iPhone not appearing in Develop menu in Safari

Question

On my "Develop" menu, in Safari, the iPhone no longer appears after updating Safari to the latest version, making it impossible to inspect and debug sites and apps.

I restarted the iPhone, killed and relaunched Safari, restarted my Mac too, but the issue is still there. Affects both Safari mobile and phonegap applications.

Anyone experienced the same problem?

Solution 1

Turns out, my issue was that the update to the latest iOS version disabled the "Web Inspector" settings on my iPhone. To re-enable it, go to Settings > Safari > Advanced.

Solution 2

FWIW, I tried all of these suggestions, and it worked briefly after resetting Privacy & Location settings but stopped working immediately after.

What ended up working as a long term solution was to turn both WiFi and Bluetooth off on the iPhone while connected to the Mac.

Solution 3

In our case we needed to reset the trust between iPhone & Mac. From iPhone Settings > General > Reset choose reset Privacy & Location and also Network Settings. The phone reboots, we reconnected to the laptop, tapped Yes to Trust this Computer and now Mac Safari can once again debug mobile Safari.

Solution 4

What helped for me was the following:

1. Open Xcode
2. On the Menu: Window -> Devices and Simulators
3. Check the Connect via network checkbox. (If it is already selected then uncheck it and re-check)

Solution 5

In my case, resetting only Privacy & Location did the job (but only temporarily, see update below!).

Try only resetting that before resetting your whole network settings for nothing!

Almost immediately after reset, the "Trust this Computer" popup appeared and after trusting my device appeared in the Develop menu.

---

Update:

I kept having regular issues with this (having to reset it multiple times per day, restarting Safari and a combination of other things) until I found the real fix here:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/58654871/167983

@BearSnowstorm:

One more tip to try - after trying many of the above suggestions I turned off "Sync with this iPhone over Wi-Fi" in iTunes.

Voila! Got my iPhone into the Develop menu!

(for context, this is in Mojave 10.14.6, iOS 13.1.3, Safari 13.0.3)

My comment on that answer describes the same thing but updated for Catalina:

I had recurring issues with this and the only way I could make it work (sometimes) was to reset Location & Privacy, close Safari, unplug my device, etc. It was always a temporary fix though and the issues would come back very quickly. This however seems to work more permanently! I confirm what @Florian said: the setting was off by default for me, turning it on then off (after letting the sync finish) worked. On Catalina, this setting is named "Show this iPhone when on Wi-Fi" under General when you select your iDevice in the Finder.

Reading that answer my instinct was that it could not possibly make a difference, but it does! I have had zero issues since I did this. Try it!

View more solutions

Comments

[user2330237]

Pretty sure that mobile Safari and the Finder and iTunes will all soon be removed from the corresponding Apple App Stores because they don't work properly. Therefore they will not pass Apple's exacting app review process designed to ensure that users are delighted, so Apple will remove them, just like they do with everybody else's apps. Because otherwise, it would be clear that Apple has a monopoly, and we all know that that's against the law, so that can't be true. This will mean that Apple will have to debug their code soon. (alarm goes off... waking up...).

[Stiger]

cable is problem in my case. Thanks.

[Mike Castro Demaria]

IOS 11.3 reset this setting to default, you must re enable it Settings > Safari > Advanced >

[Martin]

In my case the problem was the MBP USB-C to USB adapter used to connect the iPhone through a Lightning-to-USB cable. Using a different adapter solved the problem.

[Dani Amsalem]

This was exactly what I needed! After restarting my phone and mac multiple times, updating, turning settings off/on again it was just a matter of resetting Privacy & Location then Network Settings (which restarted my device). Then I had to turn on Web Inspector once again and I was connected!

[pk1557]

This worked for me. Like you said, needed to reset both "Privacy & Location" as well as "Network Settings". Didn't work with just one of these resets; had to be both. Thank you!

[Nighto]

For me with an iPhone XR and a Macbook Pro with official USB-C to USB-A and iPhone cable, changing only "Privacy & Location" worked.

[Paul Sturm]

that makes no sense - but its the only thing that worked for me too

[adam5280]

Same. After resetting Privacy & Location on my iPhone, then restarting the phone, re-trusting on both ends, and restarting Safari a few times it finally popped up in the Develop menu. At first, when selecting 'iPhone X' from the Develop menu, it said 'connecting... no inspectable applications'. This resolved after restarting Safari a couple times.

[Buck Doyle]

Me too, how dreadfully annoying. Fortunately I can reconnect wifi and the developer tools still work despite the phone disappearing from the Develop menu. Ridiculous!

[Alexander Kim]

Resetting Privacy & Location had no effect for me, only Network settings reset resolved the issue.

[Carbonara]

Can also confirm, resetting just the privacy and location settings allowed my phone to show up under the develop menu in safari. It then asked me to "trust" the computer on my phone again. As soon as I did that it disappeared from the develop menu again. Turning off wifi and bluetooth made it reappear so can be used for debugging but it disappears again the moment wifi and bluetooth are turned back on on the phone. Definite one to add to the long iOS13/macOS Catalina bug list.

[Chuck Le Butt]

Works like a dream. Thanks!

[dungey_140]

Worked for me, iPhone XR

[Eudis Duran]

so dumb. after catalina update this completetly broke but thankfully this fixed it. so insane how buggy these new max updates are

[Sam Sverko]

THANK YOU JOE! Had this issue for months and turning off both the Wifi and Bluetooth did the trick. I knew about resetting the Privacy & Location settings, but that only sometimes worked, if only briefly. I'm running MacOS Catalina 10.15.2, and iPhone 8 iOS 13.3.

[Hans Magnus]

Thank you for this one! I'm soon on the verge of Fairphone and Rasberry Pi :/

[Matt B]

@pk1557 Resetting network settings is what did it for me! Legend!

[epsilon42]

FWIW: I didn't reset network settings, or location and privacy, but turning off Wifi/Bluetooth and having the phone connected using a lightning cable made the phone appear on Safari > Develop. I then selected the Safari > Develop > [iPhone] > Connect via Network option and I could now inspect, even with lightning cable removed.

[Leo]

I spent hours rebooting , restarting Safari , toggle options in the IOS settings... so this did work for me too. Connection was broken after installing a Mac OSX/Safari update for Mojave 10.14.6 and simultaneously installing an IOS 13.3.1 update. Plugging in the phone did not inform about a trust problem (and ironically Xcode apps could be still deployed to this phone)

[Qasim]

The Settings > Developer > Clear Trusted Computers option isn't showing on my iPhone =(

[gimp3695]

This is the only thing that worked for me. Just a side note. If I have lighting cable plugged in and it does NOT show up in the develop menu. Just disable wifi/bluetooth on phone. Then you MUST quit completely out of safari then launch safari again and you will then see your device. Select your device and finally you can debug. You can also re-enable wifi and bluetooth. This is very annonying. Has anyone submitted a bug report on this?

[honk31]

i had to reset my privacy settings recently since my phone was asking me, if it should trust the computer each time i plugged it in. now this is solved. but on desktop in safari it is not showing up, when connecting. unless i uncheck wifi & bluetooth. wtf?

[Tim G]

I had to quit safari after doing this but then after restarting safari the phone shows up.

[qtwrk]

I have iPad pro works , but iPhone doesn't , on exact same cable and same port

[kupendra]

Sometimes small answer saves thousand years of life :)

[Gifford N.]

This worked and I didn't have to reset any of my iPhone settings! Magnifico!

[mikey]

this did the trick for me! I love the variety of solutions on this issue... Apple sometimes like us to suffer

[Bjorn.B]

You are the MVP.

[Pushkin]

What kind sorcery is this? How does this work?