General: Forums subtopic: App & System Services > Processes & Concurrency Forums tag: Background Tasks Background Tasks framework documentation UIApplication background tasks documentation ProcessInfo expiring activity documentation Using background tasks documentation for watchOS Performing long-running tasks on iOS and iPadOS documentation WWDC 2020 Session 10063 Background execution demystified — This is critical resource. Watch it! [1] WWDC 2022 Session 10142 Efficiency awaits: Background tasks in SwiftUI WWDC 2025 Session 227 Finish tasks in the background — This contains an excellent summary of the expected use cases for each of the background task types. iOS Background Execution Limits forums post UIApplication Background Task Notes forums post Testing and Debugging Code Running in the Background forums post Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" [1] Sadly the video is currently not available from Apple. I’ve left the link in place just in case it comes back.

I implemented BGContinuedProcessingTask in my app and it seems to be working well for everyone except one user (so far) who has reached out to report nothing happens when they tap the Start Processing button. They have an iPhone 12 Pro Max running iOS 26.1. Restarting iPhone does not fix it. When they turn off the background processing feature in the app, it works. In that case my code directly calls the function to start processing instead of waiting for it to be invoked in the register block (or submit catch block). Is this a bug that's possible to occur, maybe device specific? Or have I done something wrong in the implementation? func startProcessingTapped(_ sender: UIButton) { if isBackgroundProcessingEnabled { startBackgroundContinuedProcessing() } else { startProcessing(backgroundTask: nil) } } func startBackgroundContinuedProcessing() { BGTaskScheduler.shared.register(forTaskWithIdentifier: taskIdentifier, using: .main) { @Sendable [weak self] task in guard self != nil else { return } startProcessing(backgroundTask: task as? BGContinuedProcessingTask) } let request = BGContinuedProcessingTaskRequest(identifier: taskIdentifier, title: title, subtitle: subtitle) request.strategy = .fail if BGTaskScheduler.supportedResources.contains(.gpu) { request.requiredResources = .gpu } do { try BGTaskScheduler.shared.submit(request) } catch { startProcessing(backgroundTask: nil) } } func startProcessing(backgroundTask: BGContinuedProcessingTask?) { // FIXME: Never called for this user when isBackgroundProcessingEnabled is true }

Testing Environment: iOS: 26.0 Beta 7 Xcode: Beta 6 Description: We are implementing the new BGContinuedProcessingTask API introduced in iOS 26. We have followed the official documentation and WWDC session guidance to configure our project. The Background Modes (processing) and Background GPU Access capabilities have been added in Xcode. The com.apple.developer.background-tasks.continued-processing.gpu entitlement is present and set to in the .entitlements file. The provisioning profile details viewed within Xcode explicitly show that the "Background GPU Access" capability and the corresponding entitlement are included. Despite this correct configuration, when running the app on supported hardware (iPhone 16 Pro), a call to BGTaskScheduler.supportedResources.contains(.gpu) consistently returns false. This prevents us from setting request.requiredResources = .gpu. As a result, when the BGContinuedProcessingTask starts without the GPU resource flag, our internal Metal-based exporter attempts to access the GPU and is terminated by the system, throwing an IOGPUMetalError: Insufficient Permission (to submit GPU work from background). We have performed extensive debugging, including a full reset of the provisioning profile (removing/re-adding capabilities, toggling automatic signing, cleaning build folders, and reinstalling the app), but the issue persists. This strongly suggests a bug in the iOS 26 beta where the runtime is failing to correctly validate a valid entitlement. Additionally, we've observed inconsistent behavior across devices. On an A16-based iPad, the task submits successfully (BGTaskScheduler.submit does not throw an error), but the launch handler is never invoked by the system. On the iPhone 16 Pro, the handler is invoked, but we encounter the supportedResources issue described above. This leads us to ask for clarification on the exact hardware requirements for this feature. We hypothesize that it may be limited to devices that support Apple Intelligence (A17 Pro and newer). Could you please confirm this and provide official documentation on the device support criteria? Steps to Reproduce: Create a new Xcode project. In Signing & Capabilities, add "Background Modes" (with "Background processing" checked) and "Background GPU Access". Add a permitted identifier (e.g., "com.company.test.*") to BGTaskSchedulerPermittedIdentifiers in Info.plist. In application(_:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:) or a ViewController's viewDidLoad, log the result of BGTaskScheduler.shared.supportedResources.contains(.gpu). Build and run on a physical, supported device (e.g., iPhone 16 Pro). Expected Results: The log should indicate that BGTaskScheduler.shared.supportedResources.contains(.gpu) returns true. Actual Results: The log shows that BGTaskScheduler.shared.supportedResources.contains(.gpu) returns false.

Greetings.I have an app today that uses multipeer connectivity extensively. Currently, when the user switches away from the app, MPC disconnects the session(s) - this is by design apparently (per other feedback). I'd like to hear if anyone has experimented with iOS9 multitasking / multipeer and whether MPC sessions can stay alive?Thanks

Hi everyone, I’m encountering an unexpected Keychain behavior in a production environment and would like to confirm whether this is expected or if I’m missing something. In my app, I store a deviceId in the Keychain based on the classic KeychainItemWrapper implementation. I extended it by explicitly setting: kSecAttrAccessible = kSecAttrAccessibleAfterFirstUnlock My understanding is that kSecAttrAccessibleAfterFirstUnlock should allow Keychain access while the app is running in the background, as long as the device has been unlocked at least once after reboot. However, after the app went live, I observed that when the app performs background execution (e.g., triggered by background tasks / silent push), Keychain read attempts intermittently fail with: errSecInteractionNotAllowed (-25308) This seems inconsistent with the documented behavior of kSecAttrAccessibleAfterFirstUnlock. Additional context: The issue never occurs in foreground. The issue does not appear on development devices. User devices are not freshly rebooted when this happens. The Keychain item is created successfully; only background reads fail. Setting the accessibility to kSecAttrAccessibleAfterFirstUnlockThisDeviceOnly produces the same result. Questions: Under what circumstances can kSecAttrAccessibleAfterFirstUnlock still cause a -25308 error? Is there any known restriction when accessing Keychain while the app is running in background execution contexts? Could certain system states (Low Power Mode, Background App Refresh conditions, device lock state, etc.) cause Keychain reads to be blocked unexpectedly? Any insights or similar experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Currently I am trying to find a work around to fetch data from server and update user defaults when app is forced quit. Can anyone suggest for this ?

I’m looking for an authoritative answer on how BGAppRefreshTask behaves after a user force-quits an app (swipes it away in the App Switcher). My app relies on early-morning background refresh to prepare and schedule notifications based on user-defined thresholds and weather forecasts. Behavior across devices seems inconsistent, however: sometimes a scheduled background refresh still runs, and other times it appears completely blocked. Apple’s documentation doesn’t clearly state what should happen, and developer discussions conflict. Could someone from Apple please clarify: Will a previously scheduled BGAppRefreshTask run after the user force-quits the app? If not, is there a recommended alternative for time-sensitive updates that must schedule user alerts? What is the expected system behavior regarding the predictability of background refresh after a force-quit? A definitive answer would help ensure the app aligns with intended system behavior. Thanks!

Hello everybody! I'm currently working on a Bluetooth Low Energy Sync that is using BGTaskScheduler & successfully running periodically in the Background on iOS 26. I did watch this years WWDC Session 227 (Finish tasks in the background) & follow the recommendations as suggested. Currently, the App is only using 37 Mb (iPhone 12 mini) & no Location or other services are running in Background. However, when opening Safari & scrolling through some webpages, the App is killed because of "Terminated due to memory issue". I profiled the App & followed advice when it comes to reducing the memory footprint of the App. Are there any additional steps I can take to prevent the App being killed? Are there any recommendations for periodically scheduled Tasks when it comes to the Interval? Do more frequent Tasks (30min compared to one or two hours) have any impact? I tried many different schedules but none seem to make a difference. From my observation, the App is first suspended & eventually killed because of the Memory Pressure. Any hints, suggestions or recommendations are highly appreciated! Thanks a lot for the support!

I've adopted the new BGContinuedProcessingTask in iOS 26, and it has mostly been working well in internal testing. However, in production I'm getting reports of the tasks failing when the app is put into the background. A bit of info on what I'm doing: I need to download a large amount of data (around 250 files) and process these files as they come down. The size of the files can vary: for some tasks each file might be around 10MB. For other tasks, the files might be 40MB. The processing is relatively lightweight, but the volume of data means the task can potentially take over an hour on slower internet connections (up to 10GB of data). I set the totalUnitCount based on the number of files to be downloaded, and I increment completedUnitCount each time a file is completed. After some experimentation, I've found that smaller tasks (e.g. 3GB, 10MB per file) seem to be okay, but larger tasks (e.g. 10GB, 40MB per file) seem to fail, usually just a few seconds after the task is backgrounded (and without even opening any other apps). I think I've even observed a case where the task expired while the app was foregrounded! I'm trying to understand what the rules are with BGContinuedProcessingTask and I can see at least four possibilities that might be relevant: Is it necessary to provide progress updates at some minimum rate? For my larger tasks, where each file is ~40MB, there might be 20 or 30 seconds between progress updates. Does this make it more likely that the task will be expired? For larger tasks, the total time to complete can be 60–90 mins on slower internet connections. Is there some maximum amount of time the task can run for? Does the system attempt some kind of estimate of the overall time to complete and expire the task on that basis? The processing on each file is relatively lightweight, so most of the time the async stream is awaiting the next file to come down. Does the OS monitor the intensity of workload and suspend the task if it appears to be idle? I've noticed that the task UI sometimes displays a message, something along the lines of "Do you want to continue this task?" with a "Continue" and "Stop" option. What happens if the user simply ignores or doesn't see this message? Even if I tap "Continue" the task still seems to fail sometimes. I've read the docs and watched the WWDC video, but there's not a whole lot of information on the specific issues I mention above. It would be great to get some clarity on this, and I'd also appreciate any advice on alternative ways I could approach my specific use case.

I posted here https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/805554?page=1#867766022 but posting again for visibility (and let me know how I can file a bug) There was a response in that thread that said you could use the childProgress system to help updating progresses to keep the backgroundTask alive. What I've found is that using childProgresses results in more terminations than if you just updated the progress directly. Here is my setups to test this A BGContinuedProcessingTask that uses URLSessions to upload, and registers the task.progress with the Urlsession Progress Same, but the task.progress gets updated via a UrlSession Callback The second is MUCH more stable out in the field in cellular settings, the first fails extremely frequently. My suspicion is that in the documentation here https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/progress#Reporting-Progress-for-Multiple-Operations it explicitly states The completedUnitCount property for a containing progress object only updates when the suboperation is 100% complete. The fractionCompleted property for a containing progress object updates continuously as work progresses for all suboperations. I wonder if BGContinuedProcessingTask is only looking at completedUnitCount for progress, and not fractionCompleted? In either case, I would love to use the childProgresses because there are bugs with retries by updating the progress manually, so would love some help resolving this, Thanks!

Hello, I'm trying to adopt the new BGContinuedProcessingTask API, but I'm having a little trouble imagining how the API authors intended it be used. I saw the WWDC talk, but it lacked higher-level details about how to integrate this API, and I can't find a sample project. I notice that we can list wildcard background task identifiers in our Info.plist files now, and it appears this is to be used with continued tasks - a user might start one video encoding, then while it is ongoing, enqueue another one from the same app, and these tasks would have identifiers such as "MyApp.VideoEncoding.ABCD" and "MyApp.VideoEncoding.EFGH" to distinguish them. When it comes to implementing this, is the expectation that we: a) Register a single handler for the wildcard pattern, which then figures out how to fulfil each request from the identifier of the passed-in task instance? Or b) Register a unique handler for each instance of the wildcard pattern? Since you can't unregister handlers, any resources captured by the handler would be leaked, so you'd need to make sure you only register immediately before submission - in other words register + submit should always be called as a pair. Of course, I'd like to design my application to use this API as the authors intended it be used, but I'm just not entirely sure what that is. When I try to register a single handler for a wildcard pattern, the system rejects it at runtime (while allowing registrations for each instance of the pattern, indicating that at least my Info.plist is configured correctly). That points towards option B. If it is option B, it's potentially worth calling that out in documentation - or even better, perhaps introduce a new call just for BGContinuedProcessingTask instead of the separate register + submit calls? Thanks for your insight. K Aside: Also, it would be really nice if the handler closure would be async. Currently if you need to await on something, you need to launch an unstructured Task, but that causes issues since BGContinuedProcessingTask is not Sendable, so you can't pass it in to that Task to do things like update the title or mark the BGTask as complete.

I've tuned my task to be decently resilient, but I found a few issues that caused it to expire regularly. excessive CPU usage -> I'm actually running it behind ReactNative, and I found an issue where I was still updating ReactNative and thus it was keeping it alive the entire time the task was running. Removing this update helped improve stability not updating progress frequently enough ( see https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/809182?page=1#868247022) My feature request is, would it be possible to get a reason the task was expired in task.expirationHandler? That would be helpful for both the user and for debugging why the task was expired. Thanks!

Hi there, First thanks for all the work on BGContinuedProcessingTask! It looks really promising. I have a question / issue around the behavior when a BGContinuedProcessingTask expires. Here is my setup. I have an app who's responsible for uploading large files in the field (AKA wifi is not expected) For a given file, it can likely fail due to network conditions I'm using Multipart upload though so I can retry a file to pick up where it left off. I use one taskIdentifier per file, and when the file fails, I can retry the task and have it continue where it left off (I am reusing the taskIdentifier here for retries, let me know if I shouldn't be doing that) Here is the behavior I am seeing I start an upload, it seems to be uploading normally I turn on airplane mode to simulate expiration of the task the task fails as expected after ~30 seconds, and I see the failure in my home screen. I have callbacks in the task to put my app in the proper state on expiration / failure I turn back on airplane mode and I retry the task, the way I do this is I do NOT re-register, I simply re-submit the task with the same TaskIdentifier. What I would have expected is that the failure task is REPLACED with the new task and new progress. Instead what I see is TWO ContinuedBackgroundProcessingTasks, one in the failure state and one in progress. My question is How can I make retries reuse the same task notification item? OR if that's not possible, how do I programmatically clear the task failure? I've tried cancelTask but that doesn't seem to clear it.

Hi All, In continuation of this thread https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/804439 I want to perform data upload after getting it from the BLE device. As state restoration wake should not deal with data upload i though of using a processing task to perform the data upload. So the flow will be something like: Connect to device -> listen to notification -> go to background -> wake from notification -> handle data download from ble device -> register processing task for data upload -> hopefully get the data uploaded From reading about processing task i understand that the task execution is completely handled by the OS and depends on user behaviour and app usage. I even saw that if the user is not using the app for a while, the OS might not even perfoirm the task. So my quesiton is: does state restoration wakeup and perfroming data dowloads in the backgound considered app usage that will increase the likeluhood the task will get execution time? Can we rely on this for a scenario that the user opens the app for the first time, register, onboard for ble, connect to devie and then put it in the background for days or weeks and only relying on state restoration and processing tasks to do their thing? Sorry for the long read and appreciate your support! Shimon

I have been experimenting with the BGContinuedProcessingTask API recently (and published sample code for it https://github.com/infinitepower18/BGContinuedProcessingTaskDemo) I have noticed that if I lock the phone, the code that runs as part of the task stops executing. My sample code simply updates the progress each second until it gets to 100, so it should be completed in 1 minute 40 seconds. However, after locking the phone and checking the lock screen a few seconds later the progress indicator was in the same position as before I locked it. If I leave the phone locked for several minutes and check the lock screen the live activity says "Task failed". I haven't seen anything in the documentation regarding execution of tasks while the phone is locked. So I'm a bit confused if I encountered an iOS bug here?

I have an app for macOS that is built using Mac Catalyst. I need to perform some background processing. I'm using BGProcessingTaskRequest to schedule the request. I have also integrated CKSyncEngine so I need that to be able to perform its normal background processing. On iOS, when the user leaves the app, I can see a log message that the request was scheduled and a bit later I see log messages coming from the actual background task code. On macOS I ran the app from Xcode. I then quit the app (Cmd-q). I can see the log message that the request was scheduled. But the actual task is never run. In my test, I ran my app on a MacBook Pro running macOS 26.0. When I quit the app, I checked the log file in the app sandbox and saw the message that the task was scheduled. About 20 minutes later I closed the lid on the MacBook Pro for the night. I did not power down, it just went to sleep. Roughly 10 hours later I opened the lid on the MacBook Pro, logged in, and checked the log file. It had not been updated since quitting the app. I should also mention that the laptop was not plugged in at all during this period. My question is, does a Mac Catalyst app support background processing after the user quits the app? If so, how is it enabled? The documentation for BGProcessingTaskRequest and BGProcessingTask show they are supported under Mac Catalyst, but I couldn't find any documentation in the Background Tasks section that mentioned anything specific to setup for Mac Catalyst. Running the Settings app and going to General -> Login Items & Extension, I do not see my app under the App Background Activity section. Does it need to be listed there? If so, what steps are needed to get it there? If this is all documented somewhere, I'd appreciate a link since I was not able to find anything specific to making this work under Mac Catalyst.

iOS BGProcessingTask + Background Upload Not Executing Reliably on TestFlight (Works in Debug) Description: We are facing an issue with BGTaskScheduler and BGProcessingTask when trying to perform a background audio-upload flow on iOS. The behavior is inconsistent between Debug builds and TestFlight (Release) builds. Summary of the Problem Our application records long audio files (up to 1 hour) and triggers a background upload using: BGTaskScheduler BGProcessingTaskRequest Background URLSession (background with identifier) URLSession background upload task + AppDelegate.handleEventsForBackgroundURLSession In Debug mode (Xcode → Run on device), everything works as expected: BGProcessingTask executes handleEventsForBackgroundURLSession fires Background URLSession continues uploads reliably Long audio files successfully upload even when the app is in background or terminated However, in TestFlight / Release mode, the system does not reliably launch the BGProcessingTask or Background URLSession events. Technical Details We explicitly register BGTaskScheduler: BGTaskScheduler.shared.register( forTaskWithIdentifier: "example.background.process", using: nil ) { task in self.handleBackgroundProcessing(task: task as! BGProcessingTask) } We schedule it using: let request = BGProcessingTaskRequest(identifier: "example.background.process") request.requiresNetworkConnectivity = true request.requiresExternalPower = false try BGTaskScheduler.shared.submit(request) We also use Background URLSession: let config = URLSessionConfiguration.background(withIdentifier: sessionId) config.sessionSendsLaunchEvents = true config.isDiscretionary = false AppDelegate.handleEventsForBackgroundURLSession is implemented correctly and works in Debug. Issue Observed (TestFlight Only) In TestFlight builds: BGProcessingTask rarely triggers, or the system marks it as NO LONGER RUNNING. Background upload tasks sometimes never start or complete. No logs appear from our BGProcessingTask handler. system logs show messages like: NO LONGER RUNNING bgProcessing-example.background.process Tasks running in group [com.apple.dasd.defaultNetwork] are 1! This occurs most frequently for large audio uploads (30–60 minutes), while small files behave normally. What We Have Verified Proper Info.plist values: Permitted background modes: processing, audio, fetch BGTaskSchedulerPermittedIdentifiers contains our identifier BGProcessingTask is being submitted successfully (no errors) App has microphone permission + background audio works Device plugged/unplugged doesn’t change outcome Key Question for Apple We need clarification on: Why BGProcessingTask behave differently between Debug and TestFlight builds? Are there additional restrictions or heuristics (related to file size, CPU usage, runtime, network load, or power constraints) that cause BGProcessingTask to be throttled or skipped in Release/TestFlight? How can we guarantee a background upload continues reliably for large files (100MB–500MB) on TestFlight and App Store builds? Is there an Apple-recommended pattern to combine BGProcessingTask + Background URLSession for long-running uploads? Expected Result Background uploads should continue reliably for long audio files (>30 minutes) when the app goes to background or is terminated, in the same way they currently function in Debug builds.

I'm specifically focused on Live Activity, but I think this is somewhat a general question. The app could get a few callbacks when: There's a new payload (start, update, end) There's a new token (start, update) There's some other lifecycle event (stale, dismissed) Assuming that the user didn't force kill the app, would the app get launched in all these scenarios? When OS launches the app for a reason, should we wrap our tasks with beginBackgroundTask or that's unnecessary if we're expecting our tasks to finish within 30 seconds? Or the OS may sometimes be under stress and give you far less time (example 3 seconds) and if you're in slow internet, then adding beginBackgroundTask may actually come in handy?

Hi, I'm working on an app that integrates third-party UWB accessories using the Nearby Interaction framework. I want to display real-time data via Live Activities, and ideally, I hope the app can continue ranging/interacting with the accessory even when it's in the background—triggering updates in the Live Activity. Specifically: Can I use Live Activity to keep Nearby Interaction sessions running in the background, as long as the accessory is still nearby and connected? Or do I always need to initiate sessions in the foreground? Are there ways to maintain or trigger new Nearby Interaction sessions entirely in the background, when using third-party UWB accessories? Is there any official guidance regarding permissions, user authorization requirements, or restrictions for background ranging with third-party hardware? Are there recommended strategies or patterns for updating Live Activity widgets with data from Nearby Interaction or UWB accessories while backgrounded? (e.g. Bluetooth triggers, push notifications, background tasks) Any advice, experiences, or official recommendations would be greatly appreciated! I want to ensure my implementation is compliant and offers the best possible user experience. Thanks!

I'm building a new app that uses the new background uploads extension, unfortunately, the App Store Connect process fails with the provided EXExtensionPointIdentifier. Invalid Info.plist value. The value of the EXExtensionPointIdentifier key, com.apple.photos.background-upload, in the Info.plist of “MyApp.app/Extensions/BackgroundUploadExtension.appex” is invalid. Please refer to the App Extension Programming Guide at https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/General/Conceptual/ExtensibilityPG/Action.html#/apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014214-CH13-SW1. (ID: a471e5e7-361c-487f-8554-9deda472b2bc) Confirmed that both the app and extension targets are set to 26.1 minimum. What would be the best way to resolve/fix this?