New iOS team member: no valid signing identity

Question

This is getting frustrating. I have two identities, one old, one new, and the latter should be used to deploy iOS apps to the App Store.

I've created the new user, granted him admin access, then I created the app name and provisioning profiles. However, in the Organizer I see that the Dev provision works flawlessly, while the Deploy profile shows me the dreaded error:

Valid signing identity not found .

How can it be?

Well, I see that in the Certificates section in the iOS Provisioning Portal, there is only one distribution certificate, the one belonging to my company.

Is there a way to enable the new user to create apps without accessing the uberadmin's Xcode?

Thanks & Cheers!

Answer 1

You need the key that was used to create the Distribution Certificate for your company.

Remember when you created your developer certificate? Then you went to keychain -> certificate assistant -> Request a certificate from ...

When you did this, your Mac paired your certificate request to a key in your keychain. Once your developer certificate was processed and you downloaded it to your computer, it could be accessed by your computer through that key.

But if you did not create the Distribution Certificate that your company has, you don't have the key on your computer.

Take a look at your certificates in keychain:

• Go to 'Certificates' and expand your developer certificate - it will have a little key with your name.
• Now try to expand your distribution certificate - it will not have a key, right?

If this is the case, you have two options:

1. Ask the person who created the Distribution Certificate to export it from his keychain. This will create a file that includes both certificate and key.

2. Delete the current Distribution Certificate, and create a new Certificate Signing Request from your computer, which will connect it to a key that you have.

First method require access to "Uberadmins" computer. The second require admin access to your teams Apple account. There is usually no downside in using method 2, because creating a new certificate is necessary from time to time anyway. It will not affect already published apps, just coming releases and updates need to use a the latest certificate.

Once all this is done, you need to create a distribution provisioning profile for App Store and connect to the Distribution Certificate that you are going to use. (if you went with option 1, you might already have done this).

Download the profile to your computer, install it, and then in your app, select to build with this profile for distribution builds.

Answer 2

According to Apple's documentation:

A team's distribution certificate allows a developer to build an app for distribution. If your team wants to use another Mac to create a distribution build, you need to transfer a copy of the distribution certificate as described in, “Safeguarding and Transferring Your Signing and Provisioning Assets” in Tools Workflow Guide for iOS. (from Managing a Distribution Certificate )

So, in order to have multiple users able to create & submit App Store builds, you must share a private key between them.

Create a new private key for the team, and then send that private key to everyone who needs it. Follow the instructions under Generating a Certificate Signing Request with Keychain Access .

See also: Any concern to share private key for distribution certificate among different group under a team account in itune provisioning portal