iOS expiring Distribution Provisioning Profile questions

Question

We have an iOS "In-House" app (distributed OTA) with a Distribution Provisioning Profile that, as you may know, expires in 1 year. We have gone through upgrading the profile and distribution pains last year, so we are familiar with the process of distributing the app with a new profile, but I want to ask some questions just for clarity. (We are currently 29 days away from expiration, so users are getting notified)

Last year we thought that creating a NEW distribution provisioning profile with the same name as the expiring profile would overwrite the expiring profile. We were incorrect, it does not, and the device wound up with 2 profiles of the same name. Since you cannot overwrite an old profile, the problem from a maintenance and help desk perspective is that when you distribute the app with the new profile, users (hundreds in our case) still get notified that "The provisioning profile will expire in x days" even after they've upgraded the app that includes a new profile.
As you can imagine, that is confusing to users and frustrating for higher ups in the tech department. As I understand it, you're left with two ways to deal with having an unneeded expiring provisioning profile on the device(neither of which is a good user experience). Either:

1. Tell the users to ignore the message that their profile is expiring (I believe the expiring profile notification comes at 29 days, 15 days, and every day starting at 7 days...though not positive) and have them upgrade the app with the new profile.
   or
2. Once the users have upgraded the app with the new profile, have them manually delete the expiring profile in Settings > Profiles. UGH!

Is there any workaround for how to remove the expiring profile aside from walking the individual user through the process? Are we missing something?

I don't want to revoke the cert that is contained in the expiring profile because that will present more problems - i.e. app not working for users who don't upgrade.

Simply put, we would just like to have a process that forestalls the expiration alerts so a user never sees them.

Rambow

i am of the understanding that, just before month 11 ends, you could create a distribution profile for the current app, and then just make an upgrade available early. sure, it means an extra "upgrade" once every 12 years (i.e. you'll have to do it one month earlier, and by the end of 11 years you would have cycled the calendar back), but that might be worth the pain of not having to deal with what you dealt with last year. and remember, the only thing the "upgrade" has to contain is the new provisioning profile. so there's no code maintenance, just another build to perform and upload to your O – Adventure

this was an issue pre-iOS7 and is no longer a problem – Rambow

Answer 1

I received a recent response direct from Apple regarding the effect an expired profile has on apps currently residing in the app store:

I understand you'd like to know if you need to delete the expired certificates and provisioning profiles, and whether or not any action taken in the provisioning portal will affect apps currently live on the App Store. I'm happy to assist you in this matter.

Please know that it is not necessary to delete expired items in the provisioning portal, nor will any action taken have any impact on apps currently live in the store.

Not quite sure this answers your entire question but it did help me when I was wondering what would happen to the live apps.

Bedroll

this doesn't apply to this question. you're answering for apps on the app store. my question refers to ad hoc (distributed outside the app store) apps. – Rambow

Answer 2

If i understand your question correctly, i had the same exact problem this year.

I Actually had to wait until the Profile Expired before i was able to Renew it.

When the profile had Expired, i would go to the Developer Portal's Provisioning Profiles, and on the right side of the Profile, there would now be a new button next to the Edit Button called Re-new.

Clicking Re-new should renew the current profile.

When the profile was renewed, my team would joust Install the updated profile.

(I sent the updated profile by mail, by downloading the profile(s) from the Provisioning Profiles page)

If that option for some reason would not work, you could alternatively create a new Provisioning Profile, with the same App ID and email it to you'r team.

Mandrill

We're able to handle creating all the new provisionings, etc. We are looking for a way so that users will not be bothered by warnings that the old provisioning profile is going to expire in 30 days...15 days...7 days...6 days, etc. – Patriotism

If you had to wait until the profile expired until you could renew it, your users would still see the notifications that the profile is going to expire...which is the real problem we're faced with (as Owen is saying). Apple documentation doesn't really explain how to avoid that properly. – Rambow

That's weird, my team never received a warning until it was actually expired (including me), sorry i misunderstood your question. – Mandrill

I'm looking for the same solution. That this is allowed to happen is terrible functionality on Apple's part. The developer should be notified first, the developer should be told what to do to refresh a profile then the profile should update seamlessly on all the users' target devices. This should NEVER be seen on a user's device if the developer of the app has a valid and current license. – Libbey

Answer 3

If you make your app part of the app store they will not expire. You can charge a lot for it and give out redeem codes to your clients or make it free and do some kind to authorization.

I was working with a enterprise customer that had a private distribution to iPads. The iPads were not regality connected a computer to sync apps, but 1 day a year after the provisioning file was made all the remotes sales team lost access to the app. The app was a 1.6 gb download. So that only happened once and the app when to the store as a free app.

Huba