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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-27T08:00:48+00:00

I’m running an application in an iPad Simulator (4.3) that crashes due to a

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I’m running an application in an iPad Simulator (4.3) that crashes due to a missing symbol error:

dyld: Symbol not found: _OBJC_CLASS_$_NSMetadataQuery
  Referenced from: /Users/Me/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/4.3.2/Applications/B13BE6DF-61B9-4C23-98E7-BEC72330FF19/iPad.app/iPad
  Expected in: /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator4.3.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Foundation
 in /Users/Me/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/4.3.2/Applications/B13BE6DF-61B9-4C23-98E7-BEC72330FF19/iPad.app/iPad

At what point in the launch process does this error occur? I don’t seem to be actually executing any code – I have placed breakpoints at both the locations where this class would be instantiated (which is never executed when version is < 5.0) and at the delegate method applicationWillFinishLaunching:

But, the crash occurs before either points are hit.

I know that the underlying issue is that the NSMetadataQuery class was added in iOS 5.0, but I would of course like to maintain backwards-compatibility with earlier versions. (I’m using the proper NSClassFromString calls.)

I have an iPhone application which uses NSMetadataQuery on iOS 5.0, and skips it if running 4.3 or lower, and works properly in the simulator. Thus, I’m confused as to why this particular program crashes.

Does the NSMetadataQuery class actually exist in the iPhone version of iOS 4.2 and 4.3, but not in the iPad version? (And the API simply wasn’t exposed until iOS 5.0?)

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The underlying issue was that the Foundation framework was strongly-linked in the iPad version of the application (that was crashing) and was weakly-linked in the iPhone version. (Which allowed the iPhone version to run without requiring those classes at linking time. Of course, calling/instantiating any of those classes on 4.X versions of the iPhone simulator would have similarly crashed.)

    Problem was solved by changing (under the Project Info in Xcode) the dependency option of the Foundation.framework from required to optional.

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