iOS In-House Enterprise app not installing

We have an iOS In-House app that is not installing using the OTA method. The app is no longer able to be installed using the itms-services:// protocol. The last time I tried it was in November 2020 and it worked then. The uri looks like this itms-services://?action=download-manifest&url=https: //dl.dropbox.com/s/abcdef123/manifest.plist
. Our Enterprise certificate and profiles are up to date and valid. I was able to install the app to an iphone using Xcode and an Ad-hoc deployment of the app.

The dropbox links are all shared and accessible to anyone with the link.

When I copy the itms-services uri to Safari on an iPhone I get the popup ... "Open this page in "iTunes"?" with the options Cancel and Open. When I click Open the popup goes away but then nothing else happens. The app does not install.

I connected to XCode Console to view the log messages for the device while clicking Open on the popup and the only message that stood out to me was .. Process: itunesstored Message: NetworkRequestQueue: Received unknown action: <private> PID: 162

Does Apple still support OTA installs for enterprise developers? What else can I do to troubleshoot?



Accepted Reply

It appears that after adding display-image and full-size-image in the manifest.plist file the OTA install works.

<dict>
<key>kind</key>
<string>display-image</string>
<key>url</key>
<string>https:// dl.dropbox/app57x57.png</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>kind</key>
<string>full-size-image</string>
<key>url</key>
<string>https:// dl.dorpboxURL/app512x512.png</string>
</dict>

Replies

It appears that after adding display-image and full-size-image in the manifest.plist file the OTA install works.

<dict>
<key>kind</key>
<string>display-image</string>
<key>url</key>
<string>https:// dl.dropbox/app57x57.png</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>kind</key>
<string>full-size-image</string>
<key>url</key>
<string>https:// dl.dorpboxURL/app512x512.png</string>
</dict>

I faced a similar issue with the iOS In-House app not installing using the OTA method. Here’s how I resolved it after burning precious hours of my life ;-):

  1. Ensure the Dropbox links are modified to force downloads. Change the dl=0 to dl=1 in the links. E.g., https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/.../YOUR_APP.ipa?rlkey=...&dl=1

  2. Ensure that the second image in your manifest.plist is precisely 1024x1024 pixels.

  3. The link to your manifest.plist in the itms-services URL must be URL encoded. E.g., itms-services://?action=download-manifest&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dropbox.com%2Fscl%2Ffi%2F...%2Fmanifest.plist%3Frlkey%3D...%26dl%3D1

After these adjustments, I created a QR code for the link. Scanning the QR code with the camera app successfully installed the app on registered devices (UDID) using Ad Hoc distribution.