Having app restart itself when it detects change to privacy settings

Question

I have an app that uses the ALAssets framework to access to the users photo library. I wrote some code that detects whether or not the app has permission to access the photo library, and if it doesn't, I display an alert message which tells the user to turn on location services for the app in settings.

Problem is, when the user manually changes the privacy settings and then they reopen the app, iOS forces the app to crash with SIGKILL.

I've noticed that the way another app handles this is by somehow detecting a change in the privacy settings, and forcing the app to restart the next time the user opens it. Does anyone know how to accomplish this?

Answer 1

You misunderstand what is happening. Your app is not crashing (though it may appear so if you are running the app with the debugger).

When you switch to the Settings app (and your app is suspended in the background) and change the privacy settings, suspended apps are terminated. When you switch back to your app, it is simply started again. This is no different than your app being killed for any other reason.

It is up to you to code your app to handle this by restoring its previous state. The other app you talk about is simply returning the user to the previous state. Many apps do this. It has nothing to do with being killed due to privacy changes. The app would restore state when being killed for any reason.