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How to detect or opt out of iOS app prewarming?
Hi, We are running into issues with iOS app prewarming, where the system launches our app before the user has entered their passcode. In our case, the app stores flags, counters, and session data in UserDefaults and the Keychain. During prewarm launches: UserDefaults only returns default values (nil, 0, false). We have no way of knowing whether this information is valid or just a placeholder caused by prewarming. Keychain items with kSecAttrAccessibleAfterFirstUnlockThisDeviceOnly are inaccessible, which can lead to broken business logic (the app can assume no session exists). No special launch options or environment variables appear to be set. We can reproduce this 100% of the time by starting a Live Activity in the app before reboot. Here’s an example of the workaround we tried, following older recommendations: __attribute__((constructor)) static void ModuleInitializer(void) { char* isPrewarm = getenv("ActivePrewarm"); if (isPrewarm != NULL && isPrewarm[0] == '1') { exit(0); // prevent prewarm launch from proceeding } } On iOS 16+, the ActivePrewarm environment variable doesn’t seem to exist anymore (though older docs and SDKs such as Sentry reference it). We also tried listening for UIApplication.protectedDataDidBecomeAvailableNotification, but this is not specific to prewarming (it also fires when the device gets unlocked) and can cause watchdog termination if we delay work too long. Questions: Is there a supported way to opt out of app prewarming? What is the correct way to detect when an app is being prewarmed? Is the ActivePrewarm environment variable still supported in iOS 16+? Ideally, the UserDefaults API itself should indicate whether it is returning valid stored values or defaults due to the app being launched in a prewarm session. We understand opting out may impact performance, but data security and integrity are our priority. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
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Oct ’25