Resolving "cannot upload bitcode because bitcode is imbalanced" error when uploading to App Store Connect

27 September 2022

I received the following error from fastlane when uploading to App Store Connect:

exportArchive: exportOptionsPlist error for key ‘uploadBitcode’: cannot upload bitcode because bitcode is imbalanced

This error occurred because, as stated in the XCode 14 deprecation notes:

Starting with Xcode 14, bitcode is no longer required for watchOS and tvOS applications, and the App Store no longer accepts bitcode submissions from Xcode 14.

Xcode no longer builds bitcode by default and generates a warning message if a project explicitly enables bitcode: “Building with bitcode is deprecated. Please update your project and/or target settings to disable bitcode.” The capability to build with bitcode will be removed in a future Xcode release. IPAs that contain bitcode will have the bitcode stripped before being submitted to the App Store. Debug symbols for past bitcode submissions remain available for download.

My app is a watchOS app. So, I had previously enabled bitcode upload in the Fastfile:

lane :build do
  build_app(scheme: "MyApp",
            include_bitcode: true)
end

I resolved the upload error by removing the include_bitcode parameter:

lane :build do
  build_app(scheme: "MyApp")
end

Sharing this in case it helps someone else.

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