How to run flutter app for development on ios device without a paid developer account?

Question

Following flutter's setup instructions, I tried to run the app on my iphone. I got into signing problems. In the project settings, under general/signing, I have this error message:

Failed to create provisioning profile. There are no devices registered in your account on the developer profile. Plug in and select a device to have Xcode register it.

I couldn't do anything in my developer profile, as there was only a message saying my account is expired. I only want to test my app for development, which I should be able to do without renewing the expensive apple developer program.

Apocryphal

"my account is expired" seems to point to the issue. forums.developer.apple.com/thread/49621 – Dapper

I don't want to renew the paid program. I only want to test the app on my device. – Apocryphal

You need to take that up with Apple. – Dapper

I have contacted them. Let's see if they can fix it. – Apocryphal

Indeed it should be possible to debug your app without apple developer program. I would propose to open generated xcode project and follow this steps oodlestechnologies.com/blogs/… Not sure will it work from Android Studio or you'll stuck with this approach, but at least you'll deploy the app to your device. – Therefor

Thanks guys! Apple removed me from the old team now, I'm not sure if that helped. Then eventually your suggestion worked @Therefor – Apocryphal

Answer 1

This is the solution that worked for me:

1. Contact apple and have them removed from the expired team
2. Create a personal team for your apple id. But it might not work to trust the computer yet! (as in olexa.le's comment https://www.oodlestechnologies.com/blogs/Deploying-Apps-to-Devices-without-an-Apple-Developer-Account)
3. Plug in the iOS device and make sure it's detected on the Mac computer (for me it opened itunes and the device name was visible in xcode)
4. Under signing, where the error message (Failed to create provisioning profile. There are no devices...) was: click try again
5. Instead of the error message there was a message saying the device is signed.
6. Now you can trust the computer from the device General/Profiles and device managment (again as in https://www.oodlestechnologies.com/blogs/Deploying-Apps-to-Devices-without-an-Apple-Developer-Account)
7. It didn't work to use "flutter run" as the flutter documentation says. It worked however to open the project in xcode, and then from xcode's menu project/run.
8. Make sure the screen is not locked after the build is complete (it took me more than 5 minutes to build this project when no changes had been made since last build)

Apocryphal