How can I setup Debug Certificate for Android ApkBuilder

Question

I am trying to use 'ant' to build my android application. But it fails when it is building a debug version of my application. Here is the error:

BUILD FAILED
/Users/michael/Programs/android-sdk-mac_x86/tools/ant/main_rules.xml:506: The following error occurred while executing this line:
/Users/samuel/Programs/android-sdk-mac_x86/tools/ant/main_rules.xml:236: com.android.sdklib.build.ApkCreationException: Debug Certificate expired on 1/5/11 8:29 PM
        at com.android.sdklib.build.ApkBuilder.getDebugKey(ApkBuilder.java:277)
        at com.android.sdklib.build.ApkBuilder.<init>(ApkBuilder.java:384)
        at com.android.ant.ApkBuilderTask.execute(ApkBuilderTask.java:247)
        at org.apache.tools.ant.UnknownElement.execute(UnknownElement.java:291)
        at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor4.invoke(Unknown Source)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)

Can you please tell me how can I get a valid debug certificate?

Thank you.

Answer 1

From Android - Signing Applications:

Expiry of the Debug Certificate

The self-signed certificate used to sign your application in debug mode (the default on Eclipse/ADT and Ant builds) will have an expiration date of 365 days from its creation date.

When the certificate expires, you will get a build error. On Ant builds, the error looks like this:

debug: 
[echo] Packaging bin/samples-debug.apk, and signing it with a debug key... 
[exec] Debug Certificate expired on 8/4/08 3:43 PM

In Eclipse/ADT, you will see a similar error in the Android console.

To fix this problem, simply delete the debug.keystore file. The default storage location for AVDs is in ~/.android/ on OS X and Linux, in C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\.android\ on Windows XP, and in C:\Users\<user>\.android\ on Windows Vista and Windows 7.

The next time you build, the build tools will regenerate a new keystore and debug key.