Why am I getting ibtool failed with exit code 255?

Question

All of a sudden I can\'t build my project. I get the following compiler error:

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.pl

Answer 1

I just experienced the same thing and none of the other answers here could resolve the issue for me. It turned out to be a duplicate UILabel in the storyboard due to a git merge. Apparently Xcode will crash if two UI elements have the same internal ID.

My method for finding the responsible issue was:

• Iteratively step backward through the git history, checking out each commit until you find the first storyboard that doesn't crash Xcode.
• Once you have the commit that started crashing, check out HEAD and iteratively revert the storyboard changes in the problem commit. Continue to narrow it down until you have the one UI element or one line that will cause a crash.
• Revert the responsible change permanently and restart Xcode. Open the storyboard again and you may be warned about an internal inconsistency. Agree to the proposed changes Xcode makes, but review them.
• If necessary, you may now attempt to re-create the UI element or changes from scratch that were causing the problem before.