Shortcut action that should return a file deletes the file instead

Question

N. Holzschuch OP

Created Sep ’24

Replies 3

Boosts 2

Participants 2

I have an app intent that returns a file from inside the Sandbox.

With iOS 18 RC, the call to INFile results in the file being deleted, instead of the file being returned.

intentResponse.file = INFile(fileURL: fileURL, filename: fileName, typeIdentifier: nil)

This seems to happen if the file was created by an earlier Shortcut action that calls FileManager().copyItem(), but not for files created by other means.

I haven't found a reference in the developer documentation about INFile resulting in the file being deleted.

I can block FileManager() from deleting the file by setting its immutable attributes to true, but that prevents me from removing it later.

Boost

Answer 1

N. Holzschuch OP

Sep ’24

Update: As a fix, I have used:

if let urlData = try? Data(contentsOf: fileURL) {
     intentResponse.file = INFile(data: urlData, filename: fileName, typeIdentifier: nil)
}

but it's still frustrating to encounter such an unexpected behaviour.

0

Answer 2

N. Holzschuch OP

Sep ’24

...But INFile(data: urlData, ...) only works if urlData is smaller than 512 MB, so that's not a complete replacement.

0

Answer 3

palmin OP

Sep ’24

I'm seeing similar behaviour and when files are deleted the preview of the returned file shows "The operation failed because Shortcuts couldn't convert from Text to NSString."

https://s3files.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/ScreenRecording_09-17-2024%2020-32-46_1.MP4

My work-around has been to rewrite the SiriKit intents into AppIntents which requires @IntentParameterDependency and iOS 17 but because of weaknesses in CustomIntentMigratedAppIntent this makes the existing SiriKit intents unavailable to users on iOS 16: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/734252

1