Last week I used the free provisioning profile method to install my app on my iphone. it's really important that it works on thursday morning, but since the free provisioning thing is only valid for a week, it will run out the night before thursday. and i don't have access to my other computer within wednesday night and thursday morning, so I need to renew my provisioning profile in advance. is that possible? i never renewed it so I have no idea how that's supposed to work. also if i would renew it, do i have to install the app again?
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To update free provisioning profile on xcode.
I did this on macOS Monterey
On xcode goto runners and under "Signing & Capabilities" tab. You will see provisioning profile. Press on that "i" button and it will show you current provisioning profile with expiry days left.
Now all you have to do is delete the old profile, simply run the below command in a terminal window.
rm -rf /Users/shemant/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning\ Profiles/*
After this click on that "i" button again, and you will see that expiry date is extended.
Hemant_Negi
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With the free profile, you cannot manage it through the Apple Dev Portal like you would if you have a paid account.
I am not sure how you can trigger the renewal manually (I suppose if you were to delete the profile, Xcode might try to generate a new one as opposed to downloading the existing one from Apple's dev site). You can find the provisioning profiles installed on your Mac here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/45642752/3708242
If you really only care about Thursday mornings, I would schedule your build timing to work with that. always run the build on Monday, and it should only expire on Monday. I do not have a free account, so I can't confirm this, but I believe the Xcode always generates a new profile when you build with a free account, so when you build to a device, that build will always be able to run for 7 days. I could be wrong, but it would be simple to verify.
The key for you is to not run a build on Wednesday night.
To answer your other question, the only way for you to get the new provisioning profile on the device is by doing a build from Xcode. Paid accounts have other options, but the free account is pretty limited.
wottle
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thanks for you answer but, it's not that I care about thursday mornings, it's this particular thursday morning and I didn't know about this last week. also i managed to delete one of my two certificates from keychain, though in xcode it's still there although its grey. but when i want to add a new certificate it says "you already have a current ios development certificate.." logging in&out didn't help either – amorpsyche May 21 '18 at 17:24
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Do you have automatic code signing turned on? What is the result / error when you try to build now? – wottle May 21 '18 at 18:46
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yes it is turned on. the last time i made a build was friday, and yesterday/today xcode says my profile will expire in 2 days. so if it would renew it every time i made a build, it should be more than 2 days, right? – amorpsyche May 22 '18 at 15:16
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It's possible that Xcode won't generate a new profile unless the profile is going to expire in less than N days. I would run a build today and see if it generates a new one. You might need to do builds twice a week to ensure the app never expires. Apple really isn't intending for developers to use the free accounts this way, which is why they don't publish / advertise the details of how the free account profiles. As I said, try to build today and see if it regenerates a new profile. – wottle May 22 '18 at 15:59
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just did one..still says "1 day until expire.." :/ – amorpsyche May 22 '18 at 17:09
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but i got a new profile with changing the bundle id and deploy a "new" app with it – amorpsyche May 22 '18 at 18:20
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Yes, provisioning profiles are tied to the bundle ID, so changing that will generate a new profile. Unfortunately, it will no longer replace the existing app on your phone, but add a brand new app. So you could eventually end up with a bunch of the same app on your phone with different bundle IDs. Most of which will no longer run. – wottle May 22 '18 at 20:26
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yes that's not the best solution, but since i really need it that one particular day, it was the best I could manage in short time. (also i can just delete the others) - for further deployment i would buy a provisioning certificate anyways – amorpsyche May 23 '18 at 13:17
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According to this documentation about the free provisioning profile's limitations, we know that:
Provisioning Profiles created in this way will expire after one week
After a week your app can't be opened, since the provisioning profile is expired. You have to connect your device to Mac, then rebuild it. This is the way what you called renew Free Provisioning Profile.
Ax1le
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yes. i know so much. my question is if i can renew it before it expires..since I don't have the time to rebuild it that day (at least I can't take the risk) – amorpsyche May 22 '18 at 11:22
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Of course you can rebuild it before it expires. One weak is the deadline. – Ax1le May 22 '18 at 11:25
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Sorry, I am not sure if you can follow me? I just want to explain again, just in case. the profile will expire on wednesday night. but i need the app to work on thursday morning. but i don't have access to my computer from wednesday night to thursday morning. so is there a way I can renew the profile like today, so it will have another full week, so my app will still work on thursday morning without rebuilding it on wednesday/thursday – amorpsyche May 22 '18 at 11:28
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I'll try deleting all my profiles today, so that I have no other way than creating a new one. i hope it will work – amorpsyche May 22 '18 at 11:29
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There's no need to reset the provisioning profile on you Mac. Once you have rebuilt your app on your device, the deadline will be refreshed. This means if you rebuild it on monday, no matter what's the last time you deploy it. It will expire on sunday. – Ax1le May 22 '18 at 11:41
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but I did a rebuild on friday and yesterday/today xcode still says that my profile will expire in 2 days. so that can't be true then? – amorpsyche May 22 '18 at 12:10
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but i got a new profile with changing the bundle id and deploy a "new" app with it – amorpsyche May 22 '18 at 18:19
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So apparently the only way to get a new free provisioning profile was to change the bundle identifier (changed the name). and a "new" app was deployed on my phone with a new one week provisioning profile. ( i will keep the old one though and tell you later if it really crashed or if both worked.)
amorpsyche
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