Building app for App Store Distribution

Target Platforms Mobile
1

Pretty embarrassed to say it but we are completely brickwalled at the 11th hour trying to get this app built for app store distribution.

The problem is that while trying to work through the apple doco for distribution building we are not able to select the distribution mobileprovision in the xcode target. (its not even in the list)

So heres what we have done:

Created distribution certificate, created distribution mobile provision using this certificate, dragged this mobileprovision and checked that it is in the /library directory. Created a duplicate of our Release distribution in the Trampoline project and called it Distribution. When we go to select the Code Signing Provisioning Profile → Any iPhone OS Device → The distro provision is not listed, only the ones we have used for development thus far. When we go into organizer and select my iphone device (which is the device that is currently connected) the distribution provision is listed in the provisioning section for the phone but it is greyed out / unchecked. This makes sense to me as the phone itself should not allow the distro build as its not setup for adhoc / doesnt know the phone but alas it also seems to be what is preventing it from displaying in the xcode build properties.

And at this point we are blocked from continuing along the apple guide for preparing the app for app store distribution and unable to get our game submitted :frowning:

As a side note, one problem we came across during development and passing the build around to various test devices, if we changed from ‘Default Provisioning Profile for Code Signing Identity’ to the specific profile we wanted, it would no longer work on the devices, however if we did one build and then switched it back to ‘Default Provisioning Profile for Code Signing Identity’ it would then work on any successive goes and would seem that somehow it had now made the new provision the ‘Default provisioning profile’. My concern here is, that even IF we could see the distribution profile in the list, if we selected it explicitly would we run into the same problem?

Thanks again in advance guys, any help would be greatly appreciated. Im looking forward to getting our game up on the app store so I can write a bit of a guide for others outlining what pitfalls our company hit and how we resolved them.

2

did you create a distribution prov profile from their website, download and install it?

3

yep, i think i mentioned doing that in the original post.

Ok, i seem to have gotten a little further along. I was expecting the xCode build settings to show my distribution certificate automatically, however after I typed in the value ‘iPhone Distribution: MyCompany Pty Ltd’ where it previously had ‘iPhone Developer’ entered and left it as the Default Profile, when I rebuilt the app it asked me to approve a signging request, which I did, the app then built and began to install on my iphone, at which point it crashed and said this install failed during the verification step…

This seems to make good sense, the app store distro build shouldnt install on my iphone… So i guess Im safe to assume this build has managed to find the right certficate after I updated this via brute force / typing it in exactly as it is named in the keychain viewer → in the trampoline xcode build settings.

I guess now we can ‘try’ to move on with the apple tutorial however its a little concerning that their instructions were so far apart from the scenarios we encountered. In their screenshot they have this beautiful little drop down split into three categories for development provisions, distribution provisions, and ad-hoc provisions, while now I have a certificate value I had to enter by hand and nothing but "Default provisioning profile…’ in the list… Is it just me or is my fear justified that this build will end up toast and bounced back after submit…

4

ok, more updates in case anyone ends up following this thread. After I manually entered the iPhone Distribution: My Company Pty Ltd in xcode build settings and had some potential success, I re-dragged the .mobileprovision profile and NOW it shows up under ‘Default Provisioning Profile’… Either way, since it is the only distribution profile we have installed I left it as default. I followed the Apple websites tips on creating the Entitlements.plist file in the Trampoline project and did the build.

Maybe deluded or not, but Im at a point where I ‘think’ this is now the build ready for submit to Apple. If anyone can see a fatal flaw in this process please let me know what it is… Thanks…