Enterprise app deployment doesn't work on iOS 7.1

Question

We distribute apps via an Enterprise account, using an itms-services:// URL. This has always worked fine, but after installing the iOS 7.1 beta on our iPad it refuses to install. Instead we just get the generic Cannot connect to example.com message that iOS unhelpfully displays when there is any sort of problem downloading the app.

I've been unable to find anything here on SO, on Google or in the 7.1 release notes to suggest what could be causing the problem.

Answer 1

I found the issue by connecting the iPad to the computer and viewing the console through the XCode Organizer while trying to install the app. The error turns out to be:

Could not load non-https manifest URL: http://example.com/manifest.plist

Turns out that in iOS 7.1, the URL for the manifest.plist file has to be HTTPS, where we were using HTTP. Changing the URL to HTTPS resolved the problem.

I.e.

itms-services://?action=download-manifest&url=http://example.com/manifest.plist 

becomes

itms-services://?action=download-manifest&url=https://example.com/manifest.plist 

I would assume you have to have a valid SSL certificate for the domain in question. We already did but I'd imagine you'll have issues without it.