storyboard not opening in xamarin ios designer

Question

This is my first project with Xamarin.iOS and am getting familiarized with the IDE for iOS.

I created a simple Xamarin.iOS 'Single Page Application' project. I did not add any code - the project files are as they are when created from 'New Project'.

When opening the main storyboard file in Xamarin Studio, the spinner image just keeps spinning and hangs. When I try to close Studio, it also hangs. I have to kill the process in Activity Monitor.

If I open the storyboard in 'Source Code Editor' or in Xcode Interface Builder, it opens fine.

I did some research and saw this discussion thread on the Xamarin forums: https://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/23566/ios-designer-bug-there-was-problem-rendering-this-document-not-opening-storyboard

I tried the solution that was mentioned by user Krunoslavterle, by opening the storyboard in code editor but it still does not open. Here's what he posted:
"I had the same issue, resolved by opening storyboard with TextEdit, there I changed: version="3.0" to 2.0, save, refresh and try to open the storyboard. Xamarin studio will throw an error ("The format of this legacy storyboard file is not supported"), then click on ("Upgrade this file to a supported format"). After that the storyboard can be opened."

I have checked memory usage to see if it doesn't have enough to open and render the storyboard and it has enough memory to spare.

I opened Console.app and saw .spin and .hang logs that I can provide but am not comfortable in posting them publicly as they probably have sensitive info.

My dev environment:
Macbook5,2 with Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10
MonoFramework-MDK-4.0.0.143.macos10.xamarin.x86.pkg
XamarinStudio-5.9.0.431-0.dmg
Xamarin.iOS: monotouch-8.10.0.267.pkg
Xcode 6.3.2

Answer 1

Try to update xamarin studio from beta channel. I had same problem and after updating xamarin studio from beta channel storyboard started to load.

This bug in bug tracker: https://bugzilla.xamarin.com/show_bug.cgi?id=34734 .

Discussion in xamarin forum: https://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/54411/storyboard-does-not-open-on-ios-hello-tutorial

Answer 2

Got it to open by adding more memory - went from 2GB to 4GB - and now it opens, but it takes 1-2 minutes. I recommend having at least 6GB and ideally 8-10GB.

Answer 3

My best advice is to NEVER use the IOS designer. It's rubbish. Always use Xcode Interface Builder. The main reason is, you're guaranteed the storyboard will be valid with IOS. I once created an empty storyboard in IOS Designer and compared the XML it generated to an empty storyboard created in Xcode. It was totally different. The designer version was missing a hell of a lot of information. Since then I have never trusted the IOS designer. Not only that, but constraints are pain in the ass to use on the IOS designer, whereby, they're a lot easier in Xcode. I've also have storyboards render totally wrong in the IOS designer if the layout is particularly complex.