Xcode 11 - "Couldn't communicate with a helper application." when attempting to add Swift Package

Question

I am having problems when I attempt to add a new Swift Package to my project.

On Xcode 11.3.1 I receive a "Couldn't communicate with a helper application." error message.

PS with Xcode 11.4 the error message has changed to "Communication with the service was interrupted."

Crash Report

Having looked in the console app I can see a com.apple.dt.Xcode.sourcecontrol.Git crash is occuring. I've uploaded the crash report here...

https://gist.github.com/OliverPearmain/0320f34d6381d1bb7900ff266fc8d703

Answer 1

I've finally worked out what this was. I had something in my ~/.gitconfig file which Xcode obviously did't like.

I worked this out by removing the ~/.gitconfig and then retrying (and it worked). Then I tried removing parts of the ~/.gitconfig contents bit by bit.

Evntually I idenitified that this was the section causing the issue.

[includeIf "gitdir:~/some/path/"]
    path = "~/some/path/.gitconfig_include"

This section works in other contexts. No idea why it causes Xcode to barf.

Answer 2

In my case the issue was caused by empty email line in ~/.gitconfig.

Changing "email = " to "email = example.email.com" helped.