TLDR: Xcode was crashing after building successfully but before running. Deleting my User Prefs fixed my error, but I’ve listed the steps I tried, and some other best practice options below.

My problem was this: Xcode 8 beta 2 arrived, and I went merrily on my way playing with all the great stuff we learned about at WWDC.

However, everytime I tried to build and run in the new Xcode beta 2 (and later in beta 3) I would get a successful build and then the whole program would crash without opening the simulator or deploying to a device.

I talked to a lot of people in my knowledge network, and did all sorts of searching on the error I was getting:

“Exception Type: EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Application Specific Information:
ProductBuildVersion: 8S162m
_ASSERTION FAILURE_ in /Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/IDESpriteKitSupport/IDESpriteKitSupport-11049/Foundation/Classes/Document/SKEditorDocument.m:201”

This was strange, because the app I was working on was not using SpriteKit at all.  It was from a tutorial from Paul Hudson from his new Practical iOS 10 book. (which is great so far, fyi)

To test that it wasn’t something I’d done in the project, I made a new blank one, cleverly named ‘dontcrash’, and tried to build and run it. Xcode crashed again.

I actually ended up with several blank apps: dontcrash2, dontcrash3 dontcrashXcodebeta3 and finally- CrashyApp, before I hit on the solution. 

Basic Options for Xcode Crashes

1. Clean the project.
2. Target a different simulator you haven’t tried with the project yet.
3. Delete Derived Data directory
4. Delete app, re-install.
5. Delete User Preferences
   1. As mentioned here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31354850/xcode-7-beta-3-crash-at-startup
   2. Note: Deleting the app and reinstalling does not remove the user preferences.
   3. This fixed my problem.Not sure how my prefs got confused in the first place.

Advanced options (I didn’t get this far)

• Monitor memory usage in the Debug navigator
• Inspect a few malloc generations in Instruments

]]> https://www.staciearellano.com/how-to-fix-xcode-crashes/feed/ 0 989 https://www.staciearellano.com/xcodespritekit-scene-building-tip/ https://www.staciearellano.com/xcodespritekit-scene-building-tip/#respond Fri, 06 May 2016 01:10:50 +0000 http://www.staciearellano.com/?p=853 Xcode:SpriteKit Scene Building Tip

Right click to unlock node or select locked nodes.

Fixed a lot of auto layout issues, added a true type font to the app bundleStruggled with the scene builder quite a bit. it lacks precision tools, so I’m trying continue to create things in Tiled.

Started to add SKTileMap to my project, which will read both the objects/boundaries i place in Tiled, but also send the graphic information in the JSON export.

Screenshots

I copied the todo list from the previous log, and have crossed things out that I’m just don’t have time for now.

This with an X mean I’ve started and/or finished an item. Today’s work specifically meant struggling with Xcode and auto-layout.

Design

Designers have sent me some UI assets, still waiting on level pieces for the actual maze. Working with what I have lying around.

Hero

• X get hero graphics in,
• animating properly.

Levels

• Parse Json mazes
• figure out how to parse image names in with the tmx file (maybe)
• X Establish tile grid sizes – 70 x 70 or aspect 1:1
• Create new sks mazes – working on this

Menus

• X Start menu l
• X Play button goes to first game level
• X pauseSettings  scene – options don’t do anything yet.
• X Credits scene – need to add links

Illusions?

• may need to revisit this idea this summer
• crop/mask
• explore scenekit for enemies.

Sound

• find bandura/mandolin/string sounds/chords for up/down/left/right audio – a friend has offered to synth some things for me.
• tweak background music.
• explore using SKaudio with UDLR sounds to help you know if you
• are near/far from goal.
• need hero movement sounds. perhaps some ambient ruins/castle sounds. Things sound stark.

it’s progress, right?

As part of our class this semester, we each gave a brief talk about an iOS related topic. Teacher Eric recorded the presentation, and gave us the videos. There was no expectation of sharing the talk with anyone else.

However, YouTube makes it far too easy to share things, so… here is the vid.  I’ve been playing video games since childhood and web developing for most of my career, I thought that was unique enough perspective to give a talk on.

PDF of talk

I found a typo while giving the talk, I’ll leave that in for you to enjoy as well.

Here are the links from the resource page.

Resources

• Illusion of Motion –
  • https://paulbakaus.com/tutorials/performance/the-illusion-of-motion/
  • http://ed.ted.com/lessons/animation-basics-the-optical-illusion-of-motion-ted-ed
• Tiled – http://www.mapeditor.org
• Texture packer – https://www.codeandweb.com/texturepacker
• Kenney.NL – Free/low cost, high quality assets/sprites –
  • http://Kenney.nl/assets
• CSS Sprites – https://css-tricks.com/css-sprites/

Artists are buzzing, send over new concepts and ideas. We’re meeting soon to go over things.

So much left to do, much of which is just up to me to work through, some of which may be prioritized differently day to day and depending on which assets i receive/need/have to make. :

• Hero
  •  get hero graphics in,
  •  animating properly.
• Parse Json mazes
  • figure out how to parse image names in with the tmx file (maybe)
  • establish tile grid sizes
• or Create new sks mazes
• Menus
  • start menu loading first
    •      get play button going to first game scene
  • pause overlay or scene
  • Credits scene
• Illusions? may need to revisit this idea this summer
  • crop/mask
  • explore scenekit for enemies.
• Sound
  • find bandura/mandolin/string sounds/chords for up/down/left/right audio
    • right now i have a computer voice just saying the direction.
  • tweak background music.
  • explore using SKaudio with UDLR sounds to help you know if you are near/far from goal.
  • need hero movement sounds. perhaps some ambient ruins/castle sounds. Things sound stark.

Did a lot of research on how to mask out my illusion layer for the game. Still coming up with questionmarks.

Textures

Researched a way to quickly throw a repeating texture at things. Not something you get for free with SpriteKit. I’ve been advised to look at Scenekit for a solution.

Graphics

I started stubbing in some basic screens/scenes using either quick random layouts or using assets from http://www.kenney.nl  My hope is that by showing my artists what I’m looking for they’ll be able to get up to speed and either modify or recreate some tiles in our style.

Shared a link explaining the basics of  how to make tile sprites for games.

Fashion reference

Oy, I picked up some bug at the conference and was pretty much too sick to do any substantial development.

Swift version updated, so I did start going through and removing the C style if/then loops, because I’m getting warnings now about their deprecation soon.

Some movement on design, the artists posted a brief wireframe (different from my earlier wireframe in Log 6) to our Invision project.

March 25th–26th, 2016

Not much happened project-wise, due to my attendance at CocoaConf Chicago.

I did meet a lot of fantastic people, and attended some very though provoking sessions on Swift. With time I hope I’ll be able to unwrap all the knowledge that I downloaded straight into my brain.

Some of the sessions I checked out were:

• Thinking in Swift with Daniel Steinberg
• Getting Metal up and Running – Janie Clayton
• Localization Explained – Ellen Shapiro
  • A bit of forethought will save hours of fixing up your app for a global audience.
• Swift on Linux – William LaFrance
• Grow your Community to Grow your Audience – Jean MacDonald
  • Get ‘In’ by showing up.
• Gaps, Niches and Expertise – Basics of App Store Success John Voorhees
• When you are on stage – T. J. Usiyan
• #NoExcuses – Jaimee NewBerry
  •  excellent talk, and fellow Nano-er, I gave her a copy of my Graphic Novel originally a NanoWrimo novel
• Being a Subject Matter Expert – Marcus Zarra
• Camera Does What? — Walter Tyree
• GamePlayKit – Josh Smith
  • can’t wait to dig into this.

I also joined the Breakpoints Jam and played ukulele.  (you can see me in the back next to the awesome Jean MacDonald.

Artists are out on Spring Break.

I did find some info on Ukrainian Castles. Hope that can inspire us.

I made some headway on sound design, deciding to focus on folk music.

Found an adorable lullaby about a sassy grey cat – and a YouTube video where I could hear it sung.  The link also had a midi version of the song, which I grabbed.

I found some other nice audio options at archive.org

Dream Passes By The Window CC – more info  Folk songs from over the Dniester captured Eugenia Yaroshinsky

Tutorial:

Learned a bit about SKLabelNode

Initially, when I added a lives counter to the child node, I could not seem to make the custom font appear.

This link helped me realize i needed to make sure the custom font was included in the build phase for the bindle.

How to add a true type font to an iOS project

I’m still having some hero control issues. I kept going over my code, finding little things that seem to help, but not fix my problem. ah, debugging… I ended up using git to help me compare code to the example code.  Seems that I had some variables set as optional vs required, and vice versa.

A friend told me that many of my errors were symptoms of CopyPasta. I’ll have to keep an eye on that type of thing in the future.

Exploring:

So, after all this 7 hours of tutorial, several other hours of debugging and research, I realized that this project would be a good candidate to use the GamePlayKit features for the things I want to do.

2015 WWDC Intro to GameplayKit

GameplayKit DemoBots

At this point, I’m not sure if I’ll be using them or not. Either way, programming the basics by hand will understand a bit of what GameplayKit is offering. I’m trying not to get sidetracked and stuck in a loop of constantly reworking the foundations. I could push that further out on the timeline.

Completion is always of more value than perfection. 

My next goal is to start getting things ready/resized to work for iPad sized devices and the level art, as well as making some new maps, add a timer, and change out the sounds.

Here is a bonus  A movie called “The Guide”  recently was released at international film contests regarding Kobczars and Stalin.