Question

I’m trying to profile an app using Instruments, but every time I try to run I get a generic error message saying “Instruments cannot be opened because of a problem”. The exact same thing happens if I try to start Instruments manually outside of XCode.

If I try starting Instruments from the command-line, I get the following error details:

dyld: lazy symbol binding failed: Symbol not found:
_CSSymbolicatorCreateWithMachKernel Referenced from:
/Developer/Applications/Instruments.app/Contents/MacOS/../../../../Library/PrivateFrameworks//InstrumentsPlugIn.framework/Versions/A/InstrumentsPlugIn
Expected in:
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreSymbolication.framework/Versions/A/CoreSymbolication

dyld: Symbol not found: _CSSymbolicatorCreateWithMachKernel
Referenced from:
/Developer/Applications/Instruments.app/Contents/MacOS/../../../../Library/PrivateFrameworks//InstrumentsPlugIn.framework/Versions/A/InstrumentsPlugIn
Expected in:
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreSymbolication.framework/Versions/A/CoreSymbolication

I just installed all of the available software updates, and it made no difference. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Answer 1

Okay, I found a workaround that is a bit simpler than reinstalling all of XCode. Basically I got another developer with a working copy of XCode/Instruments to send me a copy of their /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreSymbolication.framework file/folder.

Then I moved my local copy of CoreSymbolication.framework out of the way and dropped their version in.

After that everything works correctly. And it’s quite a bit faster than uninstalling and reinstalling XCode.