Consider enabling the interpreter by default for release builds

[rolfbjarne]

Description

Currently the interpreter is enabled for Debug builds:

maui/.nuspec/Microsoft.Maui.Controls.props

Lines 8 to 9 in 6b43399

	<UseInterpreter Condition="'$(UseInterpreter)' == '' and '$(Configuration)' == 'Debug'">True</UseInterpreter>
	<MtouchLink Condition="'$(MtouchLink)' == '' and '$(Configuration)' == 'Debug' and '$(UseInterpreter)' == 'true'">None</MtouchLink>

At least for iOS and Mac Catalyst, we might want to make this the default for Release builds as well, because I'm seeing a lot of customers running into problems where their app crashes once they switch to Release builds, because they used some feature in their app that requires the interpreter.

Some customers don't even test their apps in Release mode, they go straight to trying to publish and they're obviously rather upset when their apps are rejected because they crash at launch.

While the interpreter might slow things down, the performance will be fine for most apps, and if someone really needs the additional performance they can disable the interpreter.

The main downside might be that crash reports will be rather useless, because all managed stack frames will just show up as the interpreter doing "stuff".

Steps to Reproduce

Triage bugs for a while.

Alternatively read about customer's experiences online (Twitter, blog posts, etc.).

Example blog post: https://www.andreasnesheim.no/my-experience-with-migrating-my-app-from-xamarin-forms-to-net-maui/

Link to public reproduction project repository

N/A

Version with bug

7.0 (current)

Last version that worked well

Unknown/Other

Affected platforms

iOS, macOS

Affected platform versions

All so far

Did you find any workaround?

1. Better documentation.
2. Better error messages.

Relevant log output

No response

References

• Maui Blazor App :in (release process: "ipa" file ) project crashes on showing a nuget control #13016
• EF Core with Sqlite throws System.ExecutionEngineException running on iOS Device (Release) #9176
• Can't use Entity Framework Core in iOS Release builds #12537
• Release System.ExecutionEngineException Blazor Hybrid iOS ComponentProperties.SetProperties(in ParameterView, object)+SetProperty(object, PropertySetter, string, object) runtime#74015
• Release throws exception with local styles since last VS update #12316
• iOS Release builds stopped working after last update #12519
• https://github.com/dotnet/maui/issues?q=is%3Aissue+sort%3Aupdated-desc+useinterpreter+release+
• .NET Maui release build crashes but debug build is fine #18870

[symbiogenesis]

Is there a list of known deficiencies in the current release mode tooling? I have experienced similar issues.

[noque-lind]

I would like to know which features require the Interpreter. Because we have run into the same thing. UseIntepreter works for release mode, otherwise it crashes at launch. I'd like to try the app without the interpreter because our client is not really happy with the performance compared to how the app ran in Xamarin Forms.

[Ghevi]

@noque-lind @symbiogenesis
Can't provide a list but i know that Entity Framework Core requires the interpreter on iOS
9176, 12537

[mattleibow]

@jonathanpeppers this feels like a nice way to make customers happy and still have all the power to get that performance?

@rolfbjarne do we know what part of entity framework needs the interpreter? Technically we can make all platforms use a slower code path because a popular library needs it. However, maybe entity framework can provide an alternate code path for AOT-only environments?

[jonathanpeppers]

@mattleibow just don't do this for Android, because it disables the JIT. iOS/MacCatalyst can't JIT, so the only downside is whatever the increase to app size. Plus there might be some things about weird stack traces Rolf mentions above.

[rolfbjarne]

@mattleibow

@rolfbjarne do we know what part of entity framework needs the interpreter? Technically we can make all platforms use a slower code path because a popular library needs it. However, maybe entity framework can provide an alternate code path for AOT-only environments?

I haven't investigated why entity framework needs the interpreter. I also believe there are other libraries that needs it, so it's not only entity framework.

[symbiogenesis]

Linking this bug for context. It is what I have marked on the line that I set the interpreter on for iOS. A couple of you have already commented there, but others might not be aware.

I am using Entity Framework, and that is likely a main reason why I set it.

dotnet/runtime#74015

[symbiogenesis]

Here is an example of something that seems to work for me on Debug mode, but fails on Release mode

In this branch there is a converter that is marked as internal. On Windows and/or in Debug mode it works, but on Android release mode it crashes with:

System.MethodAccessException: Method Maui.DataGrid.SortDataTypeConverter..ctor()' is inaccessible from method YourProject.Views.UsersPage.InitializeComponent()' at YourProject.Views.UsersPage.InitializeComponent...

To reproduce the error, just run the sample project in Android release mode. It should crash on launch.

Changing SortDataTypeConverter to public fixes it, but I don't see why Release mode should be special, so it seems like a bug.

To retrieve the exception in Release mode I have subscribed to AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException and TaskScheduler.UnobservedTaskException from the MainActivity in the Android platform code, and logged to the console from there.

https://github.com/symbiogenesis/Maui.DataGrid/tree/android-release-mode

[rdavisau]

Is it possible in new dotnet to do the equivalent of the Xamarin.iOS --interpreter=-all (aot everything, but allow the interpreter to handle codegen)?