I am using XCode 11.2.1 and out of nowhere the archives for deployment appear in the Other Items category, instead of iOS Apps (in Organizer). I am using my custom static framework and what I found that this may be the issue, but for a while, like a month or so after I created and used my framework, I had no problems with deploy (I am also using CocoaPods, but that was ok).
I have tried a lot of things like here:
Xcode 10 Archives to 'Other Items' instead of 'MacOS Apps'
and it worked for a few times, but now, with multiple cleanings, deleting derived data, etc, nothing works.
Here there is a reference to header files (but I have never changed anything about them when it worked): https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes/tn2215/_index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS40011221-CH1-PROJ
The problem is that the help link about Copy files is not working and also (I cannot find "Copy files" section in Build phases - maybe it was renamed), the Xcode version is different (I found other posts on StackOverflow) so I cannot manage to make them work (I am pretty new to Xcode and C++ / Obj C / Swift and it is difficult to manage those options if I cannot really understand the references (or with missing help/explanations, which I don't know where to look for)
I used this to create and use my framework: https://www.raywenderlich.com/5109-creating-a-framework-for-ios (and different other links but very similar to this one)
Can someone please provide some help regarding the steps needed to make your app deployable to AppStore while using my custom framework? I can provide other information and screenshots if needed. Thank you.
EDIT:
Is there a way to check what is different between the creation of the last archive that worked and the new one that I cannot deploy?
After archiving my app I also exported it and explored it in Finder (as instructed here: stackoverflow.com/a/15120289/1215791) So there is no libraries folder. It seems that the problem is not related to forgetting set Skip Install to YES for something.
Check the contents of the .xcarchive, this happens when there's more than one item in Products/Applications. It should contain only your application.
After finding the extra items there, you can then know for which target you should set "Skip Install" to Yes.
This just started happening with Xcode 13.3.
Turns out that I was adding the DocC to the Products/Applications directory. I turned off the flag for compiling documentation ("Build Documentation during 'Build'"), and it started working again.
I have a problem generating a iOS App archive from an application. The application compiles just fine and even works in the simulator. Now I wanted to make som ad hoc testing and cannot generate the iOS App Archive. When I click on the Product -> Archive it generates a generic xcode archive. Can anyone help me. I should mention, that I have already generated an iOS App Archive of this application. It has just stopped to generate iOS Archive for some reason. Thanks a lot.
Check Build Settings:
Skip install is NO for the main project target
Skip install is YES for framework (sub-projects) targets
In Build Phases for sub-projects, Copy Headers needs to be in Project, not Public (does not apply if building static library)
Installation Directory under Deployment is valid (/Applications for example)
This can happen if you've added a framework/library ... you need to edit the Target->Build Settings of that library and set the 'Skip Install' setting to 'Yes'. When you re-archive, XCode should start producing a 'iOS App Archive' again rather than a 'generic xcode archive'.
In addition of Skip Install to Yes and in case you opened another lib/framwork project within your app project you have to move headers (if any) from public to project in the Build Phase / Copy Headers.
I did the following to make it work for me:
I had a three20 static library, I used cocoapods to include the files within the main project
followed the skip install for all other sub projects/static libraries and switched the copy headers from public to project as stated above
most importantly: in each library your project uses go to build phases -> Copy Files and ensured that destination is changed from Absolute path to products directory. Note: see the hint below to narrow your search to find the library causing this error.
and that was it!
hint: to get an idea of the offending files that's causing your archive to create an archive file rather than an ipa do this:
Select the archive and click the Distribute button.
Select the 'Save Built Products' option.
Hit Next and Save.
Browse the created directory in Finder.
The 'libraries' subdirectory will identify the libraries that you need to set the Skip Install to Yes.
in some cases usr/local/include will identify the culprit header files you need to move from Public to Project or the files that you have to change from absolute path to products directory (or even the files you forgot to set the skip install to yes flag). but that directory (ie usr/local/include) varies depending on your sublibrary directory structure. In many cases.. you will see all the files listed under Copy Files in step 3 above listed here. If you find them here, then you have a definite answer for the cause of your problem.
update to hint: to make life even more simpler.. whatever files appears under step 4 in hint above.. simply search for it in the global search of xcode.. and you should get immediate results for what you want.. for example, this was the content of my folder (following the steps in hint above):
So I could tell it has something to do with the crypto and ssl libraries.. searching for them:
made me realize that i forgot to set skip install to yes.
If you export the archive, open it and see /urs/local/include in Products try this suggestion:
In each pod, under Packaging, Private Headers Folder Path and Public Headers Folder Path is set to /usr/local/include. If I clear them then I get a valid archive.
Worked for me after upgrading my React Native app to 0.11.0, Xcode 7 and CocoaPods 0.39.0.beta.4.
If you're using CocoaPods as well as WatchKit or a Today Extension, there is an open issue on the CocoaPods repo explaining what your problem might be.
The solution for me was to remove the Copy Pod Resources phase from the WatchKit Extension and Today Extension targets under Build Phases. The project compiled and archived as expected once I did this.
Hope this helps someone, this had me stumped for an entire day!
If any of the above answers don't work, your issue is probably with cocoaPods. The latest update 0.38.1 messed things up for me, but then i downgraded to 0.37.1 and things returned to normal. Using Xcode 6.3.1
Later edit: updating to 0.38.2 will also fix this. More info about what caused this issue here: Cocoapods 0.38.1 failed to create valid Archive
Although I'm using Xcode5 and what sorted it for me was editing the Build Scheme - trying all of the above suggestions that were applicable didn't help in my case.
I had two targets, say, "App" and "App FREE". My problems with the generic archive happened when I was trying to Archive the FREE version, which I added after the 'normal' version of the app. In my case, when I selected its Scheme in the toolbar and chose Edit Scheme ... I saw that Build section had two targets, namely App and App FREE.
I unchecked all columns for App, leaving only App FREE's columns checked, and clicked OK. Next time I chose Product > Archive I got my App FREE instead of a Generic Archive. :)
If you have only single project, maybe this solution would be useful.
This problem had occurred, when I duplicated the target. As a result I had two targets parallel built. This was causing the issue. Generic IOS archive was built.
To turn the parallel built off go to
Manage schemes,
Edit scheme,
Build,
Remove the other target.
I had this problem after updating to iOS 9 and Xcode 7. Josh H's solution worked for me:
In each pod, under Packaging, Private Headers Folder Path and Public
Headers Folder Path is set to /usr/local/include. If I clear them then
I get a valid archive.
I also made a post install script for my Podfile to do this automatically!
post_install do |installer_representation|
installer_representation.pods_project.targets.each do |target|
target.build_configurations.each do |config|
config.build_settings['PUBLIC_HEADERS_FOLDER_PATH'] = [""];
config.build_settings['PRIVATE_HEADERS_FOLDER_PATH'] = [""];
end
end
end
Just add it to the bottom of your Podfile and run pod install
I had this issue. In my case, it was caused by keeping a Mac app target as a dependency of the iOS app.
The reason it was setup like this was that the Mac app was a tool used to generate some data for the iOS app, which was then included in the bundle.
I had to remove that dependency and build the tool separately before making a build of the iOS app itself.
In my scenario I was getting the erroneous "Generic Archive" only after I began including Swift code in my predominantly Objective-C project. After lots of troubleshooting and examination of the archive file that Xcode was spitting out, I noticed that the SwiftSupport folder (with the required dylibs for the Swift runtime) was in a different place in my archive than from a vanilla brand-new Swift project app archive.
I found the Installation Directory build setting and noticed it was set to a custom path in my project. I simply deleted it (setting it to its generic value of /Applications) and the next Build -> Archive I did worked as expected and gave me a proper iOS App Archive.
TL; DR: Make sure your Installation Directory build setting is set to its default value of /Applications when including Swift code in your app, especially if you are starting with an older project file that may have some unexpected legacy build settings.
I have multiple project in my workspace, (GTL, Pods and my main project) and this is what worked for me:
Select the Project, there will be 2 types there, there's the Project and there's the Targets.
For projects that is not your main like GTL or PODS:
Projects:
Skip Install = NO
Installation Directory = /Applications
// For pods
Private Headers Folder Path = ""
Public Headers Folder Path = ""
Targets:
Skip Install = YES
Installation Directory = /Applications
// For pods
Private Headers Folder Path = ""
Public Headers Folder Path = ""
For the main project (which is usually named the same as your product name):
Projects:
Skip Install = NO
Installation Directory = /Applications
Targets:
Skip Install = NO
Installation Directory = /Applications
Check the ios deployment target on each projects and targets to make sure they are all the same.
Leaving this here to save others from the same journey.
I found I needed to remove the same Copy Pod Resources build phase from a static library target in my workspace too.
Addition to Alex L 's answer.
Point 3. Change 'Build Settings' -> 'Public Header Folder Path' to 'include/xxx' also works.
If none of the above helped you...after a lot of time.......
I deleted the value in the Info.plist for Bundle Version because I was happy enough with just Bundle Version Short 1.0. Bad. Don't do this.
*Note I actually did this by editing it in the UI on the right not realizing it would put an empty key in the Info.plist file. I think that makes it invalid. My bundle showed up as other items while archiving and had no icon, and I couldn't upload to anywhere.
This boils down to invalid values in the Info.plist. If it's not a valid archive, try unzipping an old archive and dropping in / overwriting your current one and see if it fixes it when rebuilding the archive.
Go to Build Settings and add
yourAppName/Resources/dist.plist to the Code Signing Entitlements
Press cmd + B with iOS Device or a Real Device selected as Build Target
When done -> scroll to "Products" folder and right-click on yourAppName.app
Choose "Show in Finder"
Create a folder with Name Payload (capital "P")
Copy yourAppName into your Payload Folder
Create a zip from your Payload Folder
Rename the zip to yourAppName.ipa
DONE
After trying just about everything:
Clean, Archive
delete DerivedData, Archive
restart Xcode (I was using XCode7), Archive
combinations of above...
I then noticed my boot partition was 'low on free disk space'... about 1GB or so.
I rebooted, then got about 18GB free.
Then opened Xcode and project, performed Archive... and surprisingly (after an hour of trying to build an Archive) I finally got a non Generic Archive.
No idea if its a free disk issue which fixed it or a reboot of the macOS that fixed it, but it worked for me.
If you have any .xcodeproj files in Project>Targets>Build Phases>target dependencies remove it from there and then build your ipa. It works for me. Cheers
You can get answer here : xcode is creating generic xcode archive instead of iOS App Archive
In my case, i had to move both FMDB and BlocksKit to static libraries. Previously they were built as subprojects. Remember you can use lipo to create universal libraries. When building the final products, the simulator code will be stripped automagically.
Another possible reason for this is to have references in "Target Dependencies" to projects for a different platform. In my particular case, I was working on a project that shares code for OSX and iOS. In one of the iOS targets, I had accidentally added an OSX target as dependency.
In order to be thorough, I am posting my solution.
I experienced the exact same problem trying to build an Archive of an iOS project in Xcode 5.1.1 (5B1008). None of the above suggestions fixed the problem, and most of them were irrelevant (I had not added any Frameworks, and did not have any Public entries in the Copy Headers section of my Build Phases).
In my case, fixing the problem consisted of simply closing my project, deleting any archives that I had previously made, going to Preferences > Accounts, removing my developer account, quitting Xcode, relaunching, re-adding my developer account, starting the Archive process again. This fixed my problem immediately.
One more solution, since all the above didn't work for me...
Changed the User Header Search Paths (I suppose Header Search Paths would work just as elegantly) to "$(BUILT_PRODUCTS_DIR)/BlocksKit".
Background:
In BlockKit, the developers have structured the headers in the main project differently than the structure on deployment. So, you can't reference the headers in the project, and must reference the headers copied into the build directory.
The way this worked for me in (Xcode 5) I had 2 targets and when I edited the scheme, on the left pane of the scheme editor, you will see the [BUILD, RUN, TEST, PROFILE XXX.APP, ANALYZE, ARCHIVE] from the BUILD pane, you will see your project targets listed in a list. At the far right end you will see the ARCHIVE selections, make sure only one target is selected for archiving.
I had 2 of my targets selected in my project, I checked only the target I wanted in the product, and it worked!
I solved this error by opening solely the app project in XCode, ie. not opening a workspace comprising the application and other projects/libraries/frameworks.
Having 2 separate project, a framework or shared library and an iOS application, I had to open 2 different XCode windows, each by directly opening the .xcodeproj file instead of the common .xcworkspace, in order to preperly build each.
As a nice side effect, XCode no longer rebuilds every target of every project after I do a Clean, resulting in shorted build times.
Background: I am creating an open source SDK, and a demo iOS application. I had both opened in a single workspace.
Setting Skip install to YES on the SDK targets would prevent anyone from creating an archive, as it would be empty, so this was not an option. Using Project instead of Public headers would lead to an archive missing the header files that should be distributed, so this was not an option either.
For it was because i was working in a workspace.
The project did archived but would ne be displayed in the organizer window.
I closed the workspace and open the project on its own.
The archived has been opened in the organizer ... hope it's help.
In my case, I had a custom script that was copying some temporary files into:
${TARGET_BUILD_DIR}/myTempDir
That meant that, after investigating the archive to inspect its contents, I found right next to the .app file a myTempDir folder. Once I modified the script to save elsewhere things were sorted.
Try setting $(PROJECT_NAME)Headers in Framework projet's Public Headers Folder Path. You have to go to build settings of the Library Target then edit the Public Headers Folder path as $(PROJECT_NAME)Headers.
If using Xcode 7 with cocoapods v.0.38.2. Try removing copy pod resources from your today extension target.
I encountered this problem after adding a OS X command line tool to my iOS app's project, and Skip Install was set to NO by default for the command line tool's target. Since you obviously can't install an OS X binary to an iOS device, archiving defaulted to a generic Xcode archive. Setting Skip Install to YES for this target fixed the problem.
This question seems related to XCode Build and Archive for Enterprise Distribution builds old archive but the answers have not worked for me;
We have an iOS application that is distributed using the Enterprise Distribution method. This has been updated regularly for the past year by issuing a new IPA and having users delete and reinstall the app. Lately when I archive and distribute the app it installs correctly, but it is a previous version from a few days ago with none of the recent changes. These are things as simple as text labels and alerts with the wrong text.
I've done everything I can think of, including:
Confirming it builds and runs correctly in the simulator and when building directly to an iPhone. Everything works great in these cases.
Cleaning the project.
In the Organizer, deleting all archives and removing the project.
Manually deleting the DerivedData folder.
Renaming the IPA and updating the distribution plist to ensure that the file isn't somehow being cached on the web server.
Deleting the entire project and doing a fresh checkout from SVN.
Even when I do all of these things together, so that I've completely removed the project from my computer and Xcode and re-archived it with a fresh checkout of the source files, it still archives an outdated version. Where could this be coming from? Should I just reinstall Xcode completely?
Since you have deleted and checked that your build files are clean from old rubbish, I would have a look at the actual source files and the project and make sure you are actually making your changes on the right place.
Right click on the files that you are working on in your project and select "Show in Finder" and see where they are actually located. Maybe they are in a different location than you would expect?
Do the same with the files under "Compile Sources" in your target, and make sure they are the same files and at the same location as the ones you have been editing.
It could be that if you at some point has fiddled around with your files and projects that you actually imported the wrong files and that you are editing different files than the ones included in your build. It happened to me once, I had to re-import lots of files to my project to get it working again.
The network was caching it! The wireless network in my office is serving up a cached version of the IPA from yesterday, while an external network downloads the latest copy just fine. It's embarrassing that I never thought to check this, but I suppose the solution is often obvious in hindsight.
Thanks to Jake and Mike for the suggestions; I'm sure they will be helpful to others who come across this question.