Rive animations silently fail to render in iOS release/TestFlight builds (0.13.x)

[luigy23]

Description

Rive animations render correctly in iOS debug mode but silently fail (blank/invisible) in release and TestFlight builds when using rive: ^0.13.4. No errors or crashes — the animations simply don't appear.

Downgrading to rive: 0.12.4 (pure Dart, no native C++ backend) resolves the issue completely.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Add rive: ^0.13.4 to pubspec.yaml
2. Load any .riv animation using RiveAnimation.asset()
3. Run in debug mode on iOS — animations render correctly
4. Build release (flutter build ipa --release) or deploy to TestFlight
5. Animations are invisible/blank — no crash, no error

Expected Behavior

Animations should render in release builds the same as in debug mode.

Actual Behavior

Animations silently fail to render in iOS release/TestFlight builds. No error logs or crashes.

Workaround

Downgrade to rive: 0.12.4 which uses pure Dart rendering and works correctly in all build modes.

Environment

• rive version: 0.13.4 (broken) / 0.12.4 (works)
• Flutter: 3.38.9 (stable)
• Dart: 3.10.8
• iOS deployment target: 16.0
• Xcode: latest
• Devices: tested on physical devices and TestFlight

Additional Context

This also blocks upgrading to 0.14.x to get 16KB page size support for Android (required by Google Play). We're currently stuck on 0.12.4 which triggers the 16KB alignment warning.

[mtkgeek]

This is a weird bug. I have the same issue, but for me, debug and flutter run --release work; what fails is flutter build ipa. I'm on the latest version.