App Freezing at Launch and Unexpected Termination

Question

Created Mar ’25

Replies 3

Boosts 0

Participants 2

We are experiencing an issue where our app gets stuck during launch. The splash screen appears for some time, and then the app either becomes unresponsive or closes unexpectedly. However, there are no crash logs captured in Xcode or Firebase Crashlytics, indicating that the app is not crashing but rather being terminated. This issue is preventing affected users from properly launching the app.

Additionally, some users have reported occasional lag and slow performance when using the app. The issue occurs only for a specific subset of users and appears to be related to other Electronic Logging Device (ELD) apps running in the background. When these apps are active, our app struggles to launch and sometimes becomes unresponsive.

We suspect that this behavior could be related to system resource allocation, such as high memory consumption by background apps, which might be affecting our app's ability to launch correctly. However, we have been unable to reproduce the issue on our end despite multiple attempts.

Actions Performed During App Launch:

Firebase configuration
API requests, including:

Fetching account details
Registering the FCM token with the server
Asynchronous background requests to fetch POI details

Creating a local database and storing POI data in local storage

We would like guidance from Apple regarding potential causes and debugging strategies, especially in scenarios where the app does not produce crash logs but still fails to launch properly. Any insights into memory management, conflicts with background applications, or system resource constraints would be highly appreciated.

Steps to Reproduce:

Install and launch the app on an affected device.
Observe that the app gets stuck on the launch screen.
After some time, the app terminates unexpectedly.
Issue is inconsistent and occurs only for certain users.
Presence of other ELD apps running in the background appears to influence the issue.

Boost

Answer 1

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

Mar ’25

A starting point here will be to get a log of what's happening. If you have a device on which you can reproduce this issue, you can collect that log directly from the device. It might be a crash log you're looking for (including for terminations rather than crashes), or a jetsam log. Diagnosing issues using crash reports and device logs is your entry point into both types of logs, and how to acquire them from a device.

If you don't have a device that reproduces this, than take a deeper look at the Xcode Organizer, as it contains much more than just crash reports. Perhaps there's information under a different category that will give you a starting point.

— Ed Ford,  DTS Engineer

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Answer 2

technostacks OP

Mar ’25

Dear @DTS Engineer,

Thank you for your response. We are currently investigating the issue, but we do not have access to an affected device. Since no crash logs are being captured in Xcode or Firebase Crashlytics, we suspect that the app is being terminated by the system due to resource constraints or conflicts with other background applications.

We have reviewed Xcode Organizer, but we were unable to find any conclusive termination logs. Could you provide guidance on how to obtain Jetsam logs or any other system-level termination reports from affected users through App Store Connect or other available diagnostic tools?

Additionally, given that the issue appears to be influenced by other Electronic Logging Device (ELD) apps running in the background, we would appreciate any insights into potential memory management conflicts or system resource limitations that could be causing our app to freeze or terminate unexpectedly.

Please let us know if Apple has any additional tools or recommendations to further diagnose this issue remotely.

Development Environment:

Xcode 16.0
macOS 15.0

0

Answer 3

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

Mar ’25

Since no crash logs are being captured in Xcode or Firebase Crashlytics, we suspect that the app is being terminated by the system due to resource constraints or conflicts with other background applications.

That's a reasonable theory, though my hope is that you'd see something in the Terminations section of the Organizer for this theory, or another section if something else was happening.

The data in the Organizer is collected with consent from the customer, through iOS Settings > Privacy & Security > Analytics & Improvements > Share With App Developers switch. If you're in touch with a customer who is hitting this issue often, you may wish for them to check if they are providing you with this data for you to understand what's happening with your app in the field.

Additionally, given that the issue appears to be influenced by other Electronic Logging Device (ELD) apps running in the background, we would appreciate any insights into potential memory management conflicts or system resource limitations that could be causing our app to freeze or terminate unexpectedly.

I understand why you're asking, but iOS is a complex system, so anything that I could say here about the intersection of iOS, you app, and other apps would be speculative, and unlikely to be a productive use of your time. It's much better for us to anchor our discussion with diagnostic data, once you're able to collect it.

— Ed Ford,  DTS Engineer

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