Xcode greys out gpx files in filebox

Question

I hope I'm not overlooking anything, but I can't load gpx files into Xcode because they are greyed out in the filebox (see pic). This is in both location menues,

in the debugger/location menu (see pic below "Add GPX File to Project" and
the scema location menu. However, the presets (London etc) do work.

enter image description here

Selecting "Add GPX File to Project" gives me the greyed out gpx files:

enter image description here

It's fine and right that all other files are greyed out here, but gpx files should be not greyed out. BTW: it won't help to drag the file into the project, because it won't show up in the simulation location menu.

What magic do I need to get them to work? I'm using Xcode 4.6.2

The format I use is this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<gpx version="1.1" creator="Xcode"> 
<wpt lat="49.479606" lon="8.470395">
     <name>MannheimHbf</name>
</wpt>
</gpx>

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: meanwhile I've

created a new user on my Mac that should have a "clean" user path
reinstalled Xcode after deleting any settings and prefs I could find on the user and global domain (might have missed some though).
startet the Mac without kernel extensions

Any other ideas how to fix the problem out there?

Just tried Xcode 4.6.1 running in a virtual machine, and there it works. WOuld be interesting to hear, if it's working fine for anyone running Xcode 4.6.2 — brainray
I am using 4.6.2 and it is fine. I saw your other files are also greyed out, e.g. APSql.h and .m. — Valent Richie
@verbumdei thanks for confirming that it works in 4.6.2 for you. May I ask you in which country you are - in the past there was a bug for Europeans using the dot as decimal divider. And btw: it's fine that APSql.m is greyed out since it's not a gpx file ;-) — brainray
Is the missing closing tag </gpx> by any chance causing this issue? — Valent Richie
i deleted my answer after seeing your edits. i've cut-&-paste the sample text into Bern5.gpx using emacs, then followed your steps in Xcode Version 4.6.2 (4H1003), but did not encounter the problem with the file being unable to be added. i tried (a) removing the newline at the end of the file; (b) changing the line-endings to several types (DOS, Mac, plain unix); and (c) adding the file after already having added it. Xcode showed the file normally to be added in all cases. i performed a "Get Info" on the file, and it says it's a GPX file, default open by Xcode, with a proper preview icon. — john.k.doe

Sascha Held Sascha Held · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-04T07:18:20

We tracked the problem down to a defective ContentType-Declaration of the file. Introduced in Mac OS X Snow Leopard files will no longer recognized by it's extension (as we all know it from old unix times) - instead there is some meta information for each file which holds a Content Type.

You can see those meta-data for each file with the help of the terminal utility called mdls. So in this example we create an empty *.gpx-file via touch and display its meta-data:

% touch bla.gpx                                              <Tuesday 09:11:23>
saschaheld@Saschas-MacBook-Pro:~
% mdls bla.gpx                                               <Tuesday 09:11:25>
kMDItemContentCreationDate     = 2013-06-04 07:11:25 +0000
kMDItemContentModificationDate = 2013-06-04 07:11:25 +0000
kMDItemContentType             = "com.apple.dt.document.gpx"
kMDItemContentTypeTree         = (
    "com.apple.dt.document.gpx",
    "public.xml",
    "public.text",
    "public.data",
    "public.item",
    "public.content"
)
kMDItemDateAdded               = 2013-06-04 07:11:25 +0000
kMDItemDisplayName             = "bla.gpx"
kMDItemFSContentChangeDate     = 2013-06-04 07:11:25 +0000
kMDItemFSCreationDate          = 2013-06-04 07:11:25 +0000
kMDItemFSCreatorCode           = ""
kMDItemFSFinderFlags           = 0
kMDItemFSHasCustomIcon         = 0
kMDItemFSInvisible             = 0
kMDItemFSIsExtensionHidden     = 0
kMDItemFSIsStationery          = 0
kMDItemFSLabel                 = 0
kMDItemFSName                  = "bla.gpx"
kMDItemFSNodeCount             = 0
kMDItemFSOwnerGroupID          = 20
kMDItemFSOwnerUserID           = 501
kMDItemFSSize                  = 0
kMDItemFSTypeCode              = ""
kMDItemKind                    = "GPX File"
kMDItemLogicalSize             = 0
kMDItemPhysicalSize            = 0

So as you can see the file extension *.gpx assigned per default to the content type "com.apple.dt.document.gpx". In this specific problem the default extension - contenttype-mapping was modified by an third party application (called Adze (http://kobotsw.com)) which results in Xcode not recognizing the file correctly.

The easiest way to fix this problem is by resetting your spotlight index via the system preferences. Open the Spotlight-Prefpane, switch to the Privacy-Tab and drag your Macintosh-Volume (/) into the TableView - After you have saved this settings, you can remove the Macintosh-Volume from the TableView, which will result in a complete spotlight reindex.

Please keep in Mind, that the reindexing can take some time depending on your amount of files, read speed and volume size.

Xcode greys out gpx files in filebox

3 Answers