Siri Audio Diagnostics

Troubleshooting for audio apps whose Siri support builds but doesn't play. Most failures have one of four causes: the request took a path you didn't build, Siri never matched the request to one of your items, a cold-start process ended early, or your search didn't survive Siri's phrasing.

Symptoms This Diagnoses

Use when you're experiencing:

• Siri says "I can't play that" even though the build succeeds
• Siri says "MyApp hasn't added support for that with Siri"
• Siri finds your app but can't find an artist, album, or playlist by name
• Siri playback works only while the app is already open
• Duplicate results in Siri or Spotlight
• "Pause" and "next" work, but "play this album" doesn't
• An App Shortcut phrase goes to a web or Maps result, but tapping the shortcut works
• A schema build fails with no schema errors listed
• The build log shows At least one halting error was produced during export
• AppIntentsTesting reports LNPerformQueryErrorDomain 10002
• A schema intent's perform() crashes with large entities

Example Prompts

Questions you can ask your assistant that will invoke this diagnostic:

• "Why does Siri say it can't play that when my app has the Audio schemas?"
• "Siri says my app hasn't added support for that. What's missing?"
• "Why can't Siri find artists in my app by name?"
• "Why does Siri playback only work when my app is open?"
• "Next track works with Siri but playing an album doesn't. Why?"
• "My App Shortcut works when I tap it but not when I say it"

Diagnostic Workflow

The diagnostic first identifies which path the request took. "Pause" and "next" go through Now Playing commands; "play X" goes through the Audio schemas for Siri AI, or through SiriKit for classic Siri; and App Shortcut phrases go through your App Shortcuts, which have their own Siri opt-in. A fix for one path does nothing for another.

From there it works through each symptom:

• Build problems – Swift errors that hide schema errors, and the halting export error
• SiriKit not wired – Info.plist keys, the Siri entitlement, the multiple-scene requirement for in-app handlers, and authorization
• Resolution failures – A missing AudioSearch query, a query that returns nothing for Siri's phrasing, and a stale Spotlight index
• Name search – Entity queries that can't search by name
• Cold start – Background processes that end before resolving, and services that crash when no window exists yet
• Other symptoms – Duplicate results, Now Playing commands that don't respond, a declined App Shortcuts opt-in, and crashes from oversized entities

It ends with pitfalls in automated Siri testing, such as a UI-test call that can block for about 60 seconds while Siri still runs the request.

Documentation Scope

This page documents the siri-audio-diag diagnostic skill (in the axiom-integration suite), the workflows your assistant uses when Siri support in an audio app builds but doesn't play. The skill file includes the exact log messages and build errors to look for.

• For exact schema shapes and error-to-fix mappings, see siri-audio-ref

Related

• siri-audio – The build order and testing ladder that prevent most of these failures
• app-shortcuts-ref – App Shortcut phrases and their separate Siri opt-in
• now-playing – Remote commands and Now Playing metadata for "pause", "next", and "what song is this?"
• core-spotlight-ref – Indexing and rebuilding the Spotlight entries Siri searches

Resources

WWDC: 2026-343, 2026-240, 2020-10060

Docs: /mediaintents/responding-to-audio-search-and-playback-requests, /sirikit/requesting-authorization-to-use-siri, /sirikit/dispatching-intents-to-handlers, /appintentstesting