iPhone Debugging: How to resolve 'failed to get the task for process'?

158
votes

I have just added a provisioning profile to XCode (needed to support notifications and in app purchase), setup as needed the build configuration for ad hoc distribution, and tried to run the app on the device (I have done this several times in the past, without any problem).

The app is installed, but it does not start. On the console, I see the following message:

Error launching remote program: failed to get the task for process 82.
Error launching remote program: failed to get the task for process 82.
The program being debugged is not being run.
The program being debugged is not being run.

However, if I start the application on the device manually, it works as expected. I have recently installed the latest XCode 3.2 for Snow Leopard. Is this a known bug of this version of XCode or am I doing something wrong?

EDIT: It works fine with release distribution using the development provisioning profile. I have checked again the ad hoc provisioning profile to make sure it includes the device I am using.

15
xcodeprovisioningadhoc
also this may help: go to Organizer -> Projects -> DerivedData delete and clean. Make sure all the signings in Project and Target are set consistently and correctly - this helped in my case.... – user387184

15 Answers

110
votes

I have had problems debugging binaries on the device via XCode when the app includes an Entitlements.plist file, which is not necessary to install onto the device for debugging. In general, then, I have included this file for release builds (where it is required for the App Store) and removed it for debugging (so I can debug the app from XCode). That may be your problem here.

Update: As of (at least) August 2010 (iPhone 4.1 SDK) the Entitlements.plist is no longer necessary to include in your application in many cases (e.g., distribution through the App Store.) See here for more information on the cases when Entitlements.plist is required:

IMPORTANT: An Entitlements file is generally only needed when building for Ad Hoc Distribution or enabling Keychain data sharing. If neither of these is true, delete the entry in Code Signing Entitlements. (emphasis mine)

289
votes

The ad-hoc profile doesn't support debugging. You need to debug with a Development profile, and use the Ad-Hoc profile only for distributing non-debuggable copies.

37
votes

I Had the same issue, but resolved it by following simple following steps :

  1. Make sure you have selected debug rather than release.
  2. In Debug configurations, in project settings, you should have selected developer's profile & no need of specifying the entitlements plist.
  3. Also same setting are there under: Targets: , if not manuall change them to the above for the debug config. It will work.

All the best.

19
votes

This took me a while to figure out.

If you are using a distribution / ad hoc/ profile you cannot test it through xcode. You will get the error: The program being debugged is not being run.

You can build the app, go to the products folder in your app in xcode, click on the file with your project name and choose reveal in finder. You can drag this app into into iTunes and sync and that point you can test your app on your device.

13
votes

If you are getting such error, the only reason could be you using a Distribution profile rather than a development profile in Xcode or a missing Entitlement property. If you are not using the Entitlements.plist, then the only possible error could be the app is getting packaged with a distribution profile. You could verify this confirming the build logs. To change this, go to Build Setting of the project and verify Code Signing Entity setting. For debugging to work, this setting should be a developer profile for the configuration that you are currently using.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#qa/qa1682/_index.html

For instant results, delete all mobile provisioning profiles from xcode and install the developer profile that you intend to use.

13
votes

Almost 2hrs on this issue! And finally I solved it by replacing the

iPhone Developer

to

iPhone Developer: My Dev Account Name

for Debug's CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY:

  1. Select Project Target
  2. Build Settings
  3. Search by "code sign"
  4. Modify CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY section's Debug row with "iPhone Developer: My Dev Account Name", not just "iPhone Developer".

I've no idea why it works, but it does! At least for me!

Environment: Xcode 5.0 (5A1412).

12
votes

Check ur code signing section.make sure that the code signing is iPhoneDeveloper code signe

9
votes

Open Entitlements.plist and set the boolean value get-task-allow to YES - the debugger can attach now!

4
votes

Go to Edit Schemes and under Run -> Info -> Build Configuration, change from Ad-Hoc to Debug. Click OK to save.

1
votes

It might be that you have an expired development profile on your phone.

My development provisioning profile expired several days ago and I had to renew it. I installed the new profile on my phone and came up with the same error message when I tried to run my app. When I looked at the profile settings on my phone I noticed the expired profile and removed it. That cleared the error for me.

1
votes

I received this error when I tried to launch app from Xcode as I figured I had selected distribution profile only. Build was successful so I created .ipa file. I used testflightapp.com to run the app. You can use iTunes as well.

1
votes

As stated by Buffernet, you cannot use a distribution provisioning profile to debug. When I switched to a developer provisioning profile, I got the error "A Valid Provisioning Profile For This Executable Was Not Found".

A quick google for this lead me to the article listed below. From there, I realised that I hadn't got a valid development provisioning profile as my iPhone hadn't been added to the Provisioning Portal and all the other stuff involved.

Make sure you run an iPhone developer provisioning profile and your device has been added to the provisioning portal!

http://iosdevelopertips.com/xcode/a-valid-provisioning-profile-for-this-executable-was-not-found.html

0
votes

Yes , Provisioning profiles which are for distribution purpose, i.e. Distrutions provisioning profiles do not support debugging and gives this error. Simply create and use debug provisioning profile (take care of this when creating provisioning profile from developer.apple.com account).

0
votes

I just changed my bundleIdentifier name, that seemed to do the trick.

-1
votes

I've patched my project with JailCoder http://jailcoder.com/ and problem resolved. Just download It and drag your xcode project to It.