iPhone adhoc distribution without entitlements - iphone

I'm trying to make an ad-hoc distribution of our app for sending to another company for beta testing. They are asking me to remove the Entitlements.plist file from my project.
As far as I know that file is absolutely required and I get a code signing error if it's not there.
Is there a way to build an iPhone app for distribution without an Entitlements file?

AFAIK the entitlements.plist file is essential. Your ad-hoc distribution will fail without it. But it seems it is unnecessary in distribution build.

Out on a limb: What they may actually be seeing is a problem between their OS and .mobileprovision file which throws an error referring to entitlements. Are they seeing an error about the entitlements file when they try to sync the app with the phone?
I have seen this recently and am not fully sure of the answer. I think that on some Macs (i'm thinking 10.5) iTunes is not associated with the .mobileprovision file. I have seen this twice now. The first time the answer was to have the person do an "Open With" on the .mobileprovison file and choose "Other" and then select iTunes. That did the trick.
I have been unable to find an answer to this latest event from tonight. However this person has 10.5 and also XCODE.
I'm still working on this but if you have not found an answer yet, maybe the "Open With" might help.
Good luck.
Update:
I just now go the second issue solved. Email can corrupt the .mobileprovision file. I finally zipped the .mobileprovision file and sent it to those having trouble and it solved the 2nd version of the issue!

Related

entitlement 'application-identifier' has value not permitted by a provisioning profile

I know this question is being asked several times, but I guess currently, I am little frustrated with this entire signing concept, which tends to be so tedious than even coding and sometimes hilarious how Apple have really messed it up in different versions. When I try to build the distribution ipa file from XCode 4.2, the ipa builds fine and can be installed successfully, however in XCode 4.3.2, the app never gets installed but gives me the error: Jun
: entitlement 'application-identifier' has value not permitted by a provisioning profile
Now, I am trying to build it through xcodebuild using my mobile.provision and everything seams to look fine until ipa is being generated. However, when installing the app through itunes, this is the error that keeps getting generated. After surfing through blogs/google_search/etc it seams there might be some issue with entitlements which I have no clue how to go and fix this or what might be an issue there anyways?
I hope someone can direct me to the right direction regarding a fix for this.
Thanks
The way I solved my problem was first, I was not signing the build with proper provisioning. You can indicate the path of the mobileprovision, or if its being added then simply you can goto XCode Organizer and select the correct provision, right click and show the provision in the finder. If you reflect the names in Organizer and in finder are totally different, and I am not sure why apple tends to keep it like that but that's where one error occurred. After that when I tried compiling and installing the ipa on the device, I encountered another error as "entitlement 'application-identifier' has value not permitted by a provisioning profile" as it is not a group member. After going through different blogs and searches it seamed like in Apple's technical note it indicated that if you are building your app for distribution the parameter in dist.plist file "get-task-allow" should be set to as FALSE. Although it indicates that in XCode 4.2, since entitlements is being taken care for you, the type of compilation you choose should reflect to that as well, but apparently that didn't reflected to FALSE. So after switching that to false, the ipa finally got installed to the device. Again, this is for enterprise distribution purpose, so hope in future this may help someone and save some hassle.
I fixed the problem for iOS10 enterprise deployment by removing my app extensions from my app, they were being code-signed differently to the app and was causing this issue.

Why do I get "could not be added to your itunes library because it is not a valid app" error when trying to install Ad-Hoc build?

I've recently upgraded my Mac to Lion, and also Xcode 4.
In Build Settings, I've set "Code Signing" for "Release" to be "iPhone Distribution" which matches our Ad-Hoc provisioning file (which we've used in the past, on Snow Leopard/Xcode 3).
I have deleted the old Entitlements file (as it's apparently no longer used by Xcode 4).
In the Scheme section, I've set Archive to use the Release build.
I'm building with Product > Archive.
I'm saving the file by going into the Organiser and clicking Share, then making sure the same Ad-Hoc provisioning is selected.
I'm sending the resulting IPA file to my boss, who has previously installed this app. When he tries to install it, he gets the message "[appname] could not be added to your itunes library because it is not a valid app".
I've been trying every combination of settings I can think, but we just cannot get this to work. I can find this error only twice in Google - once from someone with a jailbroken phone and another posted in comments of an article, someone having the same issue, but there are no responses.
Any help would be really appreciated.
Edit: Same thing happens trying to drag the IPA into iTunes on the Mac that created it! :(
Edit2: Just taken another (almost identical) project and tried a build without "Modernizing" the project, or selected any of the new options in Xcode (icons, launch images, orientation etc.), and this build works. I'm going to work through each of the things I did with the original app with this one, testing at each step. Hopefully should be able to isolate which step is breaking the compiled app!
(also posted to Apple Dev Forums)
I believe I've tracked this down... It seemed to be happening really intermittently, so it's taken some time (I'd reproduce it, roll back the change, confirm it worked, then re-apply the change, for it to then work again!).
However, after much cleaning/restart/etc., I believe it's related to the "Build" version in the target settings (there are now two version fields, "Version" and "Build"). It seems that if "Build" is blank, then this error occurs.
Unfortunately, changing this value doesn't seem to rebuild properly, so sometimes if you change it, then Archive, you still get the previous value. Manually cleaning before Archiving seems to work around this.
The value gets written into the plist file as CFBundleVersion.
Recently I suffered a problem with an Ad-Hoc installation using TestFlight service, the message in the log didn't help too much:
Jul 25 12:52:39 MyiPad installd[477] <Error>: 0x10059c000 init_pack_state: Archive we've been requested to install is 0 bytes. That can't be a valid ipa.
After many tests, I found this question and the problem was the same, the Build field was empty (this answer save my day :-) )
So, if anyone else has this problem on TestFlight, I hope my answer allows to find this page easier ;-)
I also faced the same issue. After doing some research found below answers as:
App Version and Build version should not blank.
Don't put special characters in my app bundle name.
And also there was no issues with my provisioning profiles.
After debugging found that there was name mismatch in my scheme name and info.plist file name. In my project, I have 3 schemes like a,b,c and only one a-info.plist file. I was creating IPA for different scheme like 'b'.
In your scenario, if you have created multiple schemes then check your Info.plist name. That should have to be same as your scheme name (for which you are creating an IPA).
Example. The scheme name is 'myScheme' then your Info.plist file name as 'myScheme-Info.plist'.
Hope this will help you.
I got the same message ("not a valid app"). In my case, I was FTPing the built app to a web server then I would be able to OTA provision it. I was not swapping to binary mode before I was putting the file, so the .ipa file got corrupted on the way. Took me most of the evening to figure that stupid mistake out...
ok.. do one thing.. Open info.plist.. Go to bundle identifier and change bundle identifier name. It needs to be unique.. something like "com.yourcompany.projectname" and create and try to install the ipa.. It should work
I came across this question while researching a similar problem so I'll answer here even though the cases are not identical, because others will search for the same error message.
I had an ad-hoc app that everyone in the development team could install fine, except one person, who got the error from iTunes:
X is not a valid app
He had been able to install earlier versions of this app. Rebuilding the app, changing the version number and changing the build number had no effect, he still could not install but others could.
I fixed it by creating a brand new Xcode project, either copying the files or copying and pasting the content of the files from the old project to the new one, and rebuilding the app and signing it in exactly the same way as the old project. It worked.
I had a similar issue while trying to create an .ipa for adHoc distribution for one of the Old project (built a year ago by ex-developer). After a lot of research in google and following the above solutions it didn't worked out for me somereason.
Later after following this link - here. By replacing the .plist file with the existing working projects (obviously - the relevant icons/bundle display name/identifier) and renaming with the current .plist name. It worked for me.
I literally spent about 3-4 hours to fix this issue. Hope it helps some one.
environment was native - iOS app.
add......
"Application requires iPhone environment" in your info.plist or if added give it value "YES".
Check "Build" and "Version" in general are not empty....
hope this will work
Importing the project contents in to a new Project solved the issue for me.
For me, we were trying to do an enterprise build of a very old app, from iOS 5.
After confirming profiles and everything else was fine, debug builds work correctly, I noticed the general consensus was around issues with the info.plist file.
I compared the info.plist with another app and sure enough,
Application requires iPhone environment = NO
Basically this key needs to always be set to YES for iOS apps regardless whether its for iPhone, iTouch or iPad...
It may not be limited to that key for everyone but make sure the info.plist looks similar to working apps.
Bundle version
Bundle versions string, short
should always be present!
right.. but I guess it is clashing with earlier bundle identifier( this happens because you have upgraded the Xcode). Did you try and change the existing bundle identifier name and install ? I had identical problem and wasted 3-4 days.. I changed existing bundle identifier name and it worked.. Also you may want to check Bundle name and Bundle version are present in info.plist

Windows 7 iTunes does not accept the adhoc ipa file

I am in beta testing stage for an application.
Some of my beta testers use Windows 7 and run iTunes within.
Some of them are just fine but a few observe some rather strange behavior.
That is: Neither the *.ipa nor the *.mobileprivision file can be dragged and dropped into the Apps section of the Mediathek within iTunes. (Doing so the icon indicates that the object cannot be dropped within iTunes)
We tried File/Add to Mediathek ... and that does not work either. No error message but the app does not show up and when adding the mobileprovision file for a second and third time no message comes up that asks whether to overwite the existing mobileprovision file.
I tried google and the search within stackoverflow but did not find anything that matches my problem.
Any suggestion is highly appreciated!
Probably not a direct answer to your question - but a workaround:
Have you tried http://testflightapp.com? Lets you send beta builds to your testers over the air without them having to go through iTunes. And it's free.
No affiliation - just a satisfied user.
Agree with Abizem. Testflight is a good, painless way of sending out builds. If you absolutely have to use the mobileprovision and .app route, just copy the mobileprovision file and do a sync. Check if that is getting added to the device (the UDID in the mobileprovision might be incorrect)
Note: the .app file will appear as a folder on a Windows system. The entire folder needs to be dragged in this case.
If all of your testers use iOS 4 you can drop the two files on your file server and let them open the website from there iOS device. It is really simple and they don't even need a PC for testing:
http://buzzworks.de/blog/announcing-developer-framework-hockey

iPhone distribution Over the Air

In order to distribute my iPhone for test purposes on a couple of device Over the Air, I have created an AdHic distribution profile and followed the explanation I found in this blog (sorry it's in French but the screenshot are quite detailled):
http://www.media-business.biz/content/iphone-cr%C3%A9ez-votre-propre-appstore
I install the position profile on the device from my web site but when it comes to the application I have an error message saying it's impossible to download the app.
Is this a known problem ?
Thanks a lot for your help.
Regards,
Luc
ps: just adding a last minute question... is there a place I could see some error logs ?? :(
Here's another explanation in English. This distribution method only works with devices running iOS 4.x
Make sure that:
The IPA file name matches exactly the name of the server (case sensitive).
The bundle version number is identical in the IPA file and your plist file, and that you update it every time you make a new IPA (or the phone will think it's already installed and not update)
You are using an itms-services:// link to point to the plist file, and the plist file has the correct URL to your IPA file.
When you go into Organizer and press the "Share" button, you select exactly the distribution profile you intend to use (sometimes I think it can select the wrong one with automatic).
I had this exact same issue, and it was because I hadn't installed an AdHoc mobileprovision file and was building against my Dev mobileprovision. Check that first.
I finally found testflightapp.com, that is really great !
I also think testflightapp.com is the most convinient way to do this, as long as the beta testers you'll contact accept to sign up there. The great additional value is that if you install their SDK in your app, you'll be able to monitor the activity of your beta-testers (for instance you can define waypoints with definite names).
However, if:
You already konw the UDIDs of your beta testers
You just want them to be able to click on a link from your server to start installing the app,
You don't need "in app" follow-up and just request feedback from your testers,
Then I strongly recommend this tutorial:

IPhone AdHoc Distribution Profile

This is my first app :)
I have an app that already has a myapp-info.plist file (I think it was created when I started the project).
The preparation instructions for making an Ad-Hoc Build is telling me to create an entitlements.plist file. But it replaces my existing .plist file.
When I tried this last time I couldn't get it to install on my device (ipod touch) or even on my simulator. It said Unknown Error, the only way I was able to fix this was go back in time in Time Machine, :)
Has anybody had this issue before? I followed the instructions word for word in the documentation, any advice or suggestions on this can really help!
Do both of these files need to present for an Ad-hoc distribution Build, and also for the App-Store distribution Build?
Thank you
Don't replace your info.plist file. Include the Ad Hoc entitlements.plist file in addition to your existing plist file in your app bundle build (e.g. two plist files).