yah, for now I just don't run that step except for install builds and that seemed to solve the problem. It's not a critical step except for release builds, so it makes sense. I was posting this because none of the other solutions people were posting were relevant to my problem and now that I've figured it out, I wanted to leave a "trail".

Another note, and this is a constant headache with respect to "WWDC videos as documentation"... the video referenced in that post (WWDC 2020 Session 10063 Background execution demystified) doesn't seem to be available - at least not at the link in the post, and even after some searching... I did find https://wwdcnotes.com/documentation/wwdcnotes/wwdc20-10063-background-execution-demystified/ which I gather is unofficial (at best?)

Well, our app works fine on iOS 17.6.1 when built locally in XCode 16RC- its only when its built in XCode Cloud and distributed in Testflight that we are seeing the launch crash in iOS 17.6.1 I'm hoping this issue magically goes away by the time 16RC becomes Xcode 16.0 on XCode Cloud...