E2E tests fails because they can not take a screenshot of iOS simulator

[kirillzyusko]

Description

Hey everyone 👋

I'm using macos-26 + iOS 26 runners and my tests stuck at this:

15:42:45.737 detox[28536] i child-process:EXEC_FAIL "/usr/bin/xcrun simctl io 5313621E-535C-4616-B143-6574EBB7C3D9 screenshot "/private/var/folders/7k/p5jlfs4x2vbgq5sbjd_s8vyr0000gn/T/detox-28536-dKEShV.detox.png"" failed with error = Error: Command failed: /usr/bin/xcrun simctl io 5313621E-535C-4616-B143-6574EBB7C3D9 screenshot "/private/var/folders/7k/p5jlfs4x2vbgq5sbjd_s8vyr0000gn/T/detox-28536-dKEShV.detox.png"
Detected file type from extension: PNG
An error was encountered processing the command (domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain, code=60):
The operation couldn’t be completed. Timeout waiting for screen surfaces
Timeout waiting for screen surfaces
 (code=60), stdout and stderr:
15:42:45.738 detox[28536] i child-process:EXEC_FAIL 
15:42:45.738 detox[28536] i child-process:EXEC_FAIL Detected file type from extension: PNG
An error was encountered processing the command (domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain, code=60):
The operation couldn’t be completed. Timeout waiting for screen surfaces
Timeout waiting for screen surfaces
15:42:49.219 detox[28536] i child-process:EXEC_CMD /usr/bin/xcrun simctl io 5313621E-535C-4616-B143-6574EBB7C3D9 screenshot "/private/var/folders/7k/p5jlfs4x2vbgq5sbjd_s8vyr0000gn/T/detox-28536-wZt4GW.detox.png"
15:42:53.751 detox[28536] i child-process:EXEC_CMD /usr/bin/xcrun simctl io 5313621E-535C-4616-B143-6574EBB7C3D9 screenshot "/private/var/folders/7k/p5jlfs4x2vbgq5sbjd_s8vyr0000gn/T/detox-28536-8HOScL.detox.png"
15:43:00.536 detox[28536] i child-process:EXEC_FAIL "/usr/bin/xcrun simctl io 5313621E-535C-4616-B143-6574EBB7C3D9 screenshot "/private/var/folders/7k/p5jlfs4x2vbgq5sbjd_s8vyr0000gn/T/detox-28536-b8jjeN.detox.png"" failed with error = Error: Command failed: /usr/bin/xcrun simctl io 5313621E-535C-4616-B143-6574EBB7C3D9 screenshot "/private/var/folders/7k/p5jlfs4x2vbgq5sbjd_s8vyr0000gn/T/detox-28536-b8jjeN.detox.png"
Detected file type from extension: PNG
An error was encountered processing the command (domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain, code=60):
The operation couldn’t be completed. Timeout waiting for screen surfaces
Timeout waiting for screen surfaces
 (code=60), stdout and stderr:
15:43:00.536 detox[28536] i child-process:EXEC_FAIL 
15:43:00.536 detox[28536] i child-process:EXEC_FAIL Detected file type from extension: PNG
An error was encountered processing the command (domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain, code=60):
The operation couldn’t be completed. Timeout waiting for screen surfaces

Full run can be found here: https://github.com/kirillzyusko/react-native-keyboard-controller/actions/runs/23349390403/job/67924408726

Platforms affected

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions - Standard Runners
• GitHub Actions - Larger Runners

Runner images affected

• Ubuntu 22.04
• Ubuntu 24.04
• Ubuntu Slim
• macOS 14
• macOS 14 Arm64
• macOS 15
• macOS 15 Arm64
• macOS 26
• macOS 26 Arm64
• Windows Server 2022
• Windows Server 2025
• Windows Server 2025 with Visual Studio 2026

Image version and build link

20260303.0251.1

Is it regression?

20260209.0200.1

Expected behavior

The simulator should make a screenshot without any issues.

Actual behavior

I'm getting this:

The operation couldn’t be completed. Timeout waiting for screen surfaces

Repro steps

You can use this repro: https://github.com/kirillzyusko/react-native-keyboard-controller

iOS 26/iOS 26.1 jobs fail with 50% ratio. When I run multiple iOS jobs (multiple e2e tests) failure happens faster.

[v-SergeiRadich]

Hi!

Thank you for reporting the issue, we will take a look at it!

[kirillzyusko]

Thank you @v-SergeiRadich

Few things that I can say:

• I've tried killing simulator service, tried to disable simultaneous screenshots/videos in ci: cleanup disk space for iOS e2e tests kirillzyusko/react-native-keyboard-controller#1382 but it didn't help
• the issue is intermittent - sometimes everything works, sometimes completely not. My assumption is that it may depend whether any other jobs are running on the same runner instance or not and if yes then how CPU intensive they are. Maybe parallel compilation somehow consumes a lot of CPU resources and simulator doesn't have enough CPU resources to process simple commands such as taking screenshot;
• I'm also not excluding that it can be Apple bug. Again old simulators works well on macos-15 🤷‍♂️