NSBluetoothAlwaysUsageDescription required, but bluetooth is not used

I had this exact same issue today. When I did a grep search I found that there is some reference to CoreBluetooth.framework inside my project.pbxproj

I removed the reference and building the app went fine. Uploaded to Apple and it got through so this worked for me.

To search use the following command

grep -r -a CoreBluetooth.framework ProjectFolder

Open your Info.plist and add a NSBluetoothAlwaysUsageDescription. You can do this in the editor by adding a line item like this:

Or you can right click on the Info.plist and Open As -> Source Code and paste in the two appropriate lines as xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    ....
    <key>NSBluetoothPeripheralUsageDescription</key>
    <string>We use Bluetooth to connect to the MantisX hardware device.</string>
    ....
</dict>
</plist>

I was able to snuff out CoreBluetooth usages by scanning for symbol usages, specifically looking for CBCentralManager. The script I wrote to do so:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
#
# find-bluetooth-usages.sh <app1.app> <app2.app> ...

check_references_corebluetooth() {
  nm "$1" | grep "CBCentralManager" 2>&1 >/dev/null
}

find_usages () {
  app_path=$1
  if [[ ! -d $app_path || ! -d "$app_path/Frameworks" ]]; then
    echo "$app_path is not a valid app directory."
    exit 1
  fi
  app_filename=$(basename -- "$app_path")
  app_name="${app_filename%.*}"

  if check_references_corebluetooth "$app_path/$app_name"; then
    echo "$app_name contains references to CoreBluetooth"
  fi
  for framework_filename in $(ls "$app_path/Frameworks" | egrep '\.framework$'); do
    framework_path="$app_path/Frameworks/$framework_filename"
    framework_name=$(basename "$framework_path" .framework)
    if check_references_corebluetooth "$framework_path/$framework_name"; then
      echo "$framework_name contains references to CoreBluetooth"
    fi
  done
}

for arg in "$@"; do
  find_usages "$arg"
done

This will dig through the main binary + its included frameworks to find CBCentralManager references. Ex:

./find-bluetooth-usages.sh /path/to/MyApp.app