imnotyourson

Your code and agents are scapegoats; I want you to be nice to it.

Xcode 26 hides iOS Simulators? Check EXCLUDED_ARCHS

xcodeioscocoapods

Upgrade to Xcode 26 and your project loses every simulator from the destination picker. The dropdown shows only Any iOS Simulator Device and so do xcodebuild?

$ xcodebuild -workspace MyApp.xcworkspace -scheme MyApp -showdestinations
    { platform:iOS Simulator, id:dvtdevice-DVTiOSDeviceSimulatorPlaceholder-iphonesimulator:placeholder, name:Any iOS Simulator Device }

Diagnosis:

  • xcrun simctl list devices: shows every simulator
  • xcrun xctrace list devices: shows every simulator
  • Fresh iOS project on the same Mac and Xcode: shows every simulator
  • Your project (both Xcode UI and xcodebuild): missing every simulator
  • Your porject use CocoaPods as package manager

The cause

CocoaPods detects vendored binaries that lack an arm64-for-simulator slice and injects this into the aggregate xcconfig:

EXCLUDED_ARCHS[sdk=iphonesimulator*] = arm64

Common triggers are pre-xcframework SDKs that still ship as fat .a or fat .framework: For me, they are WeChat, Tencent QQ, Geetest, older AliPay, older ad networks. Find yours:

grep -RIn "EXCLUDED_ARCHS\[sdk=iphonesimulator" Pods/Target\ Support\ Files/

Each match points to a pod whose binary triggered the exclude. lipo -info on that binary will show something like:

Architectures in the fat file: libFoo.a are: armv7 i386 x86_64 arm64

The arm64 slice is for iOS device, not for iOS Simulator. A fat binary cannot carry both, which is why .xcframework exists.

Older Xcode let you pick a simulator destination anyway and failed at link time. Xcode 26 filters destinations with no buildable arch at enumeration time. Your Apple Silicon Mac only has arm64 simulators. Exclude arm64 and the destination resolver has nothing to show.

The fix

Shadow the Pods setting at project level. Open project.pbxproj and, in every build configuration’s settings block, set:

"EXCLUDED_ARCHS[sdk=iphonesimulator*]" = "";

If a line with = arm64 already exists, change the value to "". If not, add it. Project-level settings override the Pods aggregate xcconfig, and the empty value defeats the SDK-conditional exclude.

Same effect from the Xcode UI: Project (not Target) → Build Settings → Excluded Architectures → expand the row → set “Any iOS Simulator SDK” to empty, for each configuration.