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We have an iOS "In-House" app (distributed OTA) with a Distribution Provisioning Profile that, as you may know, expires in 1 year. We have gone through upgrading the profile and distribution pains last year, so we are familiar with the process of distributing the app with a new profile, but I want to ask some questions just for clarity. (We are currently 29 days away from expiration, so users are getting notified)
Last year we thought that creating a NEW distribution provisioning profile with the same name as the expiring profile would overwrite the expiring profile. We were incorrect, it does not, and the device wound up with 2 profiles of the same name. Since you cannot overwrite an old profile, the problem from a maintenance and help desk perspective is that when you distribute the app with the new profile, users (hundreds in our case) still get notified that "The provisioning profile will expire in x days" even after they've upgraded the app that includes a new profile.
As you can imagine, that is confusing to users and frustrating for higher ups in the tech department. As I understand it, you're left with two ways to deal with having an unneeded expiring provisioning profile on the device(neither of which is a good user experience). Either:
Is there any workaround for how to remove the expiring profile aside from walking the individual user through the process? Are we missing something?
I don't want to revoke the cert that is contained in the expiring profile because that will present more problems - i.e. app not working for users who don't upgrade.
Simply put, we would just like to have a process that forestalls the expiration alerts so a user never sees them.
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If your certificate expires, passes that are already installed on users' devices will continue to function normally. However, you'll no longer be able to sign new passes or send updates to existing passes. If your certificate is revoked, your passes will no longer function properly.
When an Apple iOS provisioning profile expires, device users cannot access the associated application, and new device users cannot install the application.
Distribution Certificates Must Be Renewed Periodically After it expires, you won't be able sign and install apps on your devices although this will not affect any existing apps in the App Store. To continue distribution, navigate to the Devices organizer in Xcode.
You are responsible for managing your team's certificates and provisioning profiles. Apple Developer Enterprise Program certificates expire after three years and provisioning profiles expire after one year.
I received a recent response direct from Apple regarding the effect an expired profile has on apps currently residing in the app store:
I understand you'd like to know if you need to delete the expired certificates and provisioning profiles, and whether or not any action taken in the provisioning portal will affect apps currently live on the App Store. I'm happy to assist you in this matter.
Please know that it is not necessary to delete expired items in the provisioning portal, nor will any action taken have any impact on apps currently live in the store.
Not quite sure this answers your entire question but it did help me when I was wondering what would happen to the live apps.
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If i understand your question correctly, i had the same exact problem this year.
I Actually had to wait until the Profile Expired before i was able to Renew it.
When the profile had Expired, i would go to the Developer Portal's Provisioning Profiles, and on the right side of the Profile, there would now be a new button next to the Edit Button called Re-new.
Clicking Re-new should renew the current profile.
When the profile was renewed, my team would joust Install the updated profile.
(I sent the updated profile by mail, by downloading the profile(s) from the Provisioning Profiles page)
If that option for some reason would not work, you could alternatively create a new Provisioning Profile, with the same App ID and email it to you'r team.
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If you make your app part of the app store they will not expire. You can charge a lot for it and give out redeem codes to your clients or make it free and do some kind to authorization.
I was working with a enterprise customer that had a private distribution to iPads. The iPads were not regality connected a computer to sync apps, but 1 day a year after the provisioning file was made all the remotes sales team lost access to the app. The app was a 1.6 gb download. So that only happened once and the app when to the store as a free app.
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