diff --git a/Samples/iOS-Swift/iOS-Swift-UITests/ProfilingUITests.swift b/Samples/iOS-Swift/iOS-Swift-UITests/ProfilingUITests.swift
index 8b5f31bb903..dc8d8c27a1e 100644
--- a/Samples/iOS-Swift/iOS-Swift-UITests/ProfilingUITests.swift
+++ b/Samples/iOS-Swift/iOS-Swift-UITests/ProfilingUITests.swift
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ class ProfilingUITests: BaseUITest {
     func testProfiledAppLaunches() throws {
         if #available(iOS 16, *) {
             app.launchArguments.append("--io.sentry.wipe-data")
+            setDefaultLaunchArgs()
             launchApp()
             
             // First launch enables in-app profiling by setting traces/profiles sample rates to 1 (which is the default configuration in the sample app), but not launch profiling; assert that we did not write a config to allow the next launch to be profiled.
@@ -162,6 +163,15 @@ extension ProfilingUITests {
         })
         XCTAssert(try XCTUnwrap(sample["thread_id"] as? String) == "259") // the main thread is always ID 259
     }
+    
+    /**
+     * These cause traces to run the profiler, which can overwrite the launch profile file we need to retrieve to make assertions in the UI test.
+     */
+    func setDefaultLaunchArgs() {
+        app.launchArguments.append("--disable-swizzling")
+        app.launchArguments.append("--disable-auto-performance-tracing")
+        app.launchArguments.append("--disable-uiviewcontroller-tracing")
+    }
      
     /**
      * Performs the various operations for the launch profiler test case:
@@ -216,16 +226,8 @@ extension ProfilingUITests {
         if shouldDisableTracing {
             app.launchArguments.append("--disable-tracing")
         }
-        if shouldDisableSwizzling {
-            app.launchArguments.append("--disable-swizzling")
-        }
-        if shouldDisableAutoPerformanceTracking {
-            app.launchArguments.append("--disable-auto-performance-tracing")
-        }
-        if shouldDisableUIViewControllerTracing {
-            app.launchArguments.append("--disable-uiviewcontroller-tracing")
-        }
         
+        setDefaultLaunchArgs()
         launchApp()
         
         let sdkOptionsConfigurationAllowsLaunchProfiling = !(shouldDisableTracing || shouldDisableSwizzling || shouldDisableAutoPerformanceTracking || shouldDisableUIViewControllerTracing)
diff --git a/Samples/iOS-Swift/iOS-Swift/Profiling/ProfilingViewController.swift b/Samples/iOS-Swift/iOS-Swift/Profiling/ProfilingViewController.swift
index bb25956119a..7c0a4504093 100644
--- a/Samples/iOS-Swift/iOS-Swift/Profiling/ProfilingViewController.swift
+++ b/Samples/iOS-Swift/iOS-Swift/Profiling/ProfilingViewController.swift
@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ class ProfilingViewController: UIViewController, UITextFieldDelegate {
     
     @IBAction func viewLaunchProfile(_ sender: Any) {
         profilingUITestDataMarshalingTextField.text = "<fetching...>"
-        withProfile(fileName: "launchProfile") { file in
+        withProfile(fileName: "profile") { file in
             handleContents(file: file)
         }
     }
diff --git a/Sources/Sentry/Profiling/SentryLaunchProfiling.m b/Sources/Sentry/Profiling/SentryLaunchProfiling.m
index 8f9883eb585..e5f4f7eed1e 100644
--- a/Sources/Sentry/Profiling/SentryLaunchProfiling.m
+++ b/Sources/Sentry/Profiling/SentryLaunchProfiling.m
@@ -24,7 +24,6 @@
 
 NS_ASSUME_NONNULL_BEGIN
 
-BOOL isProfilingAppLaunch;
 NSString *const kSentryLaunchProfileConfigKeyTracesSampleRate = @"traces";
 NSString *const kSentryLaunchProfileConfigKeyProfilesSampleRate = @"profiles";
 NSString *const kSentryLaunchProfileConfigKeyContinuousProfiling = @"continuous-profiling";
@@ -119,8 +118,7 @@
 void
 _sentry_nondeduplicated_startLaunchProfile(void)
 {
-    sentry_isTracingAppLaunch = appLaunchProfileConfigFileExists();
-    if (!sentry_isTracingAppLaunch) {
+    if (!appLaunchProfileConfigFileExists()) {
         return;
     }
 
@@ -140,18 +138,19 @@
     NSNumber *profilesRate = launchConfig[kSentryLaunchProfileConfigKeyProfilesSampleRate];
     if (profilesRate == nil) {
         SENTRY_LOG_DEBUG(@"Received a nil configured launch profile sample rate, will not "
-                         @"start continuous profiler for launch.");
+                         @"start trace profiler for launch.");
         return;
     }
 
     NSNumber *tracesRate = launchConfig[kSentryLaunchProfileConfigKeyTracesSampleRate];
     if (tracesRate == nil) {
         SENTRY_LOG_DEBUG(@"Received a nil configured launch trace sample rate, will not start "
-                         @"a profiled launch trace.");
+                         @"trace profiler for launch.");
         return;
     }
 
-    SENTRY_LOG_INFO(@"Starting app launch profile at %llu.", getAbsoluteTime());
+    SENTRY_LOG_INFO(@"Starting app launch trace profile at %llu.", getAbsoluteTime());
+    sentry_isTracingAppLaunch = YES;
     sentry_launchTracer =
         [[SentryTracer alloc] initWithTransactionContext:sentry_context(tracesRate)
                                                      hub:nil
@@ -213,6 +212,7 @@
 {
     SENTRY_LOG_DEBUG(@"Finishing launch tracer.");
     [sentry_launchTracer finish];
+    sentry_isTracingAppLaunch = NO;
 }
 
 NS_ASSUME_NONNULL_END
diff --git a/Sources/Sentry/Profiling/SentryProfilerTestHelpers.m b/Sources/Sentry/Profiling/SentryProfilerTestHelpers.m
index f1eb44fef1f..48f76c69892 100644
--- a/Sources/Sentry/Profiling/SentryProfilerTestHelpers.m
+++ b/Sources/Sentry/Profiling/SentryProfilerTestHelpers.m
@@ -44,24 +44,15 @@
         SENTRY_LOG_DEBUG(@"App support directory already exists.");
     }
 
-    NSString *pathToWrite;
-    if (sentry_isTracingAppLaunch) {
-        SENTRY_LOG_DEBUG(@"Writing app launch profile.");
-        pathToWrite = [appSupportDirPath stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"launchProfile"];
-    } else {
-        SENTRY_LOG_DEBUG(@"Overwriting last non-launch profile.");
-        pathToWrite = [appSupportDirPath stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"profile"];
-    }
+    NSString *pathToWrite = [appSupportDirPath stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"profile"];
 
     if ([fm fileExistsAtPath:pathToWrite]) {
-        SENTRY_LOG_DEBUG(@"Already a %@ profile file present; make sure to remove them right after "
+        SENTRY_LOG_DEBUG(@"Already a profile file present; make sure to remove them right after "
                          @"using them, and that tests clean state in between so there isn't "
-                         @"leftover config producing one when it isn't expected.",
-            sentry_isTracingAppLaunch ? @" launch" : @"");
-        return;
+                         @"leftover config producing one when it isn't expected.");
     }
 
-    SENTRY_LOG_DEBUG(@"Writing%@ profile to file.", sentry_isTracingAppLaunch ? @" launch" : @"");
+    SENTRY_LOG_DEBUG(@"Writing profile to file.");
 
     NSError *error;
     if (![data writeToFile:pathToWrite options:NSDataWritingAtomic error:&error]) {
diff --git a/Sources/Sentry/SentryProfiler.mm b/Sources/Sentry/SentryProfiler.mm
index a7e3a388672..7f0a5c6a9ed 100644
--- a/Sources/Sentry/SentryProfiler.mm
+++ b/Sources/Sentry/SentryProfiler.mm
@@ -157,6 +157,8 @@ - (void)backgroundAbort
 
 - (void)stopForReason:(SentryProfilerTruncationReason)reason
 {
+    // the following line makes unit tests pass, but ui tests fail because sentry_writeProfileFile
+    // needs it to be true to write to the correct path
     sentry_isTracingAppLaunch = NO;
     [_timeoutTimer invalidate];
     [self.metricProfiler stop];