Demystify code signing and its importance in app development. Get help troubleshooting code signing issues and ensure your app is properly signed for distribution.

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In-House distribution Certificate about to expire
Hi, My understanding from this information: " https://developer.apple.com/support/certificates/ iOS Distribution Certificate (in-house, internal-use apps) Users will no longer be able to run apps that have been signed with this certificate. You must distribute a new version of your app that is signed with a new certificate. " is that even if I re-sign the app with a new Provisioning Profile based on a new Distribution Certificate the apps will stop working. I need to re-build my apps with a new Distribution certificate+Provisioning profile, when distributing in-house, right? I can see that the apps continue to function when I re-sign them with a new Provisioning Profile, but according to the information above they will stop working the day (day after) the Distribution certificate they were built with expires. /Rikard
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Sep ’25
GateKeeper rejects application bundles with a file name with an NFC/NFD problem by copying with Finder
I made a macOS application using Swift Package and distributed it in dmg format through Apple Notary service. However, we received a report from a user that it can be launched from a disk image mounted from dmg, but when copied to /Applications, the app is broken and does not start. I looked into why this happened, I noticed that the codesign command returned different results when copying the application bundle and /Applications on the volume mounted dmg with Finder. Mounted dmg: OK ❯ codesign --verify --deep --verbose /Volumes/azoo-key-skkserv/azoo-key-skkserv.app /Volumes/azoo-key-skkserv/azoo-key-skkserv.app: valid on disk /Volumes/azoo-key-skkserv/azoo-key-skkserv.app: satisfies its Designated Requirement Copied by Finder: Bad codesign reports that there are 148 added/missing files. ❯ codesign --verify --deep --verbose /Applications/azoo-key-skkserv.app /Applications/azoo-key-skkserv.app: a sealed resource is missing or invalid file added: /Applications/azoo-key-skkserv.app/Contents/Resources/AzooKeyKanakanjiConverter_KanaKanjiConverterModuleWithDefaultDictionary.bundle/Contents/Resources/Dictionary/louds/グ1.loudstxt3 (skip...) file missing: /Applications/azoo-key-skkserv.app/Contents/Resources/AzooKeyKanakanjiConverter_KanaKanjiConverterModuleWithDefaultDictionary.bundle/Contents/Resources/Dictionary/louds/グ1.loudstxt3 (skip...) Copied by ditto: OK ❯ ditto /Volumes/azoo-key-skkserv/azoo-key-skkserv.app /Applications/azoo-key-skkserv.app ❯ codesign --verify --deep --verbose /Applications/azoo-key-skkserv.app /Applications/azoo-key-skkserv.app: valid on disk /Applications/azoo-key-skkserv.app: satisfies its Designated Requirement I made a simple macOS application to explain this problem in an easy-to-understand way. You can download dmg in github releases, mount dmg, copy it in the Finder, and check if there is a problem by running the codesign command. https://github.com/mtgto/example-utf8-mac-notarization As a result, I learned the following two things. Occurs only with resources with file names whose values change due to NFC/NFD normalization No problems occur with the resources of the application itself. Generated by the Swift Package resources that the application depends on I think this is a problem with Finder or Gatekeeper.
Topic: Code Signing SubTopic: General
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Aug ’25
Xcode 16.2 cannot sign developer app (AppKit) after upgraded to macOS 15.3
After I upgraded to macOS 15.3, all of my current Xcode project have the signing issue, I spent half day and I didn't make any progress, I tried two projects, one is Swift AppKit App calling one C++ dylib, another one is a pure Swift AppKit app, when I build, there will be error: Warning: unable to build chain to self-signed root for signer "Apple Development: Steven Tang (XXXXX)" /Volumes/TwoTSSD/steventang/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/ImageEnhancement-ddbilgyraofrdyfeljyuknusunza/Build/Products/Release/ImageEnhancement.app: errSecInternalComponent I tried remove account, add account back in Xcode, none of it worked, also tried ChatGPT's WWDR updating and it won't help.
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Feb ’25
Component package and notarization of helper executables
Hello, we have a product package which is structured like this: / Installer.pkg / Distribution / Main Component.pkg / Scripts / preinstall / postinstall / helper [ Mach-O executable ] / Payload / Application Bundle.app / Another Component.pkg ... The helper is our custom CLI helper tool which we build and sign and plan to use it in pre/post install scripts. I'd like to ask if we need to independently notarize and staple the helper executable or just the top level pkg notarization is sufficient in this case? We already independently notarize and staple the Application Bundle.app so it has ticket attached. But that's because of customers who often rip-open the package and pick only the bundle. We don't plan to have helper executable used outside of installation process. Thank you, o/
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notarytool is giving me HTTP status error
I am using the xcrun notarytool submit --apple-id xxxxx@gmail.com --password xxxxx--team-id xxxxxx --output-format json --wait --no-progress /my/dmg/file to notarize my DMG file. But it always gives me back the error, Error: HTTP status code: 403. A required agreement is missing or has expired. This request requires an in-effect agreement that has not been signed or has expired. Ensure your team has signed the necessary legal agreements and that they are not expired. I did log in my developer account and found no place to sign any agreement. Actually in the morning when I logged in the developer account, it indeed pop up the agreement for me to sign and I did sign it. But now it seems I don't have any more agreements to sign. So, any ideas about what I should do?
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1w
certificates expired, created new certificates and missing Mac App Distribution
Hi, My certificates expired and I created new ones. But now Xcode shows me in Apple Accounts status of Mac App Distribution that the Missing Private... Howto fix the missing private key? I need to sign a .pkg for upload with Transporter. Further I generated a CSR for App License Delivery ALD certificates. https://developer.apple.com/help/account/certificates/create-a-certificate-signing-request/ And with App Store Connected I created new certificates. In Xcode I had to remove the Apple Account and add it again, after altering currency. This procedure was described somewhere because Xcode was not able to connect my account. This is fixed now.
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Unable to test my apps, crashing with provisioning profile validation
Since around September (iOS 26 release), i'm unable to test my app normally. It says "internet connection is required to verify [my certificate id]", or just crashing. All terms and conditions accepted, everything is valid, certificates are OK. Reinstallation via xcode does not help. Removal of provisioning profile, generating new does not help. Revoking of certificate and generating new does for around week, then it happens again, but do i need to do it every week now? In logs i see the following: default amfid validation failed because of missing trust and/or authorization (0xe8008026) error amfid not valid: 0xe8008026: The provisioning profile requires online authorization. error amfid Unexpected MISError (0xe8008026): The provisioning profile requires online authorization. default +0300 amfid /private/var/containers/Bundle/Application/5B8E560E-75B2-46EF-8606-02072D99E9CF//Frameworks/oss.dylib not valid: Error Domain=AppleMobileFileIntegrityError Code=-400 "An unknown error was encountered" UserInfo={NSURL=file:///private/var/containers/Bundle/Application/5B8E560E-75B2-46EF-8606-02072D99E9CF//Frameworks/oss.dylib, NSLocalizedDescription=An unknown error was encountered} default kernel AMFI: code signature validation failed. It looks like apple validation servers are not working, or is it iOS bug? All provisioning profiles are showing like "valid" in apple developer center. My network is not behind a proxy, connection is direct. If use EXACTLY the same app, signed with the same provisioning, same signature, on another test device, it works! When i reset current device to default settings and installing the EXACTLY same app after it, it works as well. Looking for a help from apple developer support
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Oct ’25
Xcode Automatic Signing Fails with App Groups - Provisioning profile "Mac Team Provisioning Profile : com.example.testapp.mobile" doesn't support the App Groups capability.
Xcode automatic signing consistently fails for the macOS target when adding the App Groups capability, even though the Developer Portal is correctly configured. Error: Provisioning profile “Mac Team Provisioning Profile: com.example.testapp.mobile” doesn’t support the App Groups capability. Setup: • Bundle ID: com.example.testapp.mobile • App Group: $(TeamIdentifierPrefix)group.com.example.testapp.mobile Troubleshooting Steps Tried (None Helped): • Changed bundle identifiers and deleted/recreated them in the Developer Portal • Deleted and recreated App Groups • Removed and re-added the developer account in Xcode • Deleted all provisioning profiles from the system • Cleared Derived Data and Xcode caches • Even tried on a clean macOS system This setup used to work previously. The issue seems to have started after the Apple Developer account was renewed.
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Aug ’25
Notarization Issue
Hey there, I'm experiencing an issue with notarization of my macOS application, which is blocking a release. We have signing/notarization hooked up to our CI process, both for prior releases as well as development builds (at the trunk tip). The notarization process has typically taken anywhere from a few minutes to a few tens of minutes, but for our most recent release, it's taking an unreasonably long time. I've compiled the submission info for each build (+ reattempted notarizations) below. What's interesting is that the oldest one was accepted- however, it timed out our CI process, so we never actually released it. Subsequent builds are more or less identical in terms of their content, however, they've been stewing in the notarization process for over 13 hours in some cases. % xcrun notarytool info 67413dae-64f5-4372-972d-e0ac158e18e3 Successfully received submission info createdDate: 2025-04-02T16:28:25.999Z id: 67413dae-64f5-4372-972d-e0ac158e18e3 name: Warp Vault.app.zip status: In Progress % xcrun notarytool info 0c72b243-4a8d-4976-a97b-75689d7e2497 Successfully received submission info createdDate: 2025-04-02T05:49:05.861Z id: 0c72b243-4a8d-4976-a97b-75689d7e2497 name: Warp Vault.app.zip status: In Progress % xcrun notarytool info 8e2edfc2-58bc-4b33-bc8e-078155759a81 Successfully received submission info createdDate: 2025-04-02T05:23:28.870Z id: 8e2edfc2-58bc-4b33-bc8e-078155759a81 name: Warp Vault.app.zip status: In Progress % xcrun notarytool info 8fb17b0c-ace4-4b6f-bef8-68d22696814d Successfully received submission info createdDate: 2025-04-02T05:07:48.187Z id: 8fb17b0c-ace4-4b6f-bef8-68d22696814d name: Warp Vault.app.zip status: Accepted At the time of checking, the UTC date was: % TZ="UTC" date Wed Apr 2 18:42:14 UTC 2025 It's interesting to me that the notarization process is taking this long. We've notarized many development builds (with debugging flags enabled) in the time between our last public release and our attempt to notarize this one. What's more, the original build for this release was notarized within the span of about 15 minutes, but subsequent submissions of the same build have hung for tens of hours. My two questions are: How can I get our pending notarizations "unstuck"?, and To prevent these types of hangs in the future, should I also routinely build/sign/notarize non-debug builds of my application during the development process? Best regards and many thanks, Charlton
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Apr ’25
Urgent: xcrun notary submit Stuck - Notarization Process Halted
Hi everyone, Native Instruments is encountering a critical issue with the notarization process. The xcrun notary submit command appears to be stuck and is not completing, preventing us from notarizing our apps. Specifically, the command hangs indefinitely. This issue started today. We've already tried the following troubleshooting steps: Cancelling and re-running the command Checking my internet connection Checking the Apple System Status page Cleaning the build folder using a different machine This is a major blocker for our company, as it's preventing from from us from testing and releasing some of our products. It seems to be a similar issue as reported in https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/772542?page=2. Has anyone else experienced xcrun notary submit getting stuck like this? Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'm particularly interested in knowing if there are any known issues with the notarization service currently. Details about my setup: Xcode Version: 16.1 macOS Version: 14.7.1 App Type: macOS app Thanks in advance for your help!
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Feb ’25
"Signing certificate" and post-installation assignment fail due to IOPCIPrimaryMatch
I'm having trouble configuring the "IOPCIPrimaryMatch" entitlement. I'm currently developing using "sign to run locally" and have been able to confirm the expected behavior. I was considering signing with "Developer ID Application" for future distribution to customers, but after finding the following forum, I'm now aiming to sign with "Apple Development." https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/743021 I'm currently having trouble with the IOPCIPrimaryMatch value. The "signing certificate" status in Xcode changes depending on the value, as follows: Successful if the value is as follows: IOPCIPrimaryMatch 0xFFFFFFFF&0x00161916 An error occurs if the value is as follows: IOPCIPrimaryMatch 0xFFFFFFFF&0x00161916 So I tried building and installing using "0xFFFFFFFF&0x00161916", but this time the driver was not assigned to the PCI device. By the way, when I used "sign to run locally", both the installation and assignment were successful with the following: IOPCIPrimaryMatch 0xFFFFFFFF&0x00161916 Could you please tell me the correct way to write this?
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4w
Notarization status always stuck on "In Progress..."
Today, I used xcrun notarytool submit to upload my packaged Electron app for macOS—once as a .zip file and once as a .dmg—for Apple notarization. However, both submissions have been stuck at "Current status: In Progress" for several hours now. I’ve also checked the status using xcrun notarytool info, and it keeps returning status: In Progress. Could someone please help me understand what might be going wrong? This is quite urgent—if a technical support engineer or anyone from the team could take a look, I’d be glad to provide the UUIDs of my notarization requests.
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Dec ’25
Notarization submission times out.
I am currently having issues uploading my app to appstoreconnect.apple.com/notary/ for notarization. It times out after hanging for a while. I get the following error. 13:42:04 "LocalDataTask <D84AED32-B05B-4439-8BDC-40C0F89B89F1>.<1>" 13:42:04 ), NSLocalizedDescription=The request timed out., NSErrorFailingURLStringKey=https://appstoreconnect.apple.com/notary/v2/asp?, NSErrorFailingURLKey=https://appstoreconnect.apple.com/notary/v2/asp?, _kCFStreamErrorDomainKey=4})
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Nov ’25
Some of the apps I have developed are being flagged as malware
I have a free developer account, and I have been creating applications. When I tried to open one of them, it said that this app has been flagged as malware. It is not malware, so I don't know why it has been flagged as this. Not just this app, but suddenly a whole bunch of my apps have been flagged as malware as well! The app I have been developing is basically a windows Taskbar for my macbook air, and it has been working well until the latest update i made where it hides in full screen, suddenly it started taking up significant energy, so i reverted to an older version while i was fixing it. Then, when i try to open it another time, it starts to open, and it says "Malware Blocked and Moved to Bin" “Taskbar.app” was not opened because it contains malware. This action did not harm your Mac”. All versions of the taskbar now contain this message. I try opening some of my other apps, a shared storage client and a shared storage server (where i was testing with app groups), and they couldn't open either, the same malware message appeared. ProPermission couldn't open either (changes permissions on files for me so i don't have to use the terminal or finder). I can run these apps through the Xcode environment (attached process), but when I archieve it into an app bundle, the malware flag appears. Please note that I am certain that these apps do not contain malware, apparently XProtect has incorrectly flagged my apps as malware. Because I do not have the paid developer account, I cannot notarize my apps. I am using MacOS Tahoe 26.1 with Xcode 26.0, and I have tested it with a iMac Intel 2017 with MacOS Ventura.
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Nov ’25
Legacy Team ID prevents adding AppClip
My iOS app was created with a legacy Team ID in 2011. When I try to add an AppClip to the app, the Team ID on the AppClip is the new Team ID. Xcode prevents the build from completing. The com.apple.developer.parent-application-identifiers entitlement (null) of an App Clip must match the application-identifier entitlement ('TYXXXXXP2.com.it-guy.MyApp') of its containing parent app. How can this be resolved? Can the AppClip Team ID be changed in "Identifiers" on the developer.apple.com?
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2w
Notarisation of my .dmg taking forever. (Been 3 days so far)
Its just stuck in progress. $ xcrun notarytool history --keychain-profile X Successfully received submission history. history -------------------------------------------------- createdDate: 2025-07-21T16:46:13.233Z id: X name: X.dmg status: In Progress -------------------------------------------------- createdDate: 2025-07-20T18:44:35.683Z id: X name: X.dmg status: In Progress -------------------------------------------------- createdDate: 2025-07-20T11:24:20.319Z id: X name: X.dmg status: In Progress Its a go app; not simple but not very complicated. It is my first time notarising but even then should it take this long?? 3 days is ridiculous!
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875
Jul ’25
Capability for Provisioning Profile to enable MIE
My app uses a Provisioning Profile (as it bundles up a Network System Extension). I do not use "Automatically manage signing" as its causes code signing/deployment issues 🤷‍♂️ In Xcode (version 26), if I enable " Enhanced Security" and check "Enable Hardware Memory Tagging", Xcode states: Provisioning profile "<>" doesn't include the com.apple.security.hardened-process.checked-allocations and com.apple.security.hardened-process.checked-allocations.soft-mode entitlements. Normally to resolve such errors one simply adds the Capability in "Edit your App ID Configuration" and then regenerates the Provisioning Profile. However, I don't see any such capability to would add these entitlements? (I thought "Hardened Process" would be the one - but alas, no). Clicking the "for more information" link in Xcode to view the relevant(?) "Apple Developer Documentation" generates another error 😵‍💫 Didn't see anything in: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/enabling-enhanced-security-for-your-app
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Oct ’25
unzip identifier is not unique?
In Swift I'm using unzip by launching a Process to unzip a file. I added a launchRequirement to the process in order to make sure the executable is code signed by Apple and the identifier is com.apple.unzip. After testing out my code on another machines (both physical and virtual), I found out that in some the identifier is actually com.apple.zipinfo, which broke the SigningIdentifier requirement. It's safe to assume that /usr/bin/unzip can be trusted since it's in a System Integrity Protection (SIP) location, but I'm wondering why this executable has different identifiers?
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Aug ’25
CarPlay Navigation Entitlement
We've been trying to get the CarPlay Navigation Entitlement for a couple years now without much luck. Did you have a similar experience? How did you succeed getting the entitlement? Part of the form requires us to submit Screenshots. Did you provide screenshots of your on-device experience or wireframe for CarPlay? How was your experience?
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Aug ’25