Why is Xcode taking forever to install/launch app?

Ever since Xcode 15 and iOS 17 came out development has quite often been a nightmare of waiting and waiting -Xcode displaying endless circles saying preparing the device, connecting to the device, installing the device.

But recently to add to this, installation and launching is just taking really forever.

I'm currently running Xcode 15.1 and various versions of iOS 17 (I have several phones) and installing the app from Xcode takes about 7 - 10 minutes (compared to the same app installing in seconds with Xcode 14 for example).

Then once its finally installed, it then takes further minutes to launch, Xcode often actually displays a dialog saying its taking longer than expected to launch the app, adding the footnote "LLDB is likely reading from device memory to resolve symbols."

What could be reasons, and solutions, for the excruciatingly slow installation time, and launch time? I really need to find a solution to this please - making a code change tweak, running, making another, running, making another, running, just isn't possible given the length of time it takes to install and launch each time.

The iPhone is connected via physical cable to the Mac, and the Mac and iPhone are both on the same Wifi network.

Xcode 15.1 M1 Macbook Pro Sonomo 14.0 iOS 17.2

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Posted by
mungbeans
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  • Mac M1 on macOS Sonoma Version 14.3.1 absolute nightmare working with the xCode... debugger not attaching, take ages to attach (and without debugger)... So tired of this!

    —
    thatdayinlondon
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Same Problem here... The problem started after I updated the XCode 15.2

Posted by
levansuper
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Same problem. Spins forever on 'Attaching to Runner on iPhone' and 'Installing Runner to iPhone'. 30+ mins... haven't found if it ever finishes.

Posted by
thildebrand
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Same here, Xcode 15.2 and iOS 17.2. It actually worked on Intel but not on M3 Max. Maybe that's the issue. I noticed it works better on a real device.

Posted by
Sebastian_Strus
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Same problem here. Xcode 15.2

Posted by
giria
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Same here. I had this problem with Xcode 15.1 and now with 15.2

Posted by
gfo_
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Also been running into this a lot over the past few months. Sometimes it's blazingly fast (<1-2 seconds), right now it's been more than a minute and the app is only ~20% "installed" based on the progress circle on the app icon.

Posted by
featherless
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Installing the app has become worse.

It'll be fine one minutes, will install and run quickly, and then next go it'll take about 10 minutes. It knows its taking a long because it says its taking longer than usual and do you want to proceed? If you say yes, you still have 10 or more minutes to wait.

Once its started doing this I've not found any way of making it right again other than to restart the Mac and the phone. The problem is, whenever you restart a phone, then you then have to wait 5 minutes while Xcode says "Preparing the iPhone", even if its already prepared it a trillion times before. So you can't win.

Posted by
mungbeans
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  • As a workaround, restarting only the iPhone works for me, but has to prepare like @mungbeans said. Even after upgrading my MacOS from Ventura to Sonoma the problem persists.

    Current versions:

    Mac: Sonoma 14.3.1Xcode: Version 15.2 (15C500b)iPhone: iOS 17.4.1
    —
    muffinman2497
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