Renew iOS Provisioning Profile on in-house app

Question

My iOS Provisioning Profile will expire soon and I need to know the smoothest way to renew that profile. My certificate doesn't expire for another couple of years, so the certificate itself should be fine.It is an in-house (non-App Store) app and is installed on a number of devices.

Which is why I'm wondering if the app will stop working if I do the following:

1. Let the provisioning profile expire.
2. Click generate inside the existing profile.

If so, is there any way to update/renew the profile without taking down the app or releasing a new version? If I have to release a new version, is the best option to create a new profile to reduce downtime?

Answer 1

So generating a new provisioning profile will not invalidate any of the apps out there on devices. Basically, you should choose option 2. Generate the new provisioning profile, build a new version of the app with the new provisioning profile, and just make sure all your users / testers update to the new version of the app.

Alternatively, you could generate the provisioning profile and then distribute the profile to all the devices through MDM (if you're using an MDM solution) or by email (not a great experience). Basically the app will continue to run as long as the new provisioning profile gets on the device before the old one expires, whether that's through MDM, manually, or by installing a new version of the app with the provisioning profile in the .app payload. Or if your users download any app with the new provisioning profile, assuming that provisioning profile is set up with a wildcard app ID, that will also correct it (see information about that here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/29121777/3708242 ).

But option 1 will certainly result in your app refusing to launch once the expiration date arrives.