Application Loader stuck at "Authenticating with the iTunes store" when uploading an iOS app

Question

We have been trying to submit an app to the iTunes store using Application Loader for three days and keep getting stuck at the "Authenticating with the iTunes store" step.
We have read many forums (including stackoverflow) and tried what was suggested:

• making a new provisioning profile
• using different or multiple versions of Application Loader
• changing proxy settings
• rebooting the Mac
• uploading at a different time of the day, etc.

We have even left it running overnight and have not had success with getting past this step. Unfortunately, no feedback is given about what the issue may be, and we have not gotten any error messages. We have submitted multiple apps without any difficulty in the past but are completely stuck this time!
How were you able to solve it?

Sheaves

have you tried to upload it through the Xcode Organizer directly? – Precocity

We built the app using Corona SDK, not in Xcode, so we unfortunately don't have a project in Xcode that can be uploaded through Xcode Organizer. We are using Corona so that we can develop cross-platform apps. – Sheaves

ok, i see. Maybe this can help: Choose Window > Background Activity to display the Background Activity window and view delivery status information for all applications, including pending messages, time remaining, warning and error messages, and so on. – Precocity

Thanks! We do that every time and get no error message, just the elapsed time. If you have any other ideas, let us know! – Sheaves

Come on geeks, solve this problem. I have also spent plenty of hours on it.. – Intuitionism

@Intuitionism You are having the same problem? What have you tried? We left it running for about 8 hours yesterday and we never got past the Authenticating with the iTunes step. – Sheaves

@Sheaves i haven't find its solution yet. Application Loader is taking v big time, seems that Application Loader is an Loader Application that keep just Loading nothing else.. Apple must take it serious to solve this bug. – Intuitionism

@Sheaves Apple has fixed the Application Loader, Today as i started delivering my app via Application Loader, it was successfully submitted.. – Intuitionism

This just happens sometimes, and happened to me as well. Just try it tomorrow :) – Dworman

If you've tried all the obvious stuff, it sounds like an issue at the network level. Try a different Internet connection (such as a tethered iPhone on a cellular network). Alternatively (although this is less radical, so more likely not to work) reset/restart your router or whatever hardware you have that is your connection to the Internet. – Meek

For me, My Application Loader was not updated. When i updated the software, it worked. – Harter

#18972210 I found the top voted answer works! – Steiner

I was having same issue, (my app is developed using Xamarin) tried many times but no luck. Eventually, i used xcode -> archive -> upload which comes to rescue and it just uploaded in few minutes. – Agnesagnese

Check out this answer - one of the solution should fix this: https://mcmap.net/q/120116/-xcode-stuck-at-your-application-is-being-uploaded – Fascinator

its 2017 and this issue is still there. apple really hates developers – Extrude

I am getting "mv: rename .itmstransporter/ to .old_itmstransporter/: No such file or directory" pleas help in. – Eider

@Extrude welcome to 2018 – Menopause

@VictorIvens lol, yeah, i've kinda given up on apple ever improving this. Just bill the client for the exta hours wasted on each upload.. – Extrude

its 2018 and this issue is still there. apple really hates developers – Extrude

its 2019 and this issue is still there. apple really hates developers – Usn

You can check this answer, may help you. – Off

Its 2020 and this issue is still there. Apple seriously hates developer – Statocyst

Its 2020 and this issue is still there. Apple seriously hates developer – Untouchable

It's 2020 and this issue still haunts me. Apple seriously hates developer. – Mildredmildrid

Just got it working, try this: https://mcmap.net/q/117762/-application-loader-stuck-at-quot-authenticating-with-the-itunes-store-quot-when-uploading-an-ios-app – Legality

It's 2021 and this issue is still there. Apple why do you hate developers? – Subaqueous

Just use the new Transporter App. See: stackoverflow.com/a/58066647 – Danika

Answer 1

This only started happening to me today (May 2017) and no answers in this thread solved my issue. The resolution for me was from here;

https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/76803

Open Terminal. Change to home directory,

cd ~  

Move the current transporter directory,

mv .itmstransporter/ .old_itmstransporter/ 

Invoke the following file to let Transporter update itself.

"/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Application Loader.app/Contents/itms/bin/iTMSTransporter"

Wait till it updates, then open Xcode and attempt upload.

Nausea

thank you, very much! None of the more upvoted and accepted solutions worked for me, but this one does. Apple needs to learn how to properly communicate error messages. Stuck on authenticating is not useful at all. – Boehike

Worked for me. There is currently an update for XCode on the app store, but I really didn't want to do a full update today. I needed to upload a build really fast.. and this answer did the trick. – Froth

The answer above (https://mcmap.net/q/117762/-application-loader-stuck-at-quot-authenticating-with-the-itunes-store-quot-when-uploading-an-ios-app) worked for me and this stopped working for me in May 2017. – Karinekariotta

If you get "One or more software components could not be updated", just repeat the process until you get "Transporter has been successfully updated". – Horsewhip

Fix also my problem - I was looking for solution from first days April 2017 – Gunning

Thanks for the answer, upvoted. Application Loader and XCode uploader also does the same in the background though. So instead of looking at "Authenticating..." message you see a bunch of Terminal messages. It does not necessarily speeding up things. – Sepulchre

To avoid getting stuck for minutes on some of the update components, shutdown Xcode and (optionally) reboot macOS before running the "/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Application Loader.app/Contents/itms/bin/iTMSTransporter" command. – Larainelarboard

Indeed, the only solution that works. Xcode 8.3.3 Aug '17 – Aegean

A year later and still the go-to answer. Thank you! – Briareus

Try to run the script and wait for an hour, nothing happened, the Terminal still blank and didn't give any notification. still stuck uploading .ipa using Application Loader – Suspect

I am getting this error No such file or directory also I installed Transporter app from Mac App Store – Stunning

Answer 2

You have to agree to a new sign up in Application Loader. Select "Application Loader" under the "Xcode -> Open Developer Tool" menu (the first menu to the right of the Apple in the menu bar). Once you open Application Loader there will be a prompt to agree to new terms and then to login again into your iTunes account. After this any upload method will work.

Jarad

This just worked for me. I also ticked the 'stay logged on' option on the Application Loader logon dialog. – Mullet

Glad I was able to help. Indeed 'stay logged on' also an option, but not necessary to fix the stalling issue, just agreeing to the new terms. – Jarad

Great advice. Seems like an oversight by Apple, but worked for me! – Housewares

It would be ideal if prompted for the new terms automatically, but Xcode being a collection of tools I understand how it falls through the cracks. – Jarad

This worked for me but I first had to create an app specific password to login to the Open Developer Tool. – Cuthburt

This is the correct answer. I never would have thought of doing this. Thanks. – Anthesis

Glad it was useful, it is indeed counterintuitive. Specially given that Xcode already has access to the developer password in keychain, they should roll the Application Loader functionality into Xcode to avoid this type of issue. – Jarad

@Sheaves Indeed, I had to launch the Application loader, accept the legal terms. I closed it, and relaunched submiting to the AppStore from XCode, and this time it worked! :-) As mentioned in the comment: the Application Loader app will require to create an app-specific password. It implied to login to you appid page, then click on "generate app specific password"... – Paleethnology

Answer 3

Just wait. In a few minutes all will be ok.

Unexperienced

For me it takes 15-20 minutes and successfully uploaded to AppStore. But please enable TCP port 443 access. – Art

If you haven't accepted the who-knows-what Policy Agreement, do as the other answer says. – Assertion

@Assertion Thank you for linking to my answer as really should be the accepted answer. – Jarad

8 hours later and i still wait. my colleague has already release the android version, and the customers have it. meanwhile i wait for apple.. – Extrude

5 days of waiting and still nothing, that doesn't seem like the best advice – Cerracchio

Unuseful advice, the comment bellow (same as linked by the comment 4 steps above) worked for me though – Razz

Worked for me after 15min. If you have wait more than 30min/1h, try other solutions :) – Foyer

After being stuck, I cancelled, quit Xcode and tried again. Then it took about 2 / 3 min – Reitman

Answer 4

Dec 10th 2019, Xcode Version 11.2.1, MacOS X 10.15.1

I was facing exactly same issue yesterday and I thought it might be network issues, at least it looks like so. But this morning I had tried couple different networks and several VPN connections, none of them is working!

The highest voted answer here asks me to reset a cache folder named .itmstransporter under my home dir, the run a program iTMSTransporter under a specific folder, but I can't find both of them.

But soon I figured that it is the cache folder for the people who uses the legacy uploader program: Application Loader, which is deprecated by Apple and can be no longer found in Xcode 11. Then I found that the latest Xcode has located iTMSTransporter here:

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/SharedFrameworks/ContentDeliveryServices.framework/itms/bin/iTMSTransporter

And its cache folder is here:

/Users/your_user_name/Library/Caches/com.apple.amp.itmstransporter/

I removed my existed cache folder, and run iTMSTransporter without any parameter, it soon started to output logs and download a bunch of files, and finished in 2 or 3 minutes. Then I tried again to upload my ipa file, it works!!!

CONCLUTION:

1. Either the old Application Loader, or the latest Xcode, uses a Java program iTMSTransporter to process the ipa file uploading.
2. To function correctly, iTMSTransporter requires a set of jar files downloaded from Internet and cached in your local folder.
3. If your cache is somehow broken, or doesn't exist at all, directly invoking iTMSTransporter with functional parameters such as --upload-app in our case, iTMSTransporter DOES NOT WARN YOU, NOR FIX CACHE BY ITSELF, it just gets stuck there, SAYS NOTHING AT ALL! (Whoever wrote this iTMSTransporter, you seriously need to improve your programming sense).
4. Invoking iTMSTransporter without any parameter fixes the cache.
5. A functional cache is about 65MB, at Dec 10th 2019 with Xcode Version 11.2.1 (11B500)

Casia

Thanks alot for this answer it really helped. I installed XCode-beta version-12 and then since app got rejected by Apple since it was uploaded using beta version, I downloaded 11.5 XCode from AppStore. And was facing this issue.. your instruction helped resolving the authentication stuck error... Thanks alot. – Decastro

You are a legend. If I could upvote x1000 I would. Extra points for the detailed explanation. Thank you so much. – Decoupage

Thanks, DELETE the CACHE save my life. – Reasoning

You are a legend. My cache was around 60mb prior to deletion. Then ran the application, wherever it is downloading the files from, it is very slow (~10kbytes / s) and it took around 20 minutes to download ~20 megabytes of jar files. Logging didn't start until 3 minutes in so be patient. After this process, I was able to upload my archive from XCode organizer without issues. – Subaqueous

Answer 5

I was stuck at "Authenticating with the iTunes Store" today. I had used the same version and build number as a previous submission. After I updated the build number, the upload went fine. I don't know if it's related, or if it was a coincidence.

Timeout

Worked for me as well. – Encephalogram

This is the correct answer, no doubt. Worked for me as well. – Zipah

It's not a coincidence. You can't reupload same version and build number. Usually loader explicitly gives you a warning. In your case apparently it did not – Monte

Same issue more than a year later, no warning that the build number is the same. – Greenockite

Updated the build number but didn't solve the issue of Authenticatin with the iTunes Store. I would imagine that this is not exactly the case. – Neptune

for me also it did not help. Might be a certain case but it's not the only one apparently – Beaumont

Answer 6

I had the same issue for months, I just removed hotspot shield and private tunnel applications from my computer and tried to upload my app and everything worked just fine. so I suggest if you have installed any VPN application on your computer, remove the application and then try uploading your app from either application loader or xcode's organizer.

Disparity

Answer 7

Try answer mentioned in this Reference Link, it really worked for me and for others as well.

Mentioning answer here as well. Open Terminal and run:

cd ~
mv .itmstransporter/ .old_itmstransporter/
"/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Application Loader.app/Contents/itms/bin/iTMSTransporter"

iTMSTransporter will then update itself, then you can try uploading in XCode again or via application loader.

Isochronous

How is this answer different from what @Nausea proposed? – Indomitability

Answer 8

There is no magic fix. Itunes is just working bad. Lately is having more and more issues and it takes more and more to update and send an ipa to the store. I had this issue with AppLoader and Xcode organiser too and after trying multiple times it just went through.

Semiconscious

Answer 9

Changing network connection helped.

1. Turned off wifi on my phone
2. Enabled 3G
3. Created HotSpot
4. Connected my mac to the hotspot and got through the authetication issue

Inkhorn

Answer 10

In my case, I hadn't agreed to the newest Developer Agreement. Just run Application Loader once, click on [Accept] to agree, then quit the Application Loader and the Upload to App Store should work fine.

Secrecy

Answer 11

Following worked for me.

1. Open another instance of Application Loader. ( Select "Application Loader" under the "Xcode -> Open Developer Tool" menu)

2. "Agree" to the terms.

3. After completing Step 2. First instance of Application Loader proceeded to the next step and build got submitted.

Blameful

Answer 12

I have also encounter the same issue. One possible solution is to go to Xcode -> Preferences -> Accounts and from the left menu select on App ID then click on the View Details and tap on the refresh button. while reloading you will get following error

The selected team's agent, 'ADMIN NAME' must agree to the latest Program License Agreement.

If you will not get above error, Following solution will not work.

It means that you need to login into the developer account using Admin login and accept that latest agreement. Then you will be able to upload binary on the app store.

Scorify

Answer 13

I'm running MacOS Mojave 10.14.6, Xcode 11.3.1 and Transporter 1.1.1, and always got stuck at the Authentication with App Store stage, no matter how long I wait, I tried uploading using Xcode, using xcrun altool, Transporter, nada.

Finally I got it working by exporting the ipa file to a new Macbook (10.15.3, Xcode 11.3.1, Transporter 1.1.1), and used the Transporter app to upload it there.

The key difference is the Transporter tool on my new Macbook asked for a 6-digit code as authentication while the old Macbook did not, I suspect the authentication token on my old device expired but the system didn't ask for a new one when trying to upload the app. I had 2-FA enabled.

So I think forcing a manual re-authentication when you upload the app is the answer, the only other difference is the MacOS version, but I didn't test if it'll make a difference.

Legality

my man! I have been looking EVERYWHERE for a solution. Although your exact steps did not yield a successful result for me I did figure out another set of steps. After all the logging out / deleting I still wasn't able to upload. So, i created a new local account on my macbook to test it there. Sure enough, it worked! Then, I logged out and went back to my main account and that also seems to be working now! – Autotoxin

Answer 14

The updated answer for Xcode 11.x.x and Transporter application, open terminal:

1. rm -rf ~/.itmstransporter/
2. "/Applications/Transporter.app/Contents/itms/bin/iTMSTransporter"

Wait a while Problem solved!

Stunning

How long is "Wait a while". Waiting 5 mins and all I see is "Logging level set to eXtreme" and no further output – Rhyolite

Answer 15

I solved the problem by removing ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.amp.itmstransporter. For safety, renaming will be better,

cd ~/Library/Caches
mv com.apple.amp.itmstransporter com.apple.amp.itmstransporter.old

Then, xcrun altool uploaded my ipa successfully.
By the way, I'm using Xcode 11.x & 12.2, macOS Catalina.

Enterogastrone

Answer 16

In 2020 Dec, the fix did finally worked for me was restarting my mac.

Riobard

This, a thousand times this. No frustrating hacky work arounds. 1 reboot, prolem solved. – Grime

Answer 17

Today I ran into this issue, on Xcode 11.2.1 I solved it by going to Xcode -> Preferences -> Accounts -> Tapped on the '-' next to my Apple ID, then signed in again. This fixed it for me!

Cape

Thx! I have try this suggested step and my issue has been fixed – Untouched

Answer 18

In April 21, 2021, I followed @DawnSong's answer, outlined in the image below but I also restarted my Mac and voila it worked.

Spec Xcode 12.4 macOS Big Sur 11.2.3

Proximal

Answer 19

You may try to relogin your ITC account via Application Loader.

Hectare

Answer 20

Just try a different Internet connection. I tried all the solutions above but none worked. However, when I tried using my cellular connection (instead of my DSL connection that stands behind a firewall), it worked immediately.

Angwantibo

did many things, that one only worked. I can't believe using my mobile as a hotspot did the trick (I still used a vpn on my computer in the evening, might have displeased itunes who knows..). Apple, your dev platform never stops to amaze me. – Passed

Answer 21

It might be a network issue. If you are running inside a virtual machine (e.g. VMWare or VirtualBox), try setting the network adapter mode from the default NAT to Bridged.

Shanghai

Answer 22

All i did was duplicate my Application Loader.app in /Applications and ran both Application loaders at the same time.

this solution is out there, it used to work for me, but today not even that! what I did and worked is that (2 instances) + uploading with XCode (organizer). Had to try a couple of times and it worked.

hope this helps someone, this bug has been there for quite a lot of time now() an apple doesn't seem to care too much

Sidran

Answer 23

Another reason could be that you have changed the machine from which you're submitting the app. Or the user account on the machine. The new machine may lack the private key and/or certificate for the App Store. Although a certificate with the correct name is displayed in Xcode.

In this case, go to https://developer.apple.com -> certificates, use the plus sign (+) to add a new certificate (distribution), and follow the steps to request a certificate for the private key on your current machine. After installing the certificate, authentication may work.

Guillema

Thanks this was it for me – Abstractionist

Answer 24

For me I tried almost all the suggestions given above but the problem still reoccurred after the first success in uploading to App store. Until I found this website. In summary, do the following

1. Open terminal

2. Run this command:

     rm -rf ~/.itmstransporter/
     “/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Application 
     Loader.app/Contents/itms/bin/iTMSTransporter”
   

Note: this command(which is different from others above) will delete your ITMSTansporter folder and create a new one and ensure that xcode is quitted before running this command. 3. Start Xcode and all should be well.

Tarmac

Answer 25

Using Xcode 12.3 Distribute App and xcodebuild both got stuck today at this point.

I finally was able to solve this. Peeking around my system I found 3 versions of iTMSTransporter. Printing the version of each using ./iTMSTransporter -version gives the following results:

• /Applications/Transporter.app/Contents/itms/bin/ has version 2.0.0

• /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/SharedFrameworks/ContentDeliveryServices.framework/Versions/A/itms/bin/ has version 2.1.0

• /usr/local/itms/bin/ has version version 1.9.3

So it looks that old version in /usr/local/itms was used by Xcode. After deleting /usr/local/itms I was able to upload my binary within Xcode 12.2 and using the xcodebuild command line tool.

Kapok

Answer 26

1. Check your firewall
2. Network settings - (Check with network admin, usually they have blocked apple services unknowingly)
3. Check your system data/time.

I had same sort of issue, I resolved it by getting direct access to internet. Also check Application Loader logs to see at which point it gets stuck.

Clericals

Answer 27

I think I followed all the approaches given, but none worked for me. My own approach that seems to work for me is to go thru the initial steps to upload a binary, then, after selecting the binary, do NOT click Send; instead close the window, and in the new window that will appear, start anew: hopefully it will go thru.

Dredger

Answer 28

Found the solution:

I was uploading the build, Every activity went well except “Authenticating with the iTunes store”.

I disconnected my LAN cable and Connected my MAC with my mobile hotspot. and authentication problem was solved. If you have a limited internet plan then as soon as you pass authentication stage, again connect your LAN so that it will upload the app from you LAN cable's internet connection.

Arise

Answer 29

my upload failed each time when I uncheck the "include bitcode" option when uploading. So I checked the "include bitcode" option and upload went well.

Chesser

Answer 30

Check your Firewall, If it is "On" then just Off it, then try

Ancier

where to check this? – Barbi

Answer 31

For me I was using Xcode 8.2's application loader and fortunately I've Xcode 7.2 as well so I used Xcode 7.2's application loader and it's working.

Montagna

Answer 32

It started to work after I closed Docker app

Airlee

Answer 33

Go to Preferences -> Accounts, remove your account and add it again. Then try uploading again and wait a few minutes.

Reflate

Answer 34

For those using beta versions of Xcode, just change the application name in the command to Xcode-beta.app:

cd ~
mv .itmstransporter/ .old_itmstransporter/
"/Applications/Xcode-beta.app/Contents/Applications/Application Loader.app/Contents/itms/bin/iTMSTransporter"

Depending on your internet connection, the update may take some time. For me it was around 15 minutes.

Bibliolatry

Answer 35

I've tried all provided solutions with no luck and finally machine restart resolved the problem (as it pretty often happens with XCode issues..)

Emptyheaded

Answer 36

Not a proper answer but in my case

something completely strange. I was trying from last six hours using Transporter app, Application Loader and via Xcode but none of them was working.
And suddenly I got an error message on the Transporter app that App with same version number is already available on Apple store. So App was uploaded but the progress status of the app (Transporter, Xcode, Application Loader) did not notify me. Try to change your network, if possible try with other system.

Valerievalerio

Answer 37

I tried everything above but nothing worked for me. I am using macOS Catalina: 10.15.6 and it doesn't have .itmstransporter/

Until I...

• I was uploading in US peak time-zone. So, I waited and tried again in the morning here (India) GMT +5:30.
• I cleared the cache of my laptop and re-added the account.
• Made another Archive.

It took me 5 minutes total to upload the archive.

Awakening

Answer 38

In my case the issue was that I was not using an app specific password on that account.

Rhyolite

Answer 39

Deleting all network settings as described here https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/284588/225828 & restarting the mac did the job. (I've also removed & added back my Apple Id in preferences->accounts) This works as well for inability to add apple id to accounts, infinite loading on accounts tab, inability to sign in with already added acc etc. (worked on Xcode 12 & 13)

Vortumnus

Answer 40

Just wait longer. Do not cancel. As long as 30 minutes or more. Then you see "success" message.

I got same problem more than a week, with exact same problem, and finally found the solution with hands-on experience of my own.

Stomachic

Although waiting could solve some peoples issues...this is an actual problem people (myself included) are experiencing. Waiting doesn't work as I let mine sit overnight and no luck. – Autotoxin