Ios – Ad hoc distribution: failed to install app

ad-hoc-distributioniosiphoneprovisioning-profilexcode5

I'm developing an ios app (only for iphone) and trying to have other people test it. I have no problem installing the app on my own device through Ad hoc distribution. When I tried installing on another person's device, it always failed with the message "xxxxx could not be installed at this time". I'm using xcode 5.

Here are the steps that I followed:

Add the device's UDID to the existing Ad hoc provisioning profile in the developer portal
Download that provisioning profile and drag that to the xcode organizer
Under code signing->provisioning profile->release, choose the Ad hoc provisioning profile. Under code signing identity->release, choose the distribution certificate from the Ad hoc profile. I set the provisioning profile (debug) to none and set the code signing identity(debug) to 'don't code sign'.
Build the app and create an archive.
Click the Distribute button in Organizer. Choose "Save for Enterprise or Ad Hoc deployment" and then select the Ad hoc provisioning profile.
Click export and check "save for enterprise distribution". Fill in the application url and title.
Upload the ipa and plist file to a server. Create an index page which contains a link to the plist file. The link looks like this:
```
 <a href="itms-services://?action=download-manifest&url=http://mydomainname/apps/myappname.plist">Install Application</a>
```
Send the url of the index page to the tester.

Did I miss anything? I tried deleting all the provisioning profiles on my phone and then had no problem installing the app by clicking the "Install Application" link. One weird thing that I noticed was that the status of the ad hoc provisioning profile installed on the other person's iphone was "Valid signing identity not found", as well as the team shown as "unknown". I saw somebody mentioned "Code signing entitlements". Does that matter if I leave that empty?

Best Answer

Couple of things to try out:

Check that the UDID you added to the portal is ticked for use under the AdHoc provision. When adding a new UDID it's possible to forget to manually update the provision profile with the new UDID.
Don't create the link yourself and don't use a plist. Just drag the ipa you created to a site like http://www.diawi.com/ and share that link with your tester.

Good Luck

Related Solutions

Ios – How to change the name of an iOS app

Go to Targets in Xcode.
Build Settings on your project's target (your current development name).
Search for Product Name under Packaging. Change its value to what you want your new project name to be.

Ios – How to link to apps on the app store

Edited on 2016-02-02

Starting from iOS 6 SKStoreProductViewController class was introduced. You can link an app without leaving your app. Code snippet in Swift 3.x/2.x and Objective-C is here.

A SKStoreProductViewController object presents a store that allows the user to purchase other media from the App Store. For example, your app might display the store to allow the user to purchase another app.

From News and Announcement For Apple Developers.

Drive Customers Directly to Your App on the App Store with iTunes Links With iTunes links you can provide your customers with an easy way to access your apps on the App Store directly from your website or marketing campaigns. Creating an iTunes link is simple and can be made to direct customers to either a single app, all your apps, or to a specific app with your company name specified.

To send customers to a specific application: http://itunes.com/apps/appname

To send customers to a list of apps you have on the App Store: http://itunes.com/apps/developername

To send customers to a specific app with your company name included in the URL: http://itunes.com/apps/developername/appname

Additional notes:

You can replace http:// with itms:// or itms-apps:// to avoid redirects.

Please note that itms:// will send the user to the iTunes store and itms-apps:// with send them to the App Store!

For info on naming, see Apple QA1633:

https://developer.apple.com/library/content/qa/qa1633/_index.html.

Edit (as of January 2015):

itunes.com/apps links should be updated to appstore.com/apps. See QA1633 above, which has been updated. A new QA1629 suggests these steps and code for launching the store from an app:

Launch iTunes on your computer.
Search for the item you want to link to.
Right-click or control-click on the item's name in iTunes, then choose "Copy iTunes Store URL" from the pop-up menu.
In your application, create an NSURL object with the copied iTunes URL, then pass this object to UIApplication' s openURL: method to open your item in the App Store.

Sample code:

NSString *iTunesLink = @"itms://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id375380948?mt=8";
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:iTunesLink]];

iOS10+:

 [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:[NSURL URLWithString:iTunesLink] options:@{} completionHandler:nil];

Swift 4.2

   let urlStr = "itms-apps://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id375380948?mt=8"
    if #available(iOS 10.0, *) {
        UIApplication.shared.open(URL(string: urlStr)!, options: [:], completionHandler: nil)
        
    } else {
        UIApplication.shared.openURL(URL(string: urlStr)!)
    }

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ios – How to change the name of an iOS app

Ios – How to link to apps on the app store

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