Lightning-based MFI accessory immediately disconnects

On iOS 13 GM Seed and iPadOS beta 8, a lightning-based MFI accessory that our app has integrated with for many years is not functioning properly. It connects but then immediately disconnects.


We are in contact with the hardware manufacturer, but is there anything we can do in software to better debug, or are there ExternalAccessory framework changes in iOS 13 that require us to interact with the hardware differently?


Our usage is very straightforward, we use EAAccessoryManager to respond to EAAccessoryDidConnectNotification, when the device conforms to the supported protocol we set up an EASession. This code is largely unchanged since 2010 when we first integrated with hardware using the 30-pin dock connector.


What we're seeing is just a couple seconds after setting up the EASession we receive accessoryDidDisconnect: to the session delegate.


Here's some relevant log files. The CoreAccessories log dumps a big structure of info about the hardware that I'm not particularly inclined to post on the public forum but I could include in a radar or I could follow up with specific key values if they're relevant. Nothing in them seems to indicate an error condition.


2019-09-12 14:51:59.218390-0700 MyApp[575:32560] CoreAccessories accessoryInfo for arrival = [REDACTED]
2019-09-12 14:51:59.224119-0700 MyApp[575:32560] eaAccessory CoreAccessoryPrimaryUUID = 156E2F50-E8FB-4DAE-8D9D-E22A818BDBFC
2019-09-12 14:52:00.229366-0700 MyApp[575:32560] accessoryd sessionResult = 1, useSocketInterace = 1, sessionID = 0x5
2019-09-12 14:52:00.229645-0700 MyApp[575:32560] socketPath from app = /var/mobile/Library/ExternalAccessory/ea.17980641621479541998
2019-09-12 14:52:02.677848-0700 MyApp[575:32560] CoreAccessories accessoryInfo for departure = [REDACTED]
2019-09-12 14:52:02.679972-0700 MyApp[575:32560] Removing EASession 0DA997E0-A893-4A8B-B11D-30116BAD70E9 from list

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Replies

Seems like this does not repro on iOS 13.1 beta 3. But that puts us in a bit of an awkward spot where our customers will be out of luck from Sept 19-30. Plus it's not very clear when 13.1 will be available for iPad.

Update: The hardware manufactuerer says it is not entirely fixed in iOS 13.1 beta 3.

It was not resolved in 13.1, though early testing suggests it may be resolved in 13.2 (17B5068e).