Unable to boot the iOS Simulator (ios 7.1)

Question

I am facing a problem. When I try to run the simulator iPhone 5s (iOS 7.1) a message pops up saying "

Unable to boot the iOS Simulator

". Though if I run the iPhone 5 or iPhone 4s simulators (iOS 7.1) or iPhone 5s (iOS 8.3/8.4) all work fine.

I am running OS X Yosemite (10.10.5), Xcode 6.4 and iOS simulator iPhone 5s (iOS 7.1).

Update:

CoreSimulator.log:
Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=60 "Unable to boot the iOS Simulator." UserInfo=0x7ffe8d94f990 {NSLocalizedDescription=Unable to boot the iOS Simulator., NSLocalizedFailureReason=launchd failed to respond.}

DiagnosticReports:
Crashed Thread: 0 Configuration error: Could not bind system logger socket.
Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_INSTRUCTION (SIGILL)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000001, 0x0000000000000000

Thank you.

Devonadevondra

Is it happening while app running or the simulator itself ? – Natoshanatron

Yes, I tried reseting it! it is the simulator itself! – Devonadevondra

Have the same issue when I upgraded from Yosemite to El Capitan simulator stopped working when trying to start it on iOS 7. Project is built successfully but simulator fails to load and the alert 'Unable to boot the iOS Simulator' appears. Moreover it is impossible to stop the launching process. Stop button is always active and Xcode doesn't terminates the launch process. Even if to quit the simulator "stop" button remains active and the only solution is open 'Active Monitor' and kill the Xcode manually. – Commensurate

I need to support the iOS 7 for my app, but Xcode 7 officially doesn't offer an option to launch the simulator < iOS 8 and Xcode 6 that as expected should do this with the latest MacOS upgrade (El Capitan) simply became inoperative no matter what to do: I re-installed Xcode, restarted the Mac etc. – Commensurate

Answer 1

For people having the "Unable to boot the iOS Simulator" issue while running Xcode 6.x under OS X 10.11 El Capitan, be warned that there is no effective solution as the iOS 7 simulator is functionally incompatible with El Cap.

See the following Apple Developer forum thread and read the response by jeremyhu:

https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/5612

"This is a specific incompatibility of the iOS 7.1 libxpc being too old to satisfy the needs of the host's libsystem_stats.dylib."

Posting this because I spent hours pounding my head into the wall trying to "fix" an unfixable problem.

Snotty

Answer 2

The "Unable to boot the iOS Simulator" error message usually appears as a result of CoreSimulator failing to kick off launchd_sim to boot the simulated device.

In your case, the issue is that launchd_sim is crashing on launch because it can't bind to the syslog socket, which is located at /private/tmp/com.apple.CoreSimulator.SimDevice.[DEVICE UDID].launchd_sim/syslogso

Try deleting /private/tmp/com.apple.CoreSimulator.SimDevice.*:

sudo rm -rf /private/tmp/com.apple.CoreSimulator.SimDevice.*

Scholium

worked on High Sierra Xcode 7.3.1 for a legacy project, thank you! – Teacart

Answer 3

This issue "Unable to Boot the iOS Simulator" exists because of System Integrity Protection in El Cap. Simulator is definitely compatible with El Capitan if you turn of SIP. Here is how to do it:

How to turn off System Integrity Protection in El Capitan:

Click the  menu. Select Restart...

Hold down command-R to boot into the Recovery System.

Click the Utilities MENU and select Terminal.

Type csrutil disable and press return.

Close the Terminal app.

Click the  menu and select Restart....

Run iOS Simulator Worked for me! Good Luck :)

Justinjustina

Looks like you have a character encoding issue in your response, what is the '' character meant to be? Is it the Apple menu you are referring too? – Hue

Yes its the Apple Menu :) – Justinjustina