Right now I'm developing apps on a brand new macbook. I have downloaded the certSigninRequest
Now I have added both the ios distribution certificate and the private key which is (certSigninRequest)
But whenever I try to export my app it keeps saying missing private key. I have added to my Keychain already
For your case, the appropriate way to use the Distribution Certificate to be legal on other machine(s) is to export it from the current machine that uses the certificate.
To do this:
Navigate the the keychain access.
Go to the targeted certificate, expand it and select both the certificate and the private key:
Right click and select "Export 2 items...".
Obviously, you should fill the required info, such as the name of the exported file and a password.
The output of the above steps would be a .p12 file, which should be installed on the other machine(s). Note that revoking the original certificate will also makes this exported file to be invalid.
Do not request a new distribution certificate for the new machine, it will automatically revoke the previous one (which leads to make the first machine's certificate to be invalid). This thing is you would generate only one Distribution Certificate -by generating a "CertificateSigningRequest" file from the current machine- and then export it to be able to install it on the other machines, which means that all machines use the same distribution certificate.
Also, the following questions might be related to your case:
missing private key in the distribution certificate on keychain
How can I add private key to the distribution certificate?
I have received a .p12 certificate from my Client. I have installed it to my KeyChain. I need to create a distribution provisioning using this and sign my app ipa with it.
How can I create the distribution profile using this information? Any help is appreciated
You cannot create a distribution profile from a certificate and private key. The provisioning profiles are created on Apple's developer site and must reference one or more certificate to be used with the profile.
You will need to either need to have the account owner create / download the profile from the developer site and send it to you, or grant you access as an admin on their team. Also, before you request the iOS distribution profile from your client, make sure you also check that the .p12 file that was sent contains the certificate and the private key for the cert. Without the private key, you won't be able to sign, even if you get the profile.
The 4 key pieces of code signing for iOS are the certificate, the private key for the certificate, the provisioning profile, and the entitlements. If you are missing any of these, or if they are out of sync, you will run into problems. The private key is exactly what it says - private. Apple does not have, nor does it want to store the private key. That is kept by the app owner. Apple will generate and allow you to download your certificate based off that private key (you share with them a cert signing request to generate the cert off of your key). Similarly, you can generate / download existing provisioning profiles from Apple's dev site. Finally, the entitlements in your app must match the entitlements granted on your profile. Those are assigned to your app, and the application's project settings requests access to services - this much match what is requested as part of the app ID / profile on Apple's dev site. So those are the key components; from your question, hopefully you can get your client to send you the provisioning profile. Also, you could potentially run into problems with out of sync entitements, if you need to do anything with additional services, like iCloud, if the client hasn't configured those properly for you.
I need a private key p12 file in order to generate a PEM file for push notifications.
I found in many places the steps to create the file, but I always have the same problem on the final step:
Open Keychain Access on my Mac. Within the Keychain Access drop down menu, select Keychain Access > Certificate Assistant > Request a Certificate from a Certificate Authority. This generates the CSR.
Login into my developer account. Create an unique Apple ID for my application, with push notifications selected (Certificates, Identifiers and Profiles > iOS Apps > Certificates > App IDs).
Open settings for the newly created appliction's id. Go to "Push notifications" and create an "Production SSL certificate". Upload the CSR when it ask for it.
When it finishes download the .cer file.
Double click on the certificate file to install it on the "Keychain Access" app.
Select the private key item under the installed certificate and right click to export it into a p12 file.
Here it´s an screen shot of what i see.
But I can not find any private key item under the certificate item.
Please I really need someone to help me.
Thanks for your patience.
I just got a similar problem looking for apns certificate so here is the solution if someone else need it : APNs certificate missing private key when generating with custom keychain
Just drag and drop the certificate currently in the "System" keychain into the "login" keychain and you will get your certificate with its associated key in the "login" keychain.
I have the following problem which I could not find a solution for anywhere. Basically, we have a company developer account (not enterprise) and so in order to submit our app, I requested from our team lead to send me the distribution certificate and create and send me a distribution provisioning profile.
With the developer profile, everything works good, but when I installed the cert and the provisioning profile, I did not see the distribution profile on Xcode, and nor do I have a private key under the dist cert in the keychain.
Does anyone know how to solve this? I read in diff places that I will need to revoke the certificate and create a new one, but I can't really do that since we have a bunch of apps in the company and I can't revoke it for everyone.
Ahh this is a common issue, The solution is simple:
Who ever created the developer credentials originally needs to go to the keychain on their computer and right click on the key(s) for private and public and export the key to a file.
Then you just download that file on your computer and open it, and it will be added to your keychain.
You need to have both the private key (.pem file) and the certificate for your provisioning profiles.
As long as you still have access to the mac which was used to generate the original distribution certificate it's very simple.
Just use that mac's Keychain Access application to export both the certificate and the private key. Select both using shift or command and right click to export to a .p12 file.
Attached a screenshot to make it very clear.
On your mac, import that .p12 file and you are good to go (just make sure you have a valid provisioning profile).
To add on to others' answers, if you don't have access to that private key anymore it's fairly simple to get back up and running:
revoke your active certificate in the provisioning portal
create new developer certificate (keychain access/.../request for csr...etc.)
download and install a new certificate
create a new provisioning profile for existing app id (on provisioning portal)
download and install new provisioning profile and in the build, settings set the appropriate code signing identities
Delete the existing one from KeyChain, get and add the .p12 file to your mac from where the certificate was created.
To get .p12 from source Mac, go to KeyChain, expand the certificate, select both and export 2 items. This will save .p12 file in your location:
For person who are afraid on re-creating AppStore distribution certificate Apple documentation says:
Important: Re-creating your development or distribution certificates
doesn’t affect apps that you’ve submitted to the App Store nor does it
affect your ability to update them.
But it affects apps for Apple Developer Enterprise ecosystem.
I lost hours and hours to resolve this issue, but it's fixed by just restarting MAC...
In my case, I've lost all private keys in my keychain, new ones were imported correctly, but doesn't show the private key as well. The only thing that helped was generating new CertificateSigningRequest
After you changed a Mac which are not the origin one who created the disitribution certificate, you will missing the private key.Just delete the origin certificate and recreate a new one, that works for me~
When I try to upload iOS build to test flight then error was appear.
"Missing privacy key".
Just 2 step for fix this error.
Remove old certificate from developer.apple.com
Create new certificate from Xcode or developer.apple.com
My problem has been solved (I am using Xcode 9.4.1).
Please check, Xcode created new certificate.
If you are creating your own Distribution cert, not using someone else's then this could help.
Spent quite a bit of time on this today, issues from not being able to create a SigningRequest to generating a distribution cert and not having it attached to my private key in KeyChain Access. These steps helped solve this for me.
If you are still having issues, revoke your current cert and start fresh.
Creating a new signing request
The Keychain Access > Certificate Assistant > Request a Certificate from a Certificate Authority is actually contextually aware of what you currently have selected when you launch it. Just to be sure that you aren't accidentally skewing your Request with some random selection, go to your Login Items and select the Apple Worldwide Developer item. Then launch the above Request and create the CertificateSigningRequest.certSigningRequest file.
Go to Apple Dev portal, add new distribution certificate, upload your CertificateSigningRequest.certSigningRequest file and download the newly created distribution certificate.
To import the distribution cert into your keychain, instead of just double clicking it, I recommend opening your keychain, go to "login/Certificates" area and drag and drop the cert here.
I had an issue where my cert would auto-install into the System area, instead of the login area where my private key existed and this caused my key not to be linked to the new cert.
At the Menu > Visual Studio (mac) > Preferences > Publishing > Apple Developer Accounts > [Select your apple id] > View Details > Create Certificate
To delete unused/invalid certificates, go to website: https://developer.apple.com/account/resources/certificates/list
delete any unwanted certificate there
Next is to create App ID (identifiers), go to website:
https://developer.apple.com/account/resources/identifiers/list
Next, go to website to create provisioning profiles:
https://developer.apple.com/account/resources/profiles/add
use the certificate to bind with your app id.
Next is to download the profiles:
At your mac > At the Menu > Visual Studio (mac) > Preferences > Publishing > Apple Developer Accounts > [Select your apple id] > View Details > Download All Profiles
I got into this situation ("Missing private key.") after Xcode failed to create new distribution certificate - an unknown error occurred.
Then, I struggled to obtain the private key or to generate new certificate. From the certificate manager in Xcode I got strange errors like "The passphrase you entered is wrong". But it did not even ask me for any passphrase.
What helped me was:
Revoke all not-working distribution certificates at developer.apple.com
Restart my Mac
After that, Xcode was able to create new distribution certificate and no private key was missing.
Lesson learned: Restart your Mac as much as your Windows ;)
I accessed that certificate on apple's developer website and after downloaded it I opened it. Likewise, at open I got a little window asking if I wanted to add the certificate to keychain. Just tapped "add" and the "missing private key" error was gone.
My problem was that for whatever reason, the login keychain was missing in the Keychain Access. Xcode created a new certificate and added it to the login keychain but could not use it. Restarting the computer solved my problem.
Just to shed some light on this.
After I deleted my p12 certificate from Keychain. I re-downloaded my own certificate from Apple developer portal.
I was only able to download the certificate. But to sign you need the private key as well. So you either:
export both private key and certificate from Keychain to get it.
Upload a Certificate Signing Request and generate new certificates
That certificate by itself has no value for signing purposes. My guess is that the private key is created by keychain the moment you 'request a certificate from a certificate authority' but isn't shown to you until you add its matching certificate.
Check whether you are using Login or not to add the certificates, if you are checking in System at top left hand side then we wont be able to see it.
So drag and drop the .cer into login then check you are able to get the private key or not.
I'm the creator of the key, but the key was attached to an expired Certificate.
To solve it I went to -> Xcode/Preferences/Accounts/"Account you use to archive"/Manage Certificates..
Then click on the dropdown menu with the "+" sign on the bottom left corner, and choose the type of certificate you need updated (mine was Apple Distribution).
This updated my new certificate with its key attached.
Contact with the creator of iOS Distribution key and tell to export certificate and private key, then just download and double click it to access in your keychain.
I assume you have switched device and trying to create a new certificate for your new device,
First revive the development certificate form the developers portal,
Go to xcode > preferences > accounts > select your apple id with the dev portal access > manage certificates > click on the team account > click on the little + button > click on apple distribution
Go to the apple developer portal , you can see a distribution certificate is created ,
Go to profiles create a new profile with the new certificate.
Download > install
done
An old XCode version will also cause this. I was on XCode10 (old for 2022). Updated to latest version, which resolved the issue.
I could resolve this problem by updating macOS and XCode.
I'm member of development team, and the team admin sends me a distribution certificate to sign applicattion and send to him,i install it into Keychain but XCode cannot recognize the certificate, in Organizer there is info that Valid signing identity not found, what I'm doing wrong ?
You need the private key from the team admin. Whoever generated the certificate will have the private key in their keychain. They need to export that and send it to you along with the certificate.