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iosxcodeprovisioning-profile

iOS App starts crashing after a week of installing it to device


I am trying to install my app to my iOS devices through Xcode. However after a week I the app doesn't open anymore. After doing some research I understand that on the free developer account the provisioning profile will only last 1 week, the problem is is that I actually have a personal developer account that I pay for so this shouldn't be the case?

I have set the team to "my name (Personal Team) and in my Build settings I have made sure the Code Signing Identity is set to iOS developer, if I change that to iOS Distribution I get this warning:

yourApp has conflicting provisioning settings. yourApp is automatically signed for development, but a conflicting code signing identity iPhone Distribution has been manually specified. Set the code signing identity value to "iPhone Developer" in the build settings editor, or switch to manual signing in the project editor. (in target 'yourApp')

Is it actually possible to install an app to an iOS device via Xcode that has an infinite lifetime or does it always have to go to iTunes Connect & the App Store?

Any help would be great as this is the final step to rolling my app out to my colleagues.

Edit:

When I click info next to the provisioning profile I get this:

Provisioning Profile


Solution

  • It is not possible to build an iOS application that doesn't have an expiration (unless you distribute through the App Store). This is to prevent developers from building iOS apps and distributing them through third party app stores.

    A standard development account is meant to be used by a developer to test apps for short periods on physical devices before submitting the app to Apple for real distribution. The short duration of the development provisioning profile is a reflection of this.

    If you really want to do longer term distributions on devices (up to 12 months), you could sign up for an Enterprise development account ($299/year, but also requires an EIN). That allows you to create an In-house Distribution profile that will be good for 12 months from when it is created. You will still need to re-build the app (or at least repackage it with a new distribution profile) at least once a year.

    In the end, you are attempting to do something Apple really doesn't care to support. I wish there was a better answer (could you write the app as a web app?), but I'm afraid there isn't.