When creating an icon using icon composer, I cant upload a build to testflight/App Store connect.
Running on device from Xcode works fine, but as soon as I archive and upload to App Store Connect, I get an error saying the icon contains an alpha channel
See the TestFlight Release Notes regarding this as a known issue.
— Ed Ford, DTS Engineer
Is the recommended action to revert back to the old icon style for the purpose of getting a beta to my users? Or is a fix anticipated soon (in the order of days/weeks)?
For reference for anyone searching this issue, the error is as follows:
Invalid large app icon. The large app icon in the asset catalog in “___.app” can’t be transparent or contain an alpha channel. For details, visit: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/app-icons.
Is the recommended action to revert back to the old icon style for the purpose of getting a beta to my users?
There's an update to those release notes I linked to, posted today, that removes this from the Known Issues section. Can you try again to verify that you no longer run into this?
— Ed Ford, DTS Engineer
I am still unable to upload to Testflight with an icon composer file as the main app icon on Beta 5.
I continue to get: ITMS-90717: Invalid large app icon
I'm getting this error too — even though I'm on XCode beta 5 running on macOS 26.0 Beta 5. Made the icon using Icon Composer. Can't upload the archive to App Store connect for a TestFlight due to this issue.
["Invalid large app icon. The large app icon in the asset catalog in can’t be transparent or contain an alpha channel. For details, visit: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/app-icons.]
I confirm that the error is still there with beta 5.
["Invalid large app icon. The large app icon in the asset catalog in can’t be transparent or contain an alpha channel. For details, visit: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/app-icons.]
@DTS Engineer Ed Ford, thanks for your kind reply. I am continuing to get the error with Xcode 26.0 beta 5 having fully updated my system. It's possible that I'm doing something wrong, but the error is ambiguous so it's hard to troubleshoot.
In an earlier Xcode beta I saw a message about the icon file having an issue with transparency but it disappeared by itself after an update. If I can, I will try a new, blank, icon, in case the icon is somehow corrupted.
To help me try solutions, is it possible to share some insight as to what can cause this issue behind the scenes for projects using Icon Composer files? Could it be corruption in the files, or files missing from the archive, or possibly remnants of the old icon still in the project?
Since we're still in the beta period for iOS 26, Xcode 26, and all of the associated infrastructure around TestFlight and the App Store for this release, issues like this appearing are expected and a part of the beta process and may not be something you did in Icon Composer that you could change. When you run into something new that you didn't before, that's the moment to file a bug report so we can properly have it on record (not just here in the forums) to investigate.
— Ed Ford, DTS Engineer
This is still a problem for iOS 26 beta 7 / Xcode 26 beta 6.
+1 from me, also having this same issue with Xcode 26 beta 6.
None of the image layers in my icon have alpha channels, but when you inspect the png produced by Xcode in the app bundle, it has an alpha channel.
Logged FB: FB19782649
@DTS Engineer Thank you so much for your reply. The issue persisted on Beta 5 so used the old-style icon export into Asset / AppIcon in place of the nice Icon Composer-made icon. But, I will test on Beta 6. If it still persists, will file a bug report.
Looking forward to this being resolved in an upcoming build. Have enjoyed using Icon Composer - it makes creating wholesome icons a breeze.
—Siddharth
I looked more into this today. Previously, there was an issue specific with watchOS app icons, as I mentioned above, and that one is no longer listed in the TestFlight release notes.
However, there is a separate issue that isn't about watchOS, with a different message (the one posted by @lawrencejob above). So for folks reporting that they are currently encountering this message, are you able to confirm if the build that created the issue was built by a continuous integration system, such as Xcode Cloud? If that's true for you, I'd then like to get further confirmation that if you build your app locally outside of your CI system and submit that build, you don't receive this message.
— Ed Ford, DTS Engineer
I only build my app locally, and when validating the app I get this same error.
@JackB321, can you detail the specifics of your local environment? Things at the top of my mind are if your Mac is Intel-based or Apple silicon, and if your local build happens to be hosted inside of a virtual machine.
— Ed Ford, DTS Engineer
@DTS Engineer it’s a M2 pro MacBook Pro and I’m not running anything in a VM it’s all running natively. I’ve tried both stable xcode and the beta and get the same error.