The last three days have been a mini-nightmare for my Mancala project. It started when I began to use git to manage my beta builds in TestFlight in order to use crashlogs I receive in the future.
So on Friday, I tested out using git to make a new branch for the next build, 1.2.3. After I branched, I got an error saying my .pbxproj file was missing, and my project could not be compiled. I didn’t even know I had a .pbxproj file! So I created a new dummy project, took its .pbxproj file and injected it into my project and tried in vain to resolve my build errors.
Saturday, I kept trying but my simulator still wouldn’t run my app. After wasting hours on trying to repair the workspace, and trying to start with a fresh workspace, I finally found the lost .pbxproj file of the original project. It had been committed to the master branch but had not been brought over to my new branch for Build_1.2.3. It appears that this will fix things.
This morning I confirmed that reinjecting the original project.pbxproj file into my original .xcodeproj archive allows everything to compile normally. I had to create new copies of some source files for my new branch but I was able to successfully build and run the project, which is a huge relief. I was so close to deleting my project, and at one point, Googling “how to uninstall xcode completely”!! I was able to reorganize git and continue updating documentation in my source code. Now I know to be careful to:
- Always make a backup of the .xcodeproj and/or its internal .pbxproj archive
- Commit the .pbxproj file and don’t panic if nothing works anymore, you just need to commit a copy to the new branch.
Helpful links
These links all show people with the same problem I had, but from different causes. They did not give me the solution but they helped me out. They may help you:
cant find the .pbxproj file in xcode
git cannot open .pbxproj file error after renaming xcode project and pulling
how to resolve project.pbxproj file issue in xcode
.xcodeproj cannot be opened because it is missing its project.pbxproj file
similar problem on vapor’s github issues
Permission errors
At one point I was trying to recreate my project in a new project, and I copied everything from the old workspace to the new one, so I was getting odd permission errors. I will include some of what I found here if anyone is interested, but be careful.
the file myapp.app couldn’t be opened because you don’t have permission
failed to chmod user library developer coresimulator devices no such file or dir
error while building project: xcode says you don’t have permission
how to fix mac os x file permissions
xcode 9.4 the file my app couldn’t be opened because you don’t have permission
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