Fatal error: Unexpectedly found nil while unwrapping an Optional value

So your code is crashing with EXC_BAD_INSTRUCTION and you are getting a error like

Fatal error: Unexpectedly found nil while unwrapping an Optional value

or

Fatal error: Unexpectedly found nil while implicitly unwrapping an Optional value

This crash arises when we attempt to forcefully or Implicitly unwrap an optional and that optional, as the name suggests, does not contain any value.

In swift optional are variables which can have a value or no value at all. and when we try to extract value from it as shown below

//Forced unwrapping
var optionalValue: Int?
var anotherValue = optionalValue! + 2
//Implicit unwrapping
var optionalValue: Int! // Note the exclamation mark
var anotherValue = optionalValue + 2

In case of forced unwrapping of optional value we can mitigate the error by using any of the following three approach

If Statements and Forced Unwrapping

We can use if statement to check that the optional is not nil and then force unwrap it as shown below

if optionalVar != nil{
   print(optionalVar!) //force unwrap safely under if
}

Optional Binding

In optional binding, we assign the optional to a temporary constant or variable in a if let statement.

if let constantName = someOptional {
    statements
}
if  let tempConstant = someOptional{
   print(tempConstant) //Note no need to use ! mark
}

Using Guard

We can also use guard which has a specific advantage over if let. Option binding using a guard makes the variable available below the guard statement is the same scope as the guard statement itself. In case of if let statement the temporary variable or constant is available only inside the if let block. See example below

 //Guard example
guard let tempConst = someOptional  else{
   return // or throw
}
//tempConst is available here onwards in the same scope as that of guard.
let a = tempConst + 2;

Nil-Coalescing

// Nil-Coalescing
 let b = a ?? 3 
// Nil-Coalescing replaces nil with a default value and unlike ternary operator, it works for false as well 
print ("(b)")

Any of the above approaches can be taken to safely use optional inside your code. Implicit unwrapping should only be used when you are absolutely sure that a value should be present once it has been assigned and if it is not present then the state of the app is compromised and a crash should occur e.g user token

Hope its clear now how to use optionals safely