In-House App Disappears After Install

Question

I'm currently building an iPhone app for a client which will be distributed in-house. My Client has just created their Enterprises Developer account in Apple.

I have created a website for the client to download test versions of the app wirelessly, through instructions given by apple here: Distributing Enterprise Apps for iOS 4 Devices. These tests have been done through my Standard account using an Adhoc profile which has their devise UDID's listed.

I am now trying the deploy the app using their Enterprises account. I created the In-house provisioning file. I also created an archive of the app and created the .ipa file for distribution using this profile.

The problem I am having occurs when I try to download the app. When I go to the site I created to download the app, I can see the app downloading on my iPhone, the wording under icon says: "Loading...". Then the wording changes to "Installing...". Once the progress bar finishes the app disappears. I also noticed the in-house provisioning files installed on my device.

I repeated the process several times on multiple devices, both devices that are I have used for testing this app and those I have not even used this app in. I even tried removing all the provisioning files on one device. Same process happens and the in-house provisioning file gets automatically installed again.

What exactly is wrong or am I not doing?

Thanks.

Solution 1

I experienced the same problem with one of my in-house apps. The reason was that bundle ID in application manifest was specified incorrectly. After I fixed bundle ID, the application installs normally.

Solution 2

The issue for me was that my download plist file had a different bundleID than my agent's bundleID. Fixing the download plist file worked for.

Alternatively a restart also worked, but it was a big pain everytime.

Solution 3

I used bundle ID - com.myname.{appId} in app info.list file. But my OTA manifest file i used com.myname.* because of this issue my install fails. I changed both places com.myname.APPName then works like smart.

Solution 4

**

I have had exactly same issue and got it resolved by following below steps.

**

Issue description To clarify, issue (app not installing properly - icon disappears after installation) was occurring only on iOS device (Android version of the same app build was working fine).

Source of issue In my case issue was cased by the fact that test iPad device I was using, was not registered (added) to the Developer Provisioning Profile my app was using.

Lesson learn That means iOS Developer App can not be installed on any given test device until this device is added to the Provisioning Profile (PP). Important information also is that once device is added to PP, new PP needs to be generated and App has to be signed using this new PP to complete handshake.

Steps to fix

1. Login to Apple Developer https://developer.apple.com
2. Navigate to 'Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles' -> 'Devices'
3. After verifying you device is not listed here, Click on '+'
4. Fill out 'Name' and 'UDID' of you test device and click 'Continue'
5. Once device is added to the list, generate new PP by navigating to 'Provisioning Profiles' -> 'Development' -> Click on you existing PP -> 'Edit' -> check you newly added device in 'Devices' section -> click 'Generate' -> 'Download' -> 'Done'
6. Use your newly downloaded PP to sign the new Development App
7. Install new App on the test device
8. Celebrate success

Solution 5

Is the device's OS version below the app's Deployment Target OS level?

If so, lower the app's Deployment Target in the Ad Hoc Build settings for the Target, or upgrade the device's OS.

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Comments

[RoLYroLLs]

I will try this, as I just noticed I too have a slight typo. I'll report my results.

[RoLYroLLs]

This was the issue for me. I had different a different bundleID on the manifest file than the one I used for the ipa file. Thanks!

[Joost Evertse]

This has happened to me as well! The only difference in my case was one letter! It was capitalized !

[Craig]

I just have to say that being able to get an answer like this here is what makes Stackoverflow completely brilliant! The alternative would've been beating my brains out for hours! Thanks!

[Arjun Kalidas]

How do you find the manifest file and where do you make changes? Can anyone point that out to me?

[Arjun Kalidas]

What did you mean by download plist file?

[Arjun Kalidas]

How do you change the OTA manifest file. Any help would be appreciated.

[gabuchan]

Would be nice to have Apple putting an explicit error on this at least....

[Peter Westerlund]

I have my device registered. But not registered to the provision, how do I do that?

[Abhinav]

You can set the bundleID to $(PRODUCT_BUNDLE_IDENTIFIER) in plist so it points to General->Bundle Identifier, in future you can just change the bundleID at one place

[Piero Alberto]

@PeterWesterlund when you are creating the provision, just create it as development one and then select one or more devices from your list. To add one or more devices to your devices list, go in "devices" section in your apple developer account.

[Jules]

This is an extremely useful step-by-step guide. Thanks. One suggestion though: I'm having trouble where I've updated my deployment profile by adding a new device, but apparently the app is still being built with the old profile, because it's failing to install on the recently added devices. Can you add a guide on how to update the profile after it's been changed?

[marika.daboja]

Hi Jules, glad someone found it useful! Regarding your question - did you build/sign your app originally? Cause all you have to do is repeat this process using new PP you have downloaded after adding new test device into.