Debug Overlay

[kotsan777]

Description

When creating multiple instances of RiveView in an iOS app, a system-level Metal Performance HUD appears unexpectedly on physical devices (e.g., iPhone 14 Pro). This occurs even in Release builds with all debugging flags disabled. The overlay includes FPS, CPU/GPU usage, and chip information.

The issue occurs as soon as a second RiveView is initialized and added to the view hierarchy. It is not dependent on playing animations or triggering inputs.

Provide a Repro

A minimal Xcode project has been created to reproduce the issue:

🔗 GitHub Repository: link to repo with test project

The issue reproduces by default when launching the app. Two RiveView instances are added to the view, which causes the Metal debug overlay to appear on a physical device.

Source .riv/.rev file

with or without rive file it dosent matter

Expected behavior

No system-level overlay should appear in release builds. The use of multiple RiveView instances should not trigger any Metal debug tools.

Screenshots

Device & Versions (please complete the following information)

• Device: iPhone 14 Pro
• iOS version: iOS 18.3.2
• Rive iOS SDK: 6.5.3
• Xcode: 16.3

Additional context

• Fully read Rive SDK documentation
• Tested on multiple versions of the SDK (including 6.5.3 and earlier)
• Tested with different StateMachine setups and simple artboards
• Tried both Debug and Release configurations
• Set ENABLE_NS_ASSERTIONS = NO, SWIFT_OPTIMIZATION_LEVEL = -Owholemodule
• Modified preferredFramesPerSecond values
• Created a separate sandbox project for isolation

📌 Important: The issue only reproduces when two or more RiveView instances are added. It does not appear with a single view.

As a workaround, we are currently switching to Lottie for this specific case.

[dskuza]

I'm unable to reproduce this on a physical device using your project, even bumping up to a size of 320. Does this not happen on Simulator? There is one developer setting on-device that may be enabled for some reason: Settings -> Developer -> Show Graphics HUD

[kotsan777]

I'm unable to reproduce this on a physical device using your project, even bumping up to a size of 320. Does this not happen on Simulator? There is one developer setting on-device that may be enabled for some reason: Settings -> Developer -> Show Graphics HUD

Thanks for the quick response!

Yes, I’ve already checked the device settings, including Settings → Developer → Show Graphics HUD, and confirmed that this option is disabled.

The bug only reproduces on a physical iPhone 14 Pro, and not on the Simulator. I suspect it may be related to ProMotion (120Hz refresh rate), as the issue doesn’t occur on devices with standard refresh rates in my testing.

Let me know if there’s any other info or logging I can provide to help narrow it down.

Thanks again!

[Ilik777]

@dskuza Hi! Just checking in — any updates on this bug?

[dskuza]

@Ilik777 I've reviewed Apple's documentation on enabling the HUD overlay and peeked through our codebase:

• Enable the Metal Performance HUD in Xcode
  • This is not enabled in Debug or Release mode
• Enable logging in Xcode
  • This is not enabled in Debug or Release mode
• Enable the HUD and logging with environment variables
  • This is not performed in Debug or Release mode
• Enable the HUD and logging on a device
  • Rive does not control physical devices

Rive does not include any of the above requirements for enabling the HUD overlay, and definitely not in Release mode (which is what the final framework is built against). This leads me to believe that there is still something going on at a higher-level within the environment in which Rive is used (but not necessarily because it's included).

I understand the OP mentioned that various things were attempted in order to rectify this, but I'm unable to reproduce this in any example apps that are utilizing Rive.

[Ilik777]

@dskuza We can assist you with investigating this issue further. We can provide a video demonstrating the bug along with application logs — this might help in identifying the root cause or resolving the problem. Let us know if that would be helpful.

[dskuza]

Are you able to reproduce this on multiple devices or simulators in a brand new project using Rive (meaning no changes to the project whatsoever; no manually setting env. variables, no tweaks to the scheme settings, all default developer settings on-device). I haven't been able to reproduce this on any physical device using various versions of our Apple runtime, nor the simulator. This is the first time I've seen this type of issue reported.

[kotsan777]

I have finally identified the cause of the issue. I went through all the build settings, but it turned out that the problem was due to a debug overlay flag being enabled in the iPhone settings.

Thank you very much for your help — it was extremely helpful.