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Other iOS APIs

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Important

Visual Studio App Center is scheduled for retirement on March 31, 2025. While you can continue to use Visual Studio App Center until it is fully retired, there are several recommended alternatives that you may consider migrating to.

Learn more about support timelines and alternatives.

Adjust the log level

You can control the amount of log messages that show up from App Center in the console. Use the setLogLevel:-API to enable additional logging while debugging. By default, it's set to LogLevelAssert for the App Store environment and LogLevelWarning otherwise.

To have as many log messages as possible, use MSACLogLevelVerbose/LogLevel.verbose.

[MSACAppCenter setLogLevel:MSACLogLevelVerbose];

AppCenter.logLevel = .verbose

Identify installations

The App Center SDK creates a UUID for each device once the app is installed. This identifier remains the same for a device when the app is updated and a new one is generated only when the app is re-installed. The following API is useful for debugging purposes.

NSUUID *installId = [MSACAppCenter  installId];

var installId = AppCenter.installId

Identify users

The App Center SDK supports setting a user ID that's used to augment crash reports. To use this capability:

  1. Configure the App Center SDK by calling :start:withServices: as described in the App Center SDK Getting started guide.
  2. Set a userID in the SDK using the following code:
[MSACAppCenter setUserId:@"your-user-id"];

AppCenter.userId = "your-user-id"

After setting a user ID, you can use App Center's search feature to search for specific crash reports for the ID. Learn more in App Center's search documentation.

Note

The value for the user ID is limited to 256 characters. It will be shown with your crash reports but not used for aggregation or counts of affected users. In case you set user ID multiple times, only the last user ID will be used. You need to set the user ID yourself before each application launch, because this value isn't stored by the SDK between launches.

Disable all services at runtime

If you want to disable all App Center services at once, use the setEnabled API. When disabled, the SDK won't forward any information to App Center.

[MSACAppCenter setEnabled:NO];

AppCenter.enabled = false

To enable all services at once again, use the same API but pass YES/true as a parameter.

[MSACAppCenter setEnabled:YES];

AppCenter.enabled = true

The state is persisted in the device's storage across application launches.

Note

This method must only be used after AppCenter has been started.

Disallow network requests

In the App Center SDK, network requests are allowed by default. If you want to send data that the App Center SDK collects by the user concern you can disallow automatic sending data.

[MSACAppCenter setNetworkRequestsAllowed:false];

AppCenter.networkRequestsAllowed = false

In this case, the App Center SDK continues to collect data but it will be sent only when the network requests will be allowed.

[MSACAppCenter setNetworkRequestsAllowed:true];

AppCenter.networkRequestsAllowed = true

Note

This value is retained between starts.

At any time, you can check whether sending data in the App Center SDK is allowed or not.

[MSACAppCenter isNetworkRequestsAllowed];

AppCenter.networkRequestsAllowed

Change state of service in runtime

Enable or disable the services at the runtime with following code:

[MSACAnalytics setEnabled:NO];

Analytics.enabled = false

Note

This method must only be used after Analytics has been started.

Check if App Center is enabled

You can also check if App Center is enabled or not.

[MSACAppCenter isEnabled];

AppCenter.enabled

Note

This method must only be used after AppCenter has been started, it will always return false before start.

Check App Center SDK version at runtime

You can get the version of App Center SDK that you're currently using.

[MSACAppCenter sdkVersion];

AppCenter.sdkVersion

Storage size

When using the App Center SDK, logs are stored locally on the device. Large logs can take up a lot of space, so you may choose to limit the size of the local database. It's also useful in conjunction with the pause and resume APIs. If you expect to be paused for a long time, you can use a larger database size to store more events.

Use the setMaxStorageSize API to set the size of the local DB. The API is asynchronous, and the completionHandler is called when you start App Center services. For this reason, setMaxStorageSize must be called before your call to AppCenter.start. You may only call the API once.

// Use 20 MB for storage.
[MSACAppCenter setMaxStorageSize:(20 * 1024 * 1024) completionHandler:^(BOOL success) {
    if (!success) {
        // The success parameter is false when the size can't be honored.
    }
}];
[MSACAppCenter start:@"{Your App Secret}", withServices:@[[MSACAnalytics class]]];

// Use 20 MB for storage.
AppCenter.setMaxStorageSize(20 * 1024 * 1024, completionHandler: { (success) in
    if !success {
        // The success parameter is false when the size can't be honored.
    }
})
AppCenter.start(withAppSecret: "{Your App Secret}", services:[Analytics.self])

If you don't set the max storage size, the SDK uses a default max size of 10 MB. The minimum size you're allowed to set is 20 KB.

Note

The actual max storage size may be slightly higher than the value you've chosen. SQLite rounds the size up to the next multiple of the page size. The App Center SDK uses a page size of 4 KB.

Note

The logs older than 25 days will be discarded.

Unsuccessful API calls

There are many reasons the completionHandler call may return false.

  • The specified size is an invalid value (less than 20 KB or greater than 140 TB).
  • The current database size is larger than the specified maximum size.
  • The API has already been called. You may configure it only once per process.
  • The API has been called after AppCenter.start or AppCenter.configure.

You can check warnings and errors in the console using the AppCenter log tag to troubleshoot configuration issues.