a long time...

Our app has a network extension (as I've mentioned lots 😄). We do an upgrade by downloading the new package, stopping & removing all of our components except for the network extension, and then installing the new package, which then loads a LaunchAgent causing the containing app to run. (The only difference between a new install and upgrade is the old extension is left running, but not having anything to tell it what to do, just logs and continues.) On some (but not all) upgrades... nothing ends up able to communicate via XPC with the Network Extension. My simplest cli program to talk to it gets Could not create proxy: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service named blah was invalidated: failed at lookup with error 3 - No such process." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service named bla was invalidated: failed at lookup with error 3 - No such process.} Could not communicate with blah Restarting the extension by doing a kill -9 doesn't fix it; neither does restarting the control daemon. The only solution we've come across so far is rebooting. I filed FB11086599 about this, but has anyone thoughts about this?

In the latest beta of Ventura (and perhaps earlier versions) there is a section of the System Settings > General > Login Items pane called "Allow in Background". It appears that helpers (LaunchAgents/LaunchDaemons) that are installed by apps are listed here. As you can see in the screenshot below, I have 3 such items installed on my test system. The per User LaunchAgent for the Google Updater, the WireShark LaunchDaemon for the ChmodBPF script, and the LaunchDaemon for my userspace CoreAudio Driver (labelled "Metric Halo Distribution, Inc."). The WireShark and Google Updater have nice user identifiable names associated with them, whereas my Launch Daemon only has my company name associated with it. I don't see anything in the plists for Wireshark or GoogleUpdater that seem to specify this user-visible string, nor in the bundles the plists point to. How do I go about annotating my LaunchDaemon plist or the helper tool's plist so that the string in this pane helps the user properly identify what this Background item is for so that they don't accidentally turn it off and disable the driver they need to use our audio hardware? Obviously, we will document this, but just as obviously users don't always read the docs, and it would be better if the user just could make the immediate association that this Background item is needed for our CoreAudio driver.

When you correctly implement EntityPropertyQuery on an AppEntity, Shortcuts will expose a "Find Entity" action that calls into entities(matching:mode:sortedBy:limit:). This is demoed in the "Dive into App Intents" session and works as expected. However, with this action, you can change the "All Entity" input to a list variable which changes the action text from "Find All Entity" to "Filter Entity where" still giving you the same filter, sort and limit options. This appears to work as expected too. But, what's unexpected is that this filter action does not appear to call any method on my AppEntity code. It doesn't call entities(matching:mode:sortedBy:limit:). One would think there would need to be a filter(entities:matching:mode:sortedBy:limit:) to implement this functionality. But Shortcut just seems to do it all on it's own. I'm mostly wondering, how is this even working? Here's some example code: import AppIntents let books = [ BookEntity(id: 0, title: "A Family Affair"), BookEntity(id: 1, title: "Atlas of the Heart"), BookEntity(id: 2, title: "Atomic Habits"), BookEntity(id: 3, title: "Memphis"), BookEntity(id: 4, title: "Run Rose Run"), BookEntity(id: 5, title: "The Maid"), BookEntity(id: 6, title: "The Match"), BookEntity(id: 7, title: "Where the Crawdads Sing"), ] struct BookEntity: AppEntity, Identifiable { static var typeDisplayRepresentation: TypeDisplayRepresentation = "Book" var displayRepresentation: DisplayRepresentation { DisplayRepresentation(title: "\(title)") } static var defaultQuery = BookQuery() var id: Int @Property(title: "Title") var title: String init(id: Int, title: String) { self.id = id self.title = title } } struct BookQuery: EntityQuery { func entities(for identifiers: [Int]) async throws -> [BookEntity] { return identifiers.map { id in books[id] } } } extension BookQuery: EntityPropertyQuery { static var properties = QueryProperties { Property(\BookEntity.$title) { EqualToComparator { str in { book in book.title == str } } ContainsComparator { str in { book in book.title.contains(str) } } } } static var sortingOptions = SortingOptions { SortableBy(\BookEntity.$title) } func entities( matching comparators: [(BookEntity) -> Bool], mode: ComparatorMode, sortedBy: [Sort<BookEntity>], limit: Int? ) async throws -> [BookEntity] { books.filter { book in comparators.allSatisfy { comparator in comparator(book) } } } } The example Shortcut first invokes entities(matching:mode:sortedBy:limit:) with comparators=[], sortedBy=[], limit=nil to fetch all Book entities. Next the filter step correctly applies the title contains filter but never calls entities(matching:mode:sortedBy:limit:) or even the body of the ContainsComparator. But the output is correctly filtered.

General: Forums subtopic: App & System Services > Core OS Forums tags: Files and Storage, Foundation, FSKit, File Provider, Finder Sync, Disk Arbitration, APFS Foundation > Files and Data Persistence documentation Low-level file system APIs are documented in UNIX manual pages File System Programming Guide archived documentation About Apple File System documentation Apple File System Guide archived documentation File system changes introduced in iOS 17 forums post On File System Permissions forums post Extended Attributes and Zip Archives forums post Unpacking Apple Archives forums post Creating new file systems: FSKit framework documentation Building a passthrough file system sample code File Provider framework documentation Finder Sync framework documentation App Extension Programming Guide > App Extension Types > Finder Sync archived documentation Managing storage: Disk Arbitration framework documentation Disk Arbitration Programming Guide archived documentation Mass Storage Device Driver Programming Guide archived documentation Device File Access Guide for Storage Devices archived documentation BlockStorageDeviceDriverKit framework documentation Volume format references: Apple File System Reference TN1150 HFS Plus Volume Format Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

anyone getting the following error with CloudKit+CoreData on iOS16 RC? delete/resintall app, delete user CloudKit data and reset of environment don't fix. [error] error: CoreData+CloudKit: -[NSCloudKitMirroringDelegate _requestAbortedNotInitialized:](2044): <NSCloudKitMirroringDelegate: 0x2816f89a0> - Never successfully initialized and cannot execute request '<NSCloudKitMirroringImportRequest: 0x283abfa00> 41E6B8D6-08C7-4C73-A718-71291DFA67E4' due to error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4864 "*** -[NSKeyedUnarchiver _initForReadingFromData:error:throwLegacyExceptions:]: incomprehensible archive (0x53, 0x6f, 0x6d, 0x65, 0x20, 0x65, 0x78, 0x61)" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=*** -[NSKeyedUnarchiver _initForReadingFromData:error:throwLegacyExceptions:]: incomprehensible archive (0x53, 0x6f, 0x6d, 0x65, 0x20, 0x65, 0x78, 0x61)}

I've been trying to add a CoreSpotlight indexer to my macOS application. The new template for the indexer uses the new appex CSImportExtension style importer. I've been following this -> https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corespotlight/csimportextension I changed the CSSupportedContentTypes in the Info.plist file to the correct file type uti. I added a dummy value into the attributes (see code below) - just setting contentDescription to 'noodle' (easy to search for) class ImportExtension: CSImportExtension {   override func update(_ attributes: CSSearchableItemAttributeSet, forFileAt: URL) throws {     // Add a dummy value, and see whether spotlight finds it     attributes.contentDescription = "noodle" } } I have a number of files on disk that match the uti (and can be found when I search by the file name) Yet, when I build and run my app, the a spotlight search for 'noodle' finds no results. Can anyone give me any advice? I cannot find any indication that the ImportExtension is called (although when I put a log message at the start of the update() call there's no message in the console which seems to suggest it's not being called). Is there any way of debugging this? Cheers and thanks -- Darren.

Hello, The purpose of "Screen Time Passcode" under Settings/Screen Time is to protect Screen Time preferences and it is asked every time the user updates Downtime, App Limits, Content & Privacy Restrictions and so on. But the private passcode is not requested if the user disables Screen Time for a particular app (only Face ID or phone passcode is requested, but not the private Screen Time passcode). I think this is a mistake, I think the purpose of a private Screen Time passcode is to protect all settings, including apps that use this API, right? Is there any solution to this? Thank you.

While attempting to load a Network extension with OSSystemExtensionRequest I keep getting a "didFailWithError error 1". SIP is disabled. Does anyone know what code 1 is and how to fix it?

Hi, I can't get into "manage" sandbox account. I either get to a screen to put my password in. Here there is no way to click "next" or "login". (I have tried pressing "enter" on my keyboard to no effect). Or I get directly into "Cannot Connect" page. I have tried this two days in a row. I have tried turning it off and on again. I have tried logging out and in. Device: iPhone 13 pro max, iOS: 16.0.3 (also tried the version before this)

I'm building a macOS + iOS SwiftUI app using Xcode 14.1b3 on a Mac running macOS 13.b11. The app uses Core Data + CloudKit. With development builds, CloudKit integration works on the Mac app and the iOS app. Existing records are fetched from iCloud, and new records are uploaded to iCloud. Everybody's happy. With TestFlight builds, the iOS app has no problems. But CloudKit integration isn't working in the Mac app at all. No existing records are fetched, no new records are uploaded. In the Console, I see this message: error: CoreData+CloudKit: Failed to set up CloudKit integration for store: <NSSQLCore: 0x1324079e0> (URL: <local file url>) Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service named com.apple.cloudd was invalidated: failed at lookup with error 159 - Sandbox restriction." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service named com.apple.cloudd was invalidated: failed at lookup with error 159 - Sandbox restriction.} I thought it might be that I was missing the com.apple.security.network.client entitlement, but adding that didn't help. Any suggestions what I might be missing? (It's my first sandboxed Mac app, so it might be really obvious to anyone but me.)

Hello, maybe anyone know anything about HCE (Host card emulation) feature on iOS? As far as I read, it's not possible to achieve this functionality on iOS, but maybe there are plans to implement that? Or maybe it's clear that it wont be allowed to be used at all? Thanks:)

My application installs a system extension. When I try to remove the app from the Applications folder (cmd + backspace) I get an error message: "The operation can’t be completed right now because another operation is in progress, such as moving or copying an item or emptying the Bin." According to systemextensionsctl the extension state is "terminating for uninstall but still running". I can see an error in the console logs: kernelmanagerd Failed to terminate dext com.my.driver-dk, error: Kernel request failed: (os/kern) invalid address (1) sysextd a category delegate declined to terminate extension with identifier: com.my.driver-dk sysextd failed to terminate extension with identifier: com.my.driver-dk: Optional(Error Domain=kernelmanagerd.KMError Code=38 "(null)") Issue occurs with macOS 13 - works fine with macOS 12 and macOS 11 What is the problem here? Have there been any changes in macOS in that regard?

Hi, we've observed a weird behavior for a small amount of our user that we keep receiving the same token from APNs despite it's shown as Unregistered. When we try to send push to the token, we got an Unregistered error so we remove that token from our server. However, later we would receive an add token request from the client with the same token we just removed, and when we try to send to the token it returns Unregistered again so we remove the token again. This happened 3 times for a user in an hour. The identifierForVendor remains the same for all the requests. We also owns the client and I've checked client code that it's sending the token it received from didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken to the server.

The documentation for CGColorRef (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coregraphics/cgcolorref?language=objc) clearly shows that it is a struct. However, when I try to store a cell's border color using CGColorRef originalColor = self.bg.layer.borderColor and inspect what happens in the debugger, both that property and its copy have the same address. And later when I try to restore the border color the copy still has the same address but is no longer valid and causes a crash on assignment (originalColor is actually an instance variable...) This is all object behavior, not struct behavior. If CGColorRef really was a struct, the contents would have been copied, the instance variable would have had its own address that would never have changed, and the value would have remained valid indefinitely and let me copy it back without a problem. Why is this documented wrong? Was this a recent change? I actually had this code working at some point, and now it's broken.

I'm trying to handle the serverRecordChanged return code you get in CKError when you have a conflict and your using the savePolicy of ifServerRecordUnchanged. According to the CKError.Code.serverRecordChanged documentation, I should be receiving all three records that I need to do a 3-way merge. The problem is that the ancestorRecord (CKRecordChangedErrorAncestorRecordKey can also be used to look it up in the userInfo) doesn't actually contain a record. It only contains the record metadata. Is there something I need to be doing to get the full ancestorRecord in the CKError? If not is it possible to query iCloud for the ancestorRecord? Given that iCloud has the change history (as I understand it), then it is theoretically possible. I just don't know how to do it if it is possible. Are 3-way merges even possible? The design of the serverRecordChanged looks like that is the intent, but I can't see how to do it with the data that CloudKit is providing.

Hi there! Whenever I try to add a new Offer Code for my app's subscription, I get an unknown error. When I get to the last step of the "Create Offer for Codes" flow, I get an error that error reads "An error has occurred. Try again later." I have been getting this same error for over a week now, so any help figuring out how to add new offer codes would be greatly appreciated!

When I tap on one of the buttons in the ShieldAction extension I want to close the shield and open the parent app instead of the shielded app. Is there any way of doing this using the Screen Time API? class ShieldActionExtension: ShieldActionDelegate {      override func handle(action: ShieldAction, for application: ApplicationToken, completionHandler: @escaping (ShieldActionResponse) -> Void) {     // Handle the action as needed.           let store = ManagedSettingsStore()               switch action {     case .primaryButtonPressed:       //TODO - open parent app       completionHandler(.defer)     case .secondaryButtonPressed:       //remove shield       store.shield.applications?.remove(application)       completionHandler(.defer)         @unknown default:       fatalError()     }   }   }