[bug] App does not initialize when debugging from Xcode

[velocitysystems]

Describe the bug

When debugging a Tauri app in an iOS simulator or device from Xcode, the app deploys but does not initialize. An empty white webview is show.

Reproduction

Clone the example app in the plugins-workspace repository.
Confirm the app builds/deploys using the CLI to an iOS simulator.

Run the following command:
pnpm tauri ios dev --open

Expected behavior

App should build, deploy and run on the iOS simulator.

Full tauri info output

[✔] Environment
    - OS: Mac OS 15.2.0 arm64 (X64)
    ✔ Xcode Command Line Tools: installed
    ✔ rustc: 1.83.0 (90b35a623 2024-11-26)
    ✔ cargo: 1.83.0 (5ffbef321 2024-10-29)
    ✔ rustup: 1.27.1 (54dd3d00f 2024-04-24)
    ✔ Rust toolchain: stable-aarch64-apple-darwin (default)
    - node: 22.12.0
    - pnpm: 9.15.2
    - npm: 10.9.0

[-] Packages
    - tauri 🦀: 2.1.1
    - tauri-build 🦀: 2.0.3
    - wry 🦀: 0.47.2
    - tao 🦀: 0.30.8
    - @tauri-apps/api : 2.1.1 (outdated, latest: 2.2.0)
    - @tauri-apps/cli : 2.1.0 (outdated, latest: 2.2.1)

Stack trace

No response

Additional context

No response

[davehorner]

I also also experiencing this on macOS. I am able to run the app as a macOS application. I can hit the frontend from the simulator safari. It shows the title for a quick second and then shows all white aside from the time and battery indicators.

I saw some errors about "View Controller" is unreachable with no entry points. I tried setting the view controller to "Is Initial View Controller" this stopped the warnings but did not get the application to initialize properly.

I can attach with a debugger but breaking doesn't get me anywhere of interest. I can say that it doesn't initialize properly when run from the command line without the --open too.

[velocitysystems]

@FabianLars Is this currently a known bug? Multiple developers in our team are experiencing this issue. It happens both for a new project and when cloning the example app in the plugins-workspace repository.

[FabianLars]

Is this currently a known bug?

it is now i guess. i see the same behavior on my end i think but i'm not familiar with our ios codebase to even remotely guess what the issue could be or even where to look.

[velocitysystems]

Thanks for confirming @FabianLars. What is the path forward for resolving issues like this in 2.x?

Will these be prioritized by the Tauri working group? Or is the project depending on community contributions to "improve the development process for mobile"? This was mentioned in the Aug 1, 2024 blog post but a later blog post indicated Tauri "[has] not committed to a roadmap beyond 2.x yet".

We have also reported #12174 and #12175 which are related debugging/toolchain issues.

[FabianLars]

Hard to say at this point tbh. The mobile maintainers, especially iOS, are currently busy with other things outside of Tauri.

No matter what though, community involvement is much appreciated and really needed. It's just quite unfortunate that we have nobody available rn to steward potential community involvement (not that there is any atm) when it comes to mobile.

[velocitysystems]

@FabianLars Have been digging into this issue and found it only happens when the logging plugin is utilized i.e.

   tauri::Builder::default()
      .plugin(tauri_plugin_log::Builder::new().build())

If the plugin initialization is removed from the builder then we no longer get an empty webview.

[velocitysystems]

Fixed by PR 2676.