FilePicker working on web, not on iOS simulator or Android emulator

[tessman]

I have a pretty straightforward React project that I'm now trying to integrate FilePicker into. However, it only seems to work on web. A simple console.log() indicates the codepath is being hit, but the code:

		FilePicker.pickFiles({
			types: ['*/*'],
			multiple: false,
		}).then(result => {
		}).catch(err => {
		});

is doing nothing. There is nothing logged to the console in Xcode.

I've tried doing it as an await, just for completeness, but the same thing occurs. I've also tried changing the types to various MIME types.

I've added file access permissions to both AndroidManifest.xml and Info.plist but still nothing on anything but a web browser, where it predictably pops up a file dialog.

Have I overlooked something else I should be doing?

[robingenz]

Unfortunately, I cannot help you without a reproduction example. This plugin should be pretty easy to implement. I'm not aware of any common issues.

[tessman]

Thanks. I've stripped my React component down to the following. In a web browser (i.e., Chrome on macOS), clicking Open pops up a file window. On the iOS simulator or Android emulator, I get the logging message but no file picker.

import { FilePicker } from '@capawesome/capacitor-file-picker';

export function MobileApp() {

	function onOpenFromDevice() {
		console.log("Got here!");
		FilePicker.pickFiles({
			types: ['image/png'],
			multiple: false,
		}).then(result => {
		}).catch(err => {
		});
	}

	return (
		<div className="mobile-app">
		<p style={{marginTop: '100px'}}></p>
		<button
			onClick={onOpenFromDevice}
		>
		Open
		</button>
		</div>
	);
}

So I assume I must somehow be missing some permissions or something (on both iOS and Android). But I can't figure out what they might be.

Android has:

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"/>
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

and iOS has:

	<key>LSSupportsOpeningDocumentsInPlace</key>
	<true/>
	<key>UIFileSharingEnabled</key>
	<true/>

[tessman]

Thanks again for your help and patience. I uninstalled and reinstalled the filepicker plugin and am getting the same thing.

I'll keep trying to figure out what I might be doing wrong with installation per the guide, as I'm not yet able to see it.

[tessman]

I do apologize: I'm really stuck trying to figure out why I'm still getting {"code": "UNIMPLEMENTED"} when I try to call FilePicker.pickFiles() running on the iOS simulator or Android emulator.

I've gone through the troubleshooting/installation guide (for both iOS and Android) several times, trying to see where I've missed something. Everything looks as it's described (I think) in, for instance, App.xcodeproj. I'm not seeing any errors or warning when building, syncing, or running the app. It works fine in a web browser; it just continues to fail on the iOS simulator.

Is there anything else that stands out that I might be overlooking/can check in terms of installation or configuration? Is there any way I can see more detailed output about not loading the plugin properly?

[robingenz]

This issue is definitely not related to the plugin. It's a general Capacitor configuration issue. I recommend you to re-clone your project. There might be some invalid temporary files.

[tessman]

Thanks again for your help on this. I had an immensely frustrating time with this, building and rebuilding, cleaning the build folder and deleting DerivedData, sometimes to only have it work once and then on a subsequent run to have it not work again. For some reason it was only the FilePicker extension: even newly added Capacitor extensions would work properly.

I finally figured out (I think) what the issue was. And at any rate I'll provide the details in case anyone else encounters this.

Due to an issue I was having with some Objective-C++ symbols crashing the LLDB RPC server when resolving them, Apple DTS recommended I install Xcode beta 26. At the time of encountering this FilePicker issue I still had both Xcode and Xcode beta on my system.

Although xcode-select was set to run Xcode beta, and — I assume — xcodebuild and xcrun therefore used the right path, I suspect that somewhere in the Capacitor build scripts something is referencing Xcode directly, either through a hard-coded path or otherwise.

Once I upgraded to Xcode 26 and got rid of Xcode beta, things settled down and seem (fingers-crossed) to be working now.

Like I said, just in case anyone runs into this sort of thing in the future.

Thanks again.

[robingenz]

Thank you for sharing your solution!