ios – Pencil hover + tap crashes app since iPadOS 26.0.1 update

Ever since the 26.0.1 update my app crashes for users who are using the Apple Pencil.
I’ve narrowed it down to the hover function. iPadOS 26 did not crash.

This is all in a Spritekit project so in an skScene.

When the user hovers over empty space the hovering is also triggered in the background and they can tap just fine.
But when the user hovers over an object or a button it will highlight them as intended. However when he then taps on those objects the app insta crashes with below message.
This all used to work fine for the last year.

If users disable “hover effects” in the Pencil settings then the crash does not happen.

Assertion failure in -[UIPencilInteraction
_handleHoverGestureRecognizer:], UIPencilInteraction.m:895

Terminating app due to uncaught exception
‘NSInternalInconsistencyException’, reason: ‘-[UIPencilInteraction
_handleHoverGestureRecognizer:]: Received updates from an unknown hover gesture recognizer: )>>’

Code used:

var pencTapGesture = UIPencilInteraction()
var pencHoverGesture = UIHoverGestureRecognizer.init(target: self, action: #selector(self.hoverFunc(sender:))) 
    
pencHoverGesture.delegate = self
pencTapGesture.delegate = self
self.view?.addGestureRecognizer(pencHoverGesture)
self.view?.addInteraction(pencTapGesture)

Methods triggered:

@objc func hoverFunc(sender: UIHoverGestureRecognizer) {
    
if #available(iOS 16.1, *) {
                
if sender.state == .began || sender.state == .changed {
    //Some code
} else {}
                    
} else {
//Not available for older OS
}
    
//Normal touches detected using tapgestureRecognizer not touchesbegan
@objc func tapFunc(sender: UITapGestureRecognizer) {
//Some code
//Still called before the crash.
        }
    
//Function being used to detect double taps on the pencil side still works:
@available(iOS 17.5, *)
func pencilInteraction(_ interaction: UIPencilInteraction, didReceiveTap tap: UIPencilInteraction.Tap) {
            
let preferredAction = UIPencilInteraction.preferredTapAction
            
// Respect the systemwide preferred action to ignore double taps.
guard preferredAction != .ignore else { return }
}

Seems like the hover ended/cancelled/failed states are never called in the hoverFunc.

The tap is just a normal tap, as if a finger would be used. Using fingers the app does not crash btw so it’s purely connected to the Hover that the Pencil activates.

I also put these .enabled on/off or remove them whenever the game pauses, moves away etc.

AI is suggesting me to stop using these methods and move to a notificiationcenter approach. Since it used to work before fine I would like to see first if this bug can be found though.