What does "SIMULATED (this is NOT a crash)" mean in iOS crash report?

Question

Recently we've started to see crash reports with the following:

Exception Type:  00000020
Exception Codes: 0x000000008badf00d
Exception Note:  SIMULATED (this is NOT a crash)
Highlighted by Thread:  0

Application Specific Information:
com.mycompany.myapp failed to scene-update after 10.00s

These crash reports are coming from iOS devices being used by our users 'out in the wild'.

I've dealt with crash reports with failed to scene-update before (usually just some process taking too long that is called from a system callback that shouldn't block), but I've not seen either SIMULATED (this is NOT a crash) or Highlighted by Thread before.

Does anyone know exactly what these new bits of information mean? Do they simply refer to the failed to scene-update issue or do they convey any additional meaning. Also does anyone know if there are other possible values for Exception Note?

Answer 1

According to Apple (see the Tech Notes under Other Exception Types), the exception code 8badf00d means

the application took too long to launch, terminate, or respond to system events.

Also it is suggested that whatever is on Thread 0 should be moved to a background thread.

Now in regards to Exception Note: SIMULATED (this is NOT a crash), iOS won't crash your app if you're running with a debugger and/or in a simulator, therefore it gives you the hint that the app is running SIMULATED and this is NOT a crash. But you should review the part that causes the warning as your app will most likely be terminated if it blocks the main thread for too long.

Answer 2

From Apple's developer website.

If this field contains SIMULATED (this is NOT a crash) then the process did not crash, but was killed at the request of the system, typically the watchdog.

Understanding and Analyzing Application Crash Reports (developer.apple.com)