fb-idb 1.1.7 PyPI package: ImportError in companion_spawner due to missing IDB_LOCAL_TARGETS_FILE constant

[carlgieringer]

Summary

The fb-idb 1.1.7 package on PyPI ships idb/common/companion_spawner.py which imports IDB_LOCAL_TARGETS_FILE from idb/common/constants.py. However, constants.py in the same package does not define this constant, causing an ImportError at module load time. This completely breaks idb's ability to auto-start idb_companion daemons for simulators.

Steps to Reproduce

pip install fb-idb==1.1.7
python3 -c "from idb.common.companion_spawner import CompanionSpawner"

Result:

ImportError: cannot import name 'IDB_LOCAL_TARGETS_FILE' from 'idb.common.constants'

Expected: Module loads successfully.

In practice, this means any idb command that needs to auto-start a companion (e.g., idb ui describe-all --udid <UDID>) fails with:

Failed to connect to companion at address DomainSocketAddress(path='/tmp/idb/<UDID>_companion.sock'): [Errno 2] No such file or directory

Root Cause

The repo and PyPI package are out of sync:

1. Aug 2021 — companion_spawner.py was removed from the repo (277a197a "Flatten CompanionSpawner into Companion")
2. Sept 2021 — IDB_LOCAL_TARGETS_FILE was removed from constants.py (a4159c8e "Remove dependence on local state file")
3. March 2022 — fb-idb 1.1.7 was published to PyPI — this is the latest release

The repo changes are internally consistent (both the file and the constant were removed together), but the PyPI package appears to have been built from a state where constants.py was updated but companion_spawner.py was not yet removed.

Workaround

We patch constants.py after installing fb-idb to add the missing constant:

IDB_CONSTANTS=".venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/idb/common/constants.py"
if [ -f "$IDB_CONSTANTS" ] && ! grep -q 'IDB_LOCAL_TARGETS_FILE' "$IDB_CONSTANTS"; then
    echo 'IDB_LOCAL_TARGETS_FILE: str = f"{BASE_IDB_FILE_PATH}/local_targets"' >> "$IDB_CONSTANTS"
fi

Suggested Fix

Publish a new PyPI release from the current repo state. The repo code is consistent — companion_spawner.py no longer exists and constants.py no longer references IDB_LOCAL_TARGETS_FILE. A fresh build from main would resolve this for all users.

The release process is straightforward — setup.py just needs FB_IDB_VERSION set:

FB_IDB_VERSION=1.1.8 python setup.py sdist bdist_wheel
twine upload dist/*

This was also raised in #858 ("Are there any plans to release a new version?").

Environment

• macOS 26.2 (Apple Silicon)
• Python 3.12
• fb-idb 1.1.7 (latest on PyPI)
• idb-companion 1.1.8 (Homebrew)

[hiSandog]

A table-driven regression test around fb-idb could cover the absent, explicit null/empty, and valid-value cases for “fb-idb 1.1.7 PyPI package: ImportError in companion_spawner due to missing IDB_LOCAL_TARGETS_FILE constant”. That would make both the failure boundary and the intended fallback semantics explicit.