I’m investigating GameKit Saved Games synchronization between an iPhone and an iOS app running on an Apple-silicon Mac through TestFlight—not a native macOS or Mac Catalyst app.
Environment: • iPhone 11, iOS 26.6.2 • Apple-silicon Mac, macOS 27.0 (26A428) • Built with Xcode 27 (27A266a), minimum iOS 16 • Same iCloud and Game Center accounts, confirmed manually • iCloud Drive enabled, including the app’s per-app syncing setting on Mac
Expected: The Mac can discover and load the existing iPhone save.
Observed: The iPhone’s fetchSavedGames returns two entries, one matching our expected save name, and loadData successfully reads that matching save.
On the Mac, fetchSavedGames completes without an error but returns an empty array. This is the raw result before our filename filtering. Game Center authentication succeeds.
Our app-level identity checks also resolve to the same game/environment/profile scope on both devices. We understand this does not independently prove the iCloud accounts match.
The installed Mac app’s signed entitlements include: • Game Center • iCloud environment Production • CloudDocuments • The expected matching iCloud and ubiquity container identifiers
The unusual system observation is that brctl status for this container reports:
client:blocked-app-uninstalled SYNC DISABLED (app not installed)
This persists while the app is installed and running. The container reports foreground when the app is open.
Completed checks:
- Verified installed build and signed entitlements.
- Confirmed LaunchServices registration of the app wrapper and inner iOS bundle.
- Targeted re-registration, normal Mac restart, and reopening did not clear the state.
- In a separately triggered diagnostic inside the signed app, called FileManager.url(forUbiquityContainerIdentifier:) off the main thread with the exact entitled container identifier.
- That call returned a nonnil URL, but the immediate GameKit fetch and a subsequent delayed check still returned zero saves. The system block remained unchanged.
The diagnostic did not write a save, restore progress, or directly read/write container files. We have not deleted app data, reset iCloud, or rewritten the source save to force synchronization.
I found the authentication-timing discussion at: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/718541
However, our result persists across subsequent fetches and restarting the Mac, rather than only the first fetch near authentication.
Questions: • Is there an additional supported configuration or initialization requirement for GameKit Saved Games in an iOS TestFlight app running on Apple silicon? • What targeted diagnostics would help explain why the container remains marked app-uninstalled despite the app being installed and running? • How should an app distinguish a genuinely empty Saved Games result from synchronization that is not yet available?
We have not established that this is an Apple defect. We currently have an instrumented application, but not a separate minimal project reproducing the issue.