xcode - iOS Provisioning and Certifcates - Will Revoke/Renew effect App Store Apps?

Question

While working on a new version of one of my apps Xcode told me today, that it cannot run the project any more because the development profile has expired.

The organizer shows for all development profiles "Valid signing identity not found" and for all distribution profiles "Profile has expired".

Of course it is not a suprise that profiles expire. In the past all I had to do was a click on "Renew" but this does not work any more. After entering user name and password for my Account Xcode shows the error message "No value was provided for the parameter 'certificateIds'"...

What can I do?

Instead of using the Organizer the directly visited the Provisioning Center webpage. There are two entries within the section "iOS Apps/Certificates/All": 1. "My Name iOS Development Expires: Mar, 17 2012" 2. "My Name Development Expires: Mar, 19 2013"

A click on one of the certificates show option to "Revoke" or "Download" certificate. There is also a "+ Button" to create a new Certificate but the option "iOS App Development Sign development versions of your iOS app." is deactivated.

In the section "Provision Profiles" all development profiles are marked as "Active" and all distribution profile as "Expired". Only "Edit" and "Delete" options are available while a "Renew" option is missing. The "Edit" option shows the profile details and "Generate" button. I would assume that "Generate" creates a new version, but after pressing the button only a progress indicator is shown which comes to no result. After I reload the page the status is unchanged.

So, there are no options to renew the existing certificates and profiles (are there?). Thus I have to create new certificates but - as described - this option is grayed out. I Assume that I have to delete / revoke the existing certificates first. A click on "Revoke" shows a very explicit warning: "Revoking this certificate will invalidate it and any related services or provisioning profiles that use this certificate may be affected."

I am afraid that revoking the certificate might effect my existing app in the App Store - that the app might be removed from sale because the certificate they are based on was deleted.

Of course this is a scenario I would like to avoid. Does anyone know for sure what happens when using the Revoke option for an existing certificate. Does this even effect App Store apps?

Thank you very much!

Answer 1

For App Store apps, you don't need to worry. The signing information on app store binaries is only used for the initial validation to ensure it came from you. Once it has been uploaded the binary will be transformed and resigned with Apple's private key, encrypted with Fairplay, etc.

This means revoking your distribution certification will not affect live apps. You only need to worry if you have an enterprise account.