iOS Simulator takes extremely long time to boot first time

Question

I'm trying to run an iOS simulator (Xcode 7.0.1, OS X Yosemite). However, the first time I run the simulator, it takes a very long time to boot up (80-120 seconds), which is causing my automation testing to time out. If I close the simulator and re-launch the same one, it will boot up in about 5-8 seconds. Launching a different device will cause the long boot up time again.

I have tried resetting the content and settings of the simulator, deleting and re-downloading simulators, and uninstalling and reinstalling Xcode.

This machine is a Parallels Desktop VM running on a 2012 Mac Mini. While I do not believe this to be a resource issue (the simulator runs just fine with the second launch), I have tried increasing ram and video memory to the VM with no success.

Answer 1

Had the same issue after updating to Xcode 7 on my iMac (late 2013). And yesterday I've succeeded to resolve it by doing 2 steps (unfortunately, I don't know which did really help):

1. I had Xcode 6 installed side by side with Xcode 7. So I've deleted Xcode 6 instance.
2. Open Xcode 7, go to Window -> Devices and delete all listed iOS simulators you have there. Close & re-start Xcode. Go to Window -> Devices again and add only simulators you need (in my case I've added iPhone 6 iOS 8, iPhone 6s iOS 9, iPad Air 2 iOS 9). You can add more simulators later on as you need them. Also, not sure if this is critical, I've selected no paired watchOS device for simulators I've added.

After completing these steps, my simulator cold start was significantly imporoved - it takes now like 30-40seconds max for a cold start. Before that it was 3-4minutes and first debugger attach attempt always failed.

Hope, this will be helpful for somebody.