First of all, sorry for my bad grammar!
I have this question and hope somebody can help me.
I work in a Mexican enterprise, we develop in house apps for sales, etc. and currently we started developing our apps in Swift.
Well, the point is that our Distribution Certificate where created in 2013 and the IPAs generated with it crashes when installed in a device.
Lurking about the problem, found that we have to re-create the Distribution Certificate and Provisioning Profiles for getting the Swift apps to work, but doing so, all the already distributed apps will crash sooner or later because of the change in the certs.
The question is:
Are we doomed to re-create all the provisioning profiles for all the existing apps in Obj-C, archive and re-distribute them again? or is there another way to get the old apps and the new ones to work simultaneously (like creating another Dist Cert and sign the new Swift apps with it), for I know, Apple is giving the chance to create a second Dist Cert along with the old one, but as far as I understood, it's just a support to re-distribute the apps when Dist Certs expire and not a long-term solution for a problem like this.
I really appreciate any help you can provide.
Every provisioning profile and certificate will expire one day, from that day on those apps will not launch any longer. You can see the end-date in the Apple portal where you created those.
There is no other way than to create a new certificate and profile and either re-sign the existing app with the new profile and certificate, or build the app with the new ones.
Related
We have multiple applications custom build for specific clients. Each application has its own "Enterprise" Distribution Certificate "iOS UniversalDistribution". Today we received word that all our client's applications have stopped working, they won't even open. At first we thought it was a bug after an update, but we noticed that our Provisioning profiles have expired. We did not receive any warnings, notifications, emails, ... they all just stopped working.
The applications are able to update themselves with a custom service we've build. Now that they won't open on the devices we fear we have to manually install the new versions on the devices?
But this means that in the future this WILL happen again. After researching the apple documentation something is still not clear. If we build a new version of the application (.IPA file) and we push the updates in the app, will the application also update all the certificates accordingly? So if we do an update several weeks before with renewed provisioning profiles will it prevent this from happening again?
Thanks in advance for the feedback.
So, unfortunately, none of the existing deployed apps will run now, so you will not be able to use the self-updating logic in the app to correct this. This is up to the developers to keep track of expiring profiles and certificates and ensure they get updated as needed.
All of the information below assumes you are using an Enterprise Distribution Profile to build these iOS apps.
You should note is that there are two things that can expire: the provisioning profile and the certificate.
Expiring Provisioning Profile:
Typically the provisioning profile expiring is easier to deal with, as you only need to get a new profile on the device. Technically, doing a new build with a new provisioning profile will do this, but there are other ways. For example, if these are managed, company devices, you can typically use the MDM software to push a new profile to the devices, without requiring a new .ipa (app binary) to be installed on the device). Also, if you use wildcard app ids in your provisioning profile, installing another device with a newer provisioning profile will also work (although this is a bit unorthodox). Long story, short: You need to get the new profile on the device. At this point, that is likely through you informing users they need to go re-download a new version of the app.
Expiring Certificate
If the certificate used to code sign the application is expiring, you will need to generate a new binary with the new certificate. There are ways to resign an existing ipa, but if you have the source code, it is easier to just re-build with the new certificate. The good news is that the certificate only expires every 3 years for an enterprise distribution certificate (vs. every 1 year for the provisioning profile). So this is not needed as often. But this will certainly require you to re-create a new binary signed with the new certificate.
Preventing This From Recurring
If you rely on the app to check for updates and self update, you need to make sure a new version gets published well enough in advance that users will launch the app in the time between the new version being released, and the profile or cert expiration. This length of time depends on your app. If it's a corporate app that people use daily, you can probably get by with 2 or 3 weeks (for people who are out of the office). If it's seldom used, I would consider deploying a new version, with a new provisioning profile at least 3-6 months in advance of the old one expiring. This takes planning and reminders to ensure you don't miss the timing window.
Also of note, if you are using automatic code signing, you lose some control over when a new profile is generated and used, as well as the certificates. That's why I recommend for enterprise apps to use manual code signing settings to allow you to be very explicit with which provisioning profiles are used, as well as the cert. Also, delete all older profiles from the Mac when doing a build to ensure you are using the right profile (you can have many profiles on the Mac for the same application at any given time. You can find them here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/45642752/3708242). It's risky to assume Xcode will pick the most recent one.
I am part of a development team with many apps spanning multiple business units and iOS teams. We are having a lot of trouble right now managing distribution certificates. Apple lets you have 3 distrution certificates on one development account, but there is no way to name the certificates uniquely, so they all look the same. The only identifying information on the different certificates is the date on which it was generated.
Apple, why can't we rename these distribution certificates so that we can manage them better???
We need the ability to allow multiple build boxes to archive and submit to iTunesConnect for TestFlight or App Store releases.
We are finding ourselves accidentally revoking each other's distribution certificates all of the time, and even worse making it impossible for beta users to install from TestFlight if the certificate has been revoked.
Apple, why do you disallow installation of TestFlight builds if the "developer's certificate is no longer valid"??? This is crazy. You don't do this when an app has been published in the App Store. Why should TestFlight be any different??? Why punish beta users because the developers have accidentallly revoked a certificate???
We also think that it is Xcode's "Reset" or "Fix it" buttons that are doing the certificate revoking and causing so much trouble.
So how are other large development organizations handling this better? We've got a big team, but not nearly as big as many others that are out there.
We've tried assigning different dev teams a certificate generated on a particular date and asking them to only use that date and never revoke anyone elses' certificate. We've also tried exporting certificates from a single box. But it seams that no matter what we do something happens that causes the certificates to become revoked. It seems that Xcode itself is causing this.
Have you ever tried fastlane
https://fastlane.tools/
also you can try match (one of the tools in fastlane) that could help you to sync with all your devs the certificates
https://github.com/fastlane/match
also with fastlane tools you can automatically submit to appstore and testflight ipas
HTH
We adopted the following approach and have been conflict free for a few months now! We first removed the 'admin' role from most of our development team members so that they couldn't so easily revoke certificates by clicking on a 'fix' button. Then we generated a single distribution certificate that we share amongst the team. We also encourage builds being made on a shared build box when possible.
I have an in-house enterprise app that is managed (deployed) from MaaS360
'https://portal.fiberlink.com'
And this app is built (and still maintained) in XCode 4.6.3 (i know, i know), so I don't have any of the fancy new features in XCode 7 that might help alleviate this problem. In fact, even the refresh button in Organizer no longer works... you tap it and a dialog says "service unavailable" and I've tried it on different days, so it's not just a temporary glitch or service interruption. I believe apple disabled whatever portion of their service was servicing that request from XCode 4's Organizer.
The provisioning profile on it is going to expire in March, and I'm trying to figure out how to renew it without inconveniencing the users by making them download a new rebuilt app. It would be particularly painful for them because it would require they sync a few gigabytes of data from their device through iTunes for each person, and it's a few hundred people.
My problem is, my certificate I used to sign the app is also expiring around the same time (in March).
I happened to have another certificate and an associated provisioning profile, I had generated on a different mac which expires in 2019, and I tried to use it to update the expiring provisioning profile on MaaS360 for this app in question, and I get this error
So what has me a little terrified is, I'm back on the mac where I originally created and deployed the app... if I need to renew my existing certificate (which I assume means revoking it and replacing it with a new one), in order to create a new provisioning profile, aren't I going to run into this dialog again, claiming that my certificates don't match, because I'll now have a new one, hence I can't update the profile.
If the only way to update my expiring provisioning profile is with my soon-to-be-expired-but-also-identical certificate which originally created the profile, that still means my profile is going to expire as scheduled because my original certificate will have expired too.
Is there a way out of this dilemma?
You can have two certificates active at the same time. So I would generate a new certificate using the same key you used to generate the original one. To do this on the Apple developer portal, you will need the cert signing request. Most developers don't save this when they generate their certificate the first time. The good news is, if you have the private key that was used for your distribution certificate, you can use that to generate the CSR. To find out if you have the private key, you can use this post for how to locate it in the Keychain app. https://stackoverflow.com/a/33651921/3708242
Once you have verified that you have the private key used for the certificate for the app store distribution, you can generate the a CSR using the following procedure: https://stackoverflow.com/a/7111454/3708242
Once you have the CSR, go to Apple's developer portal and generate a new distribution certificate for "In-House and Ad Hoc" distribution. As long as you only have one out there, you should be able to create a second without having to revoke the existing one. Once you've done that, you will likely need to provide that certificate to the MaaS360 service (I'm not familiar with how that works, but somehow the Maas360 server must have the private key and certificate that the apps were built with, as it is clearly checking that when you push the build of your app and the certs don't match). So download the new cert and provide that to MaaS360.
Then, generate a new distribution profile using the new certificate. Or you can update the existing one to use the new cert by clicking the edit button on the provisioning profile, then changing the radio button to the new cert which should expire several years out. Note that this won't prevent any existing apps built using the profile from running in the meantime (revoking the certificate, however, would immediately cause the apps to stop working, which you don't want). Save and download the new profile, and use it to rebuild the app.
The app will then be built with the new certificate, that won't expire any time soon. I do think you are missing the part of the process where you will have to provide the new cert to MaaS360. I can't really help you with that part, but hopefully there is some documentation from IBM that can help you out there. But, you will need to fix it, because once the cert expires, non of the apps built with it will work. Good luck and let me know if any of this is not clear enough.
I have managed to get my Development and Distribution certificates in something of a mess (started with separate one for each App and more)
I'd like to start again with just one, generic, cert for each of Development and Distribution.
There are lots of tutorials on re-creating deleted or expired certificates but I can't find any confirmation that I can delete everything and start afresh (and, presumably, then use the new cert for new apps and/or updates to old ones?)
Has anyone actually gone through the steps of cancelling/deleting all Apple certificates and starting again? If so, any advice on steps and things to avoid will be appreciated.
thanks
Many thanks for the suggestions which I have now implemented.
I do now have just one each Development and Distribution certificate (although Xcode re-created the dozens of provisioning profiles I was trying to get rid of - I guess I will have to live with that long list for ever...).
An interesting result is the error message I received when I uploaded a new version of an App:
"Potential Loss of Keychain Access - The previous version of software has an application-identifier value of ['xxxxxxxxx.com.jeffmaynard.eurosceptic'] and the new version of software being submitted has an application-identifier of ['yyyyyyyyyy.com.jeffmaynard.eurosceptic']. This will result in a loss of keychain access."
Although the App has gone to review I am not sure of the consequences of this error message which I assume results from the certificate updates?
You have to clear your certificates in 2 places:
Keychain
Follow these steps to navigate and clear the certificates:
Open LaunchPad
Keychain Access
Select your Keychain
Select My Certificates
Now here you need to delete every certificate that starts with iPhone Developer or iPhone Distribution
Apple Developers Members Center
Login to Apple Developers
Go to Member Center
Click: Manage your certificates, App IDs, devices, and provisioning profiles
You have 2 tabs to interact Certificates and Provisioning Profiles
Remove all of them (Remember you can't delete those Provisioning Profiles, that are already in App Store).
Then you need to create it from the beginning: Follow my answer here
I've recently taken over a project as a freelancer. I have during the development used my own account so I changed most of the debug/release/etc to my own "iPhone developer" etc in the project.
Now, however, it is time to send the update to the actual app store. I've gotten access to the last developers account, I've downloaded the distribution profiles which I assume I need.
The problem now is that, as far as I understand, I need the last developers ".developerprofile" for signing purposes. Or is there some other way? I can't seem to download it from the apple developer account.
This is the first time I am doing any kind of release so I am a bit shaky on the whole provisioning stuff as I've only developed locally and for that xcode manages everything perfectly so far.
If you can you need to get the P12 file from the previous developer - stack overflow
You actually do not need the previous developer's certificate or provisioning profiles in order to continue the project on your own.
It's relatively easy to revoke the previous developer's certificate and provisioning profiles (via the Apple Developer Portal) and recreate new ones on your machine.
Once you log into http://developer.apple.com/ios, look for the "Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles" section.