Altool validation fails with cryptic error message

Question

Created Jun ’22

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I have an .app which I want to distribute on the AppStore. The AppStore page is set up. I would like to upload a first build. I create a .pkg file with

pkgbuild --install-location ~/Applications --component ./AppName.app ./PkgFileName.pkg

This succeeds, and if I run this file created locally it correctly installs in the applications folder. After this I would like to validate this file with altool:

xcrun altool --validate-app -f ./PkgFileName.pkg -t osx -u <my_apple_id> -p @keychain:"altoolpass"

This fails with the following message:

*** Error: Validation failed for 'PkgFileName.pkg'. *** Error: Could not find the main bundle or the Info.plist is missing a CFBundleIdentifier in ‘PkgFileName.pkg’. Unable to validate your application. (-21017)

{ NSLocalizedDescription = "Could not find the main bundle or the Info.plist is missing a CFBundleIdentifier in \U2018<app_name>\U2019."; NSLocalizedFailureReason = "Unable to validate your application."; }

I'm stumped by this, because the original .app file contains an Info.plist in .app/Contents/Info.plist, and this file has the CFBundleIdentifier key, and the value is the same as we set up on the AppStore page. Why is it still giving me this error?

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Answer 1

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

Jun ’22

Are you building your app with Xcode? Or with a third-party build system? If you’re building with Xcode, I recommend that you start by validating from the Xcode organiser, just to do a basic smoke test.

I create a .pkg file with …

That’s not the approach I recommend. Rather, create your installer package with productbuild. See Packaging Mac Software for Distribution for the specific command.

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Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
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