Appcenter: Upload iOS simulator builds to Distribute

[anton-kolesnyk]

My project should support all available screen resolutions for iOS. And quality engineer should test that. So idea is to use simulator for UI testing to have appropriate test coverage.

So I need to create simulator builds with AppCenter to omit manual builds and proceed with CI builds workflows and pipelines.

[Oddj0b]

Hi @anton-kolesnyk, we have the option to do that with real devices in App Center Test. But if you want to do it with simulators, I think your best option is to run a post-build script that starts simulators. Maybe Nilofer can help?

[anton-kolesnyk]

Hi @Oddj0b, actually post build script I think will be too late because simulator requires to build whole project for simulator and binary application file will be quite different in comparison with ipa-files that prepared for real device. And unfortunately I do not see such option to build for simulator in AppCenter at all.

[King-of-Spades]

@anton-kolesnyk what UI testing framework are you using?

[anton-kolesnyk]

@King-of-Spades, I don't use any right now.

[Oddj0b]

@anton-kolesnyk if you don't sign your build it will work for simulators.

[Oddj0b]

@anton-kolesnyk Did you manage to find a solution or should we have a call?

[anton-kolesnyk]

@Oddj0b yes I've utilized Asure DevOps. It takes more time for configuration but I can build whatever I want there :)
It would be great to have .app packeges distribution on AppCenter, to have iPhone and Simulator builds in one place. but that is not stopper for me right now.

[marikavertzonis]

The addition of iOS simulator as a package distribution option in AppCenter is important to my team. We use AppCenter primarily for the distribution functionality and have .app packages for iOS we need to upload.

[Oddj0b]

@anton-kolesnyk @marikavertzonis It seems more of a question for my colleague @botatoes at our Distribute service than for me in Test. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[marikavertzonis]

Sure. The title of this issue doesn't discriminate. For me, I'd want to be able to upload iOS simulator build for distribution.

[King-of-Spades]

Reading though this again I wonder if it might have been misclassified as relating to Test from the beginning.

[hewerthon]

I have the same issue
When do upload my .ipa file to run in simulators

Example: DTPlatformName: iphonesimulator and DTSDKName: iphonesimulator13.4

Return error: Release:
A problem occured while extracting your app (Correlation ID: xxx)

If try publish to pipeline AppCenterDistribute
Return: ##[error]"{\"error\":\"Error: Missing required params from body: version, build_version, unique_identifier, minimum_os_version, Service id: xxx\"}"

[King-of-Spades]

@hewerthon Normally, an .IPA file would not be compatible with iOS simulators, because it is generated to run on iOS devices.

iOS simulator builds are NOT cross-compatible with iOS device builds; as far as I know there is no trivial way to convert one to the other. I have seen a few cases before where users have attempted to package simulator or device builds like their counterpart by renaming & rearranging the files...this doesn't bypass the limitation but can trigger very odd errors & symptoms.

At it's core, the processor architectures of an iOS simulator build and an iOS device build aren't the same; so as far as I know the only way to "change" between them would be to just compile a new build for the different target.

The limitation is pretty specific to iOS. Android by contrast typically allows you to run the exact same APK on it's emulators as you can run on real devices; assuming there aren't any other compatibility differences introduced between them.

[hewerthon]

Hello @King-of-Spades
Yes, for do build to the simulator, I use this script as an example
1- Export build to .xcarchive
2- Create folder Payload and move .app file to into
3- Compress this folder and rename to .ipa file
4- Do upload to App Center

Example script:

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/xcodebuild -sdk iphonesimulator archive ARCHS=x86_64 VALID_ARCHS=x86_64 -workspace i9.xcworkspace -scheme "QA" -configuration "Release (QA)" -archivePath ~/IOSBuild/App.xcarchive || die "build failed"

cd ~/IOSBuild/App.xcarchive/Products/Applications 

mkdir Payload

mv "QA.app" ~/IOSBuild/App.xcarchive/Products/Applications/Payload/

zip -r "QA.ipa" Payload

OBS: .app and .ipa file run in all simulators.

But when try do upload to App Center return error

I try to create Apps projects custom for iOS, for macOS. But App Center does not accept my .app ou .ipa file to the simulator.

[King-of-Spades]

@hewerthon custom build logic can be applied via build scripts; but such customizations are not supported by App Center Build, as noted on this doc: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/appcenter/build/custom/scripts/.

This means that custom build script logic isn't QA'd or normally eligible for bugfixes by our team. The only exception would be if something with handling the script itself was fundamentally broken. For example, it would be a valid bug if standard echo or eval commands were ignored instead of executed.

[guilhermeJay]

I tried to create a new app center app, for Custom OS, as it lets me upload a zip of my .app, but it gives me an error when I tried to upload A problem occured while extracting your app. (Correlation ID: 92fd5d16-cd99-49ac-a65e-833e0ce9f428).

Has anyone found a way to upload .app builds to appcenter?

[msftbot[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had any activity for 60 days. It will be closed if no further activity occurs within 15 days of this comment.

[msftbot[bot]]

This issue will now be closed because it hasn't had any activity for 15 days after stale. Please feel free to open a new issue if you still have a question/issue or suggestion.