npx cap sync overwrites changes in Pods-App.debug|release

[frederikheld]

Hey everyone,

I had to set ENABLE_USER_SCRIPT_SANDBOXING = NO in Pods-App.debug and Pods-App.release. Unfortunately this change gets overwritten every time I run npx cap sync. Is there a way to set this value in a persistent way?

Thanks for your help!
Frederik

[jcesarmobile]

It's not Capacitor but CocoaPods itself, you should never manually edit Pods files, CocoaPods will reset those files in pod update, which Capacitor runs on npx cap sync.

For making permanent changes in the Pods projects you have to edit your Podfile so it makes the changes, something like

post_install do |installer|
  installer.generated_projects.each do |project|
    project.targets.each do |target|
      target.build_configurations.each do |config|
        config.build_settings["ENABLE_USER_SCRIPT_SANDBOXING"] = "NO"
      end
    end
  end
end

[frederikheld]

Thanks for the clarification!

I found out that Xcode 15 sets this value to "YES" in /ios/App/App.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj where it can be set back to "NO". This seems like the more straightforward solution. But is this file safe to edit?

Follow up question: this "hack" is only necessary because some Capacitor script magic seems to be faulty. With sandboxing enabled (which seems to be the default since Xcode 15), the build throws the following error:

Sandbox: bash(77645) deny(1) file-read-data [...]/app/ios/App/Pods/Target Support Files/Pods-App/Pods-App-frameworks.sh

My research revealed, that with sandboxing enabled, I need to specify input/output files for scripts (source).

I found the file but I have no idea what is going on there and how to fix it. Could you help me?

[jcesarmobile]

Yes, editing your project files should be safe, Capacitor never modifies your project after creation. As long as you edit your project files and not CocoaPods files you should be good.

Again, you are referring to CocoaPods files when you say "Capacitor script magic seems to be faulty".

Capacitor 6 has experimental support for Swift Package Manager, you can try to use that instead of CocoaPods.

https://capacitorjs.com/docs/ios/spm

[frederikheld]

Again, you are referring to CocoaPods files when you say "Capacitor script magic seems to be faulty".

Everything inside the ios directory (including the CocoaPods configuration) is created by Capacitor in the first place (that's the Capacitor script magic that I refer to). So I would expect it to take care of that issue. Having sandboxing enabled by default was introduced for a reason, disabling it is not a solution, just a hack.

Thanks for hinting me to SPM. Is SPM be expected to replace CocoaPods in the long run?