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Create ML fails to train a text classifier using the BERT transfer learning algorithm
I'm trying to train a text classifier model in Create ML. The Create ML app/framework offers five algorithms. I can successfully train the model with all of the algorithms except the BERT transfer learning option. When I select this algorithm, Create ML simply stops the training process immediately after the initial feature extraction phase (with no reported error). What I've tried: I tried simplifying the dataset to just a few classes and short examples in case there was a problem with the data. I tried experimenting with the number of iterations and language/script options. I checked Console.app for logged errors and found the following for the Create ML app: error 10:38:28.385778+0000 Create ML Couldn't read event column - category is invalid. Format string is : <private> error 10:38:30.902724+0000 Create ML Could not encode the entity <private>. Error: <private> I'm not sure if these errors are normal or indicative of a problem. I don't know what it means by the "event" column – I don't have an event column in my data and I don't believe there should be one. These errors are not reported when using the other algorithms. Given that I couldn't get the app to work with BERT, I switched over to the CreateML framework and followed the code samples given in the documentation. (By the way, there's an error in the docs: the line let (trainingData, testingData) = data.stratifiedSplit(on: "text", by: 0.8) should be stratifying on "label", not on "text"). The main chunk of code looks like this: var parameters = MLTextClassifier.ModelParameters( validation: .split(strategy: .automatic), algorithm: .transferLearning(.bertEmbedding, revision: 1), language: .english ) parameters.maxIterations = 100 let sentimentClassifier = try MLTextClassifier( trainingData: trainingData, textColumn: "text", labelColumn: "label", parameters: parameters ) Ultimately I want to train a single multilingual model, and I believe that BERT is the best choice for this. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be a way to choose the multilingual Latin script option in the API. In the Create ML app you can theoretically do this by selecting the Latin script with language set to "Automatic", as recommended in this WWDC video (relevant section starts at around 8:02). But, as far as I can tell, ModelParameters only lets you pick a specific language. I presume the framework must provide some way to do this, since the Create ML app uses the framework under the hood, but I can't see a way to do it. Another possibility is that the Create ML app might be misrepresenting the framework – perhaps selecting a specific language in the app doesn't actually make any difference – for example, maybe all Latin languages actually use the same model under the hood and the language selector is just there to guide people to the right choice (but this is just my speculation). Any help would be much appreciated! If possible, I'd prefer to use the Create ML app if I can get the BERT option to work – is this actually working for anyone? Or failing that, I want to use the framework to train a multilingual Latin model with BERT, so I'm looking for instructions on how to choose that specific option or confirmation that I can just choose .english to get the correct Latin multilingual model. I'm running Xcode 26.2 on Tahoe 21.1 on an M1 Pro MacBook Pro. I have version 6.2 of the Create ML app.
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1.6k
Jan ’26
Translation Framework: Code 16 "Offline models not available" despite status showing .installed
Hi everyone, I'm experiencing an inconsistent behavior with the Translation framework on iOS 18. The LanguageAvailability.status() API reports language models as .installed, but translation fails with Code 16. Setup: Using translationTask modifier with TranslationSession Batch translation with explicit source/target languages Languages: Portuguese→English, German→English Issue: let status = await LanguageAvailability().status(from: sourceLang, to: targetLang) // Returns: .installed // But translation fails: let responses = try await session.translations(from: requests) // Error: TranslationErrorDomain Code=16 "Offline models not available" Logs: Language model installed: pt -> en Language model installed: de -> en Starting translation: de -> en Error Domain=TranslationErrorDomain Code=16 "Translation failed"NSLocalizedFailureReason=Offline models not available for language pair What I've tried: Re-downloading languages in Settings Using source: nil for auto-detection Fresh TranslationSession.Configuration each time Questions: Is there a way to force model re-validation/re-download programmatically? Should translationTask show download popup when Code 16 occurs? Has anyone found a reliable workaround? I've seen similar reports in threads 791357 and 777113. Any guidance appreciated! Thanks!
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447
Jan ’26
Image object detection with video sizing issue
I'm working on my first model that detects bowling score screens, and I have it working with pictures no problem. But when it comes to video, I have a sizing issue. I added my model to a small app I wrote for taking a picture of a Bowling Scoring Screen, where my model will frame the screens in the video feed from the camera. My model works, but my boxes are about 2/3 the size of the screens being detected. I don't understand the theory of the video stream the camera is feeding me. What I mean is that I don't want to make tweaks to the size of my rectangles by making them larger, and I'm not sure if the video feed is larger than what I'm detecting in code. Questions I have are like is the video feed a certain resolution like 1980x something, or a much higher resolution in the 12 megapixel range? On a static image of say 1920x something, My alignment is perfect. AI says that it's my model training, that I'm training on square images but video is 16:9. Or that I'm producing 4:3 images in a 16:9 environment. I'm missing something here but not sure what it is. I already wrote code to force it to fit, but reverted back to trying for a natural fit.
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365
Jan ’26
Foundation Models: Is the .anyOf guide guaranteed to produce a valid string?
I've created the following Foundation Models Tool, which uses the .anyOf guide to constrain the LLM's generation of suitable input arguments. When calling the tool, the model is only allowed to request one of a fixed set of sections, as defined in the sections array. struct SectionReader: Tool { let article: Article let sections: [String] let name: String = "readSection" let description: String = "Read a specific section from the article." var parameters: GenerationSchema { GenerationSchema( type: GeneratedContent.self, properties: [ GenerationSchema.Property( name: "section", description: "The article section to access.", type: String.self, guides: [.anyOf(sections)] ) ] ) } func call(arguments: GeneratedContent) async throws -> String { let requestedSectionName = try arguments.value(String.self, forProperty: "section") ... } } However, I have found that the model will sometimes call the tool with invalid (but plausible) section names, meaning that .anyOf is not actually doing its job (i.e. requestedSectionName is sometimes not a member of sections). The documentation for the .anyOf guide says, "Enforces that the string be one of the provided values." Is this a bug or have I made a mistake somewhere? Many thanks for any help you provide!
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849
Jan ’26
Image Playground files suddenly not available
My app lets you create images with Image Playground. When the user approves an image I move it to the documents dir from the temp storage. With over a year of usage I’ve created a lot of images over time. Out of nowhere the app stopped loading my custom creations from Image Playground saying it couldn’t find the files. It still had my VoiceOver strings I had added for each image and still had the custom categories I assigned them. Debug code to look in the docs dir doesn’t find them. I downloaded the app’s container and only see the images I created as a test after the problem started. But my ~70MB app is still taking up 300MB on my iPhone so it feels like they’re there but not accessible. Is there anything else I can try?
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931
Jan ’26
Image understanding to on-device model
I can’t seem to find a way to include an image when prompting the new on-device model in Xcode, even though Apple explicitly states that the model was trained and tested with image data (https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/apple-foundation-models-2025-updates). Has anyone managed to get this working, or are VLM-style capabilities simply not exposed yet?
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443
Jan ’26
Khmer Script Misidentified as Thai in Vision Framework
It is vital for Apple to refine its OCR models to correctly distinguish between Khmer and Thai scripts. Incorrectly labeling Khmer text as Thai is more than a technical bug; it is a culturally insensitive error that impacts national identity, especially given the current geopolitical climate between Cambodia and Thailand. Implementing a more robust language-detection threshold would prevent these harmful misidentifications. There is a significant logic flaw in the VNRecognizeTextRequest language detection when processing Khmer script. When the property automaticallyDetectsLanguage is set to true, the Vision framework frequently misidentifies Khmer characters as Thai. While both scripts share historical roots, they are distinct languages with different alphabets. Currently, the model’s confidence threshold for distinguishing between these two scripts is too low, leading to incorrect OCR output in both developer-facing APIs and Apple’s native ecosystem (Preview, Live Text, and Photos). import SwiftUI import Vision class TextExtractor { func extractText(from data: Data, completion: @escaping (String) -> Void) { let request = VNRecognizeTextRequest { (request, error) in guard let observations = request.results as? [VNRecognizedTextObservation] else { completion("No text found.") return } let recognizedStrings = observations.compactMap { observation in let str = observation.topCandidates(1).first?.string return "{text: \(str!), confidence: \(observation.confidence)}" } completion(recognizedStrings.joined(separator: "\n")) } request.automaticallyDetectsLanguage = true // <-- This is the issue. request.recognitionLevel = .accurate let handler = VNImageRequestHandler(data: data, options: [:]) DispatchQueue.global(qos: .background).async { do { try handler.perform([request]) } catch { completion("Failed to perform OCR: \(error.localizedDescription)") } } } } Recognizing Khmer Confidence Score is low for Khmer text. (The output is in Thai language with low confidence score) Recognizing English Confidence Score is high expected. Recognizing Thai Confidence Score is high as expected Issues on Preview, Photos Khmer text Copied text Kouk Pring Chroum Temple [19121 รอาสายสุกตีนานยารรีสใหิสรราภูชิตีนนสุฐตีย์ [รุก เผือชิษาธอยกัตธ์ตายตราพาษชาณา ถวเชยาใบสราเบรถทีมูสินตราพาษชาณา ทีมูโษา เช็ก อาษเชิษฐอารายสุกบดตพรธุรฯ ตากร"สุก"ผาตากรธกรธุกเยากสเผาพศฐตาสาย รัอรณาษ"ตีพย" สเผาพกรกฐาภูชิสาเครๆผู:สุกรตีพาสเผาพสรอสายใผิตรรารตีพสๆ เดียอลายสุกตีน ธาราชรติ ธิพรหณาะพูชุบละเาหLunet De Lajonquiere ผารูกรสาราพารผรผาสิตภพ ตารสิทูก ธิพิ คุณที่นสายเระพบพเคเผาหนารเกะทรนภาษเราภุพเสารเราษทีเลิกสญาเราหรุฬารชสเกาก เรากุม สงสอบานตรเราะากกต่ายภากายระตารุกเตียน Recommended Solutions 1. Set a Threshold Filter out the detected result where the threshold is less than or equal to 0.5, so that it would not output low quality text which can lead to the issue. For example, let recognizedStrings = observations.compactMap { observation in if observation.confidence <= 0.5 { return nil } let str = observation.topCandidates(1).first?.string return "{text: \(str!), confidence: \(observation.confidence)}" } 2. Add Khmer Language Support This issue would never happen if the model has the capability to detect and recognize image with Khmer language. Doc2Text GitHub: https://github.com/seanghay/Doc2Text-Swift
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1k
Jan ’26
Defining a Foundation Models Tool with arguments determined at runtime
I'm experimenting with Foundation Models and I'm trying to understand how to define a Tool whose input argument is defined at runtime. Specifically, I want a Tool that takes a single String parameter that can only take certain values defined at runtime. I think my question is basically the same as this one: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/793471 However, the answer provided by the engineer doesn't actually demonstrate how to create the GenerationSchema. Trying to piece things together from the documentation that the engineer linked to, I came up with this: let citiesDefinedAtRuntime = ["London", "New York", "Paris"] let citySchema = DynamicGenerationSchema( name: "CityList", properties: [ DynamicGenerationSchema.Property( name: "city", schema: DynamicGenerationSchema( name: "city", anyOf: citiesDefinedAtRuntime ) ) ] ) let generationSchema = try GenerationSchema(root: citySchema, dependencies: []) let tools = [CityInfo(parameters: generationSchema)] let session = LanguageModelSession(tools: tools, instructions: "...") With the CityInfo Tool defined like this: struct CityInfo: Tool { let name: String = "getCityInfo" let description: String = "Get information about a city." let parameters: GenerationSchema func call(arguments: GeneratedContent) throws -> String { let cityName = try arguments.value(String.self, forProperty: "city") print("Requested info about \(cityName)") let cityInfo = getCityInfo(for: cityName) return cityInfo } func getCityInfo(for city: String) -> String { // some backend that provides the info } } This compiles and usually seems to work. However, sometimes the model will try to request info about a city that is not in citiesDefinedAtRuntime. For example, if I prompt the model with "I want to travel to Tokyo in Japan, can you tell me about this city?", the model will try to request info about Tokyo, even though this is not in the citiesDefinedAtRuntime array. My understanding is that this should not be possible – constrained generation should only allow the LLM to generate an input argument from the list of cities defined in the schema. Am I missing something here or overcomplicating things? What's the correct way to make sure the LLM can only call a Tool with an input parameter from a set of possible values defined at runtime? Many thanks!
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1.2k
Dec ’25
recent JAX versions fail on Metal
Hi, I'm not sure whether this is the appropriate forum for this topic. I just followed a link from the JAX Metal plugin page https://developer.apple.com/metal/jax/ I'm writing a Python app with JAX, and recent JAX versions fail on Metal. E.g. v0.8.2 I have to downgrade JAX pretty hard to make it work: pip install jax==0.4.35 jaxlib==0.4.35 jax-metal==0.1.1 Can we get an updated release of jax-metal that would fix this issue? Here is the error I get with JAX v0.8.2: WARNING:2025-12-26 09:55:28,117:jax._src.xla_bridge:881: Platform 'METAL' is experimental and not all JAX functionality may be correctly supported! WARNING: All log messages before absl::InitializeLog() is called are written to STDERR W0000 00:00:1766771728.118004 207582 mps_client.cc:510] WARNING: JAX Apple GPU support is experimental and not all JAX functionality is correctly supported! Metal device set to: Apple M3 Max systemMemory: 36.00 GB maxCacheSize: 13.50 GB I0000 00:00:1766771728.129886 207582 service.cc:145] XLA service 0x600001fad300 initialized for platform METAL (this does not guarantee that XLA will be used). Devices: I0000 00:00:1766771728.129893 207582 service.cc:153] StreamExecutor device (0): Metal, <undefined> I0000 00:00:1766771728.130856 207582 mps_client.cc:406] Using Simple allocator. I0000 00:00:1766771728.130864 207582 mps_client.cc:384] XLA backend will use up to 28990554112 bytes on device 0 for SimpleAllocator. Traceback (most recent call last): File "<string>", line 1, in <module> import jax; print(jax.numpy.arange(10)) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/numpy/lax_numpy.py", line 5951, in arange return _arange(start, stop=stop, step=step, dtype=dtype, out_sharding=sharding) File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/numpy/lax_numpy.py", line 6012, in _arange return lax.broadcasted_iota(dtype, (size,), 0, out_sharding=out_sharding) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/lax/lax.py", line 3415, in broadcasted_iota return iota_p.bind(dtype=dtype, shape=shape, ~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ dimension=dimension, sharding=out_sharding) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/core.py", line 633, in bind return self._true_bind(*args, **params) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/core.py", line 649, in _true_bind return self.bind_with_trace(prev_trace, args, params) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/core.py", line 661, in bind_with_trace return trace.process_primitive(self, args, params) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/core.py", line 1210, in process_primitive return primitive.impl(*args, **params) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/dispatch.py", line 91, in apply_primitive outs = fun(*args) jax.errors.JaxRuntimeError: UNKNOWN: -:0:0: error: unknown attribute code: 22 -:0:0: note: in bytecode version 6 produced by: StableHLO_v1.13.0 -------------------- For simplicity, JAX has removed its internal frames from the traceback of the following exception. Set JAX_TRACEBACK_FILTERING=off to include these. I0000 00:00:1766771728.149951 207582 mps_client.h:209] MetalClient destroyed.
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577
Dec ’25
Pre-inference AI Safety Governor for FoundationModels (Swift, On-Device)
Greetings, and Happy Holidays, I've been building an on-device AI safety layer called Newton Engine, designed to validate prompts before they reach FoundationModels (or any LLM). Wanted to share v1.3 and get feedback from the community. The Problem Current AI safety is post-training — baked into the model, probabilistic, not auditable. When Apple Intelligence ships with FoundationModels, developers will need a way to catch unsafe prompts before inference, with deterministic results they can log and explain. What Newton Does Newton validates every prompt pre-inference and returns: Phase (0/1/7/8/9) Shape classification Confidence score Full audit trace If validation fails, generation is blocked. If it passes (Phase 9), the prompt proceeds to the model. v1.3 Detection Categories (14 total) Jailbreak / prompt injection Corrosive self-negation ("I hate myself") Hedged corrosive ("Not saying I'm worthless, but...") Emotional dependency ("You're the only one who understands") Third-person manipulation ("If you refuse, you're proving nobody cares") Logical contradictions ("Prove truth doesn't exist") Self-referential paradox ("Prove that proof is impossible") Semantic inversion ("Explain how truth can be false") Definitional impossibility ("Square circle") Delegated agency ("Decide for me") Hallucination-risk prompts ("Cite the 2025 CDC report") Unbounded recursion ("Repeat forever") Conditional unbounded ("Until you can't") Nonsense / low semantic density Test Results 94.3% catch rate on 35 adversarial test cases (33/35 passed). Architecture User Input ↓ [ Newton ] → Validates prompt, assigns Phase ↓ Phase 9? → [ FoundationModels ] → Response Phase 1/7/8? → Blocked with explanation Key Properties Deterministic (same input → same output) Fully auditable (ValidationTrace on every prompt) On-device (no network required) Native Swift / SwiftUI String Catalog localization (EN/ES/FR) FoundationModels-ready (#if canImport) Code Sample — Validation let governor = NewtonGovernor() let result = governor.validate(prompt: userInput) if result.permitted { // Proceed to FoundationModels let session = LanguageModelSession() let response = try await session.respond(to: userInput) } else { // Handle block print("Blocked: Phase \(result.phase.rawValue) — \(result.reasoning)") print(result.trace.summary) // Full audit trace } Questions for the Community Anyone else building pre-inference validation for FoundationModels? Thoughts on the Phase system (0/1/7/8/9) vs. simple pass/fail? Interest in Shape Theory classification for prompt complexity? Best practices for integrating with LanguageModelSession? Links GitHub: https://github.com/jaredlewiswechs/ada-newton Technical overview: parcri.net Happy to share more implementation details. Looking for feedback, collaborators, and anyone else thinking about deterministic AI safety on-device. parcri.net has the link :)
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493
Dec ’25
SoundAnalysis built-in classifier fails in background (SNErrorCode.operationFailed)
I’m seeing consistent failures using SoundAnalysis live classification when my app moves to the background. Setup iOS 17.x AVAudioEngine mic capture SNAudioStreamAnalyzer SNClassifySoundRequest(classifierIdentifier: .version1) UIBackgroundModes = audio AVAudioSession .record / .playAndRecord, active Audio capture + level metering continue working in background (mic indicator stays on) Issue As soon as the app enters background / screen locks: SoundAnalysis starts failing every second with domain:com.apple.SoundAnalysis, code:2(SNErrorCode.operationFailed) Audio capture itself continues normally When the app returns to foreground, classification immediately resumes without restarting the engine/analyzer Question Is live background sound classification with the built-in SoundAnalysis classifier officially unsupported or known to fail in background? If so, is a custom Core ML model the only supported approach for background detection? Or is there a required configuration I’m missing to keep SNClassifySoundRequest(.version1) running in background? Thanks for any clarification.
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210
Dec ’25
LanguageModelSession with multiple tools and structured outpout
Hi, I'm using LanguageModelSession and giving it two different tools to query data from a local database. I'm wondering how I can have the session generate structured content as the response that includes data one or both tools (or no tool at all). Here is an example of what I'm trying to do: Let's say the app has access to a database that contains information about exercise and sleep data (this is just an analogy). There are two tools, GetExerciseData() and GetSleepData(). The user may then prompt something like, "how well did I sleep in November". I have this working so that it calls through to the right tool, which would return a SleepSummary. However, I can't figure out how to have the session return the right structured data. I can do this and get back good text data: let response = session.respond(to: userInput), but I believe I want to do something like: let response = session.respond(to: trimmed, generating: <SomeStructure?>) Sometimes the model I run one tool or the other, or both tools, or no tool at all. Any help of what the right way to go about this would be much appreciated. Most of the example I found have to do with 1 tool.
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699
Dec ’25
CoreML Unified Memory failure/silent exit on long video tasks (M1 Mac 32GB)
Hi Apple Engineers, I am experiencing a potential memory management bug with CoreML on M1 Mac (32GB Unified Memory). When processing long video files (approx. 12,000 frames) using a CoreML execution provider, the system often completes the 'Analysing' phase but fails to transition into 'Processing'. It simply exits silently or hits an import error (scipy). However, if I split the same task into small 20-frame segments, it works perfectly at high speeds (~40 FPS). This suggests the hardware is capable, but there is an issue with memory fragmentation or resource cleanup during long-running CoreML sessions. Is there a way to force a VRAM/Unified Memory flush via CLI, or is this a known limitation for large frame indexing?
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533
Dec ’25