Sudden startup crash

My iPhone game was working just fine, then suddenly, it starts bombing out with this debugger trace from the device:

[Session started at 2010-10-12 08:19:45 +0200.]
GNU gdb 6.3.50-20050815 (Apple version gdb-1472) (Thu Aug  5 05:54:10 UTC 2010)
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This GDB was configured as "--host=i386-apple-darwin --target=arm-apple-darwin".tty /dev/ttys000
Loading program into debugger…
Program loaded.
target remote-mobile /tmp/.XcodeGDBRemote-1033-22
Switching to remote-macosx protocol
mem 0x1000 0x3fffffff cache
mem 0x40000000 0xffffffff none
mem 0x00000000 0x0fff none
run
Running…
Ignoring packet error, continuing...
gdb stack trace at 'putpkt: write failed':
0   gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x0018d893 remote_backtrace_self + 54
1   gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x00190cab putpkt_binary + 401
2   gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x001913a8 remote_macosx_get_all_image_infos_addr + 45
3   gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x00195fa5 remote_macosx_complete_create_or_attach + 146
4   gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x0019666c remote_macosx_create_inferior + 1083
5   gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x0006f611 run_command_1 + 660
6   gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x0012ed92 execute_command + 713
7   gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x0001bbcb mi_execute_async_cli_command + 226
8   gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x0001b1e8 captured_mi_execute_command + 371
9   gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x000850d3 catch_exception + 65
10  gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x00018546 mi_execute_command + 163
11  gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x000186eb mi_execute_command_wrapper + 50
12  gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x0008aab5 handle_file_event + 349
13  gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x0008a47c process_event + 131
14  gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x0008b236 gdb_do_one_event + 1178
15  gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x000851f6 catch_errors + 78
16  gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x0008a92d start_event_loop + 76
17  gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x000876a3 captured_command_loop + 18
18  gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x000851f6 catch_errors + 78
19  gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x0008768f captured_main + 5557
20  gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x000851f6 catch_errors + 78
21  gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x000860cf gdb_main + 63
22  gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x00001b6a main + 52
23  gdb-arm-apple-darwin                0x00001af9 start + 53
recent remote packets prior to 'putpkt: write failed':

I don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on. It was running just fine 15 minutes ago, and the changes I made are in the 2nd level, so they’re not even being loaded yet. It doesn’t get beyond the Unity splash screen.

My environment is SDK 4.1, target iOS version 3.2 (but I’ve tried others with the same result), .NET 2.0 Subset (but I’ve tried the full with the same result), Slow and Safe call optimization. The device is an iPhone 4.

Anyone know what I can do?

Firstly, try checking out the build log (use the Show Editor Log button in the console window just after a build). This will sometimes show errors that occurred during the build that may be causing problems. Also, can you remember exactly what changes you made in the second level?

I am having this same error, but it is only happening on iPod Touch (all models). I only found out after publishing on iTunes and then getting reports and bad reviews from iPod Touch owners. I am frantically looking to resolve this problem… any idea’s?

The only difference between iPod and iPhone is that:

on 4th gen, the ipod has half the ram of the iphone
iTouches do not have mobile network, cam (prior 4th gen) and don’t offer vibrate

There is no other technical limitation and there should be no iTouch only problems either in such a case because Apples approval process actually checks if “iphone only” elements are used but not handled correctly (ie not used when its not an iphone) and reject it if you do.

So question is really what exactly you do to make it fail along that path

Or you could be running into VRAM issues on occasional 3g (2nd gen) owners.

But that would impact iPhone 3G users too, which have the same VRAM limitation (RAM on the iphone 3g normally is even 5mb lower, so you get hit much earlier on average)

beside that RAM / VRAM based problems can not even hit at this point of startup actually, this is before unity even started. Problem is all of the normal and abnormal things that could kill an app this early affect iTouch and iPhone the same way

I found the issue was definitely due to memory using Instruments. I lowered the resolution for a number of textures and it is running well now. Thank you all for your help.