Notarization Issue

Hey there,

I'm experiencing an issue with notarization of my macOS application, which is blocking a release.

We have signing/notarization hooked up to our CI process, both for prior releases as well as development builds (at the trunk tip). The notarization process has typically taken anywhere from a few minutes to a few tens of minutes, but for our most recent release, it's taking an unreasonably long time.

I've compiled the submission info for each build (+ reattempted notarizations) below. What's interesting is that the oldest one was accepted- however, it timed out our CI process, so we never actually released it.

Subsequent builds are more or less identical in terms of their content, however, they've been stewing in the notarization process for over 13 hours in some cases.

% xcrun notarytool info 67413dae-64f5-4372-972d-e0ac158e18e3
Successfully received submission info
createdDate: 2025-04-02T16:28:25.999Z
id: 67413dae-64f5-4372-972d-e0ac158e18e3
name: Warp Vault.app.zip
status: In Progress
% xcrun notarytool info 0c72b243-4a8d-4976-a97b-75689d7e2497
Successfully received submission info
createdDate: 2025-04-02T05:49:05.861Z
id: 0c72b243-4a8d-4976-a97b-75689d7e2497
name: Warp Vault.app.zip
status: In Progress
% xcrun notarytool info 8e2edfc2-58bc-4b33-bc8e-078155759a81
Successfully received submission info
createdDate: 2025-04-02T05:23:28.870Z
id: 8e2edfc2-58bc-4b33-bc8e-078155759a81
name: Warp Vault.app.zip
status: In Progress
% xcrun notarytool info 8fb17b0c-ace4-4b6f-bef8-68d22696814d
Successfully received submission info
createdDate: 2025-04-02T05:07:48.187Z
id: 8fb17b0c-ace4-4b6f-bef8-68d22696814d
name: Warp Vault.app.zip
status: Accepted

At the time of checking, the UTC date was:

% TZ="UTC" date
Wed Apr 2 18:42:14 UTC 2025

It's interesting to me that the notarization process is taking this long. We've notarized many development builds (with debugging flags enabled) in the time between our last public release and our attempt to notarize this one. What's more, the original build for this release was notarized within the span of about 15 minutes, but subsequent submissions of the same build have hung for tens of hours.

My two questions are:

  1. How can I get our pending notarizations "unstuck"?, and

  2. To prevent these types of hangs in the future, should I also routinely build/sign/notarize non-debug builds of my application during the development process?

Best regards and many thanks,

Charlton

You can expect that most uploads will be notarised quickly. Occasionally, some uploads are held for in-depth analysis and may take longer to complete.

My experience is that problems like this usually clear after a few days, after which the system will learn how to recognise your builds, and you should see fewer delays.

Written by chtzvt-pkfs in 779248021
To prevent these types of hangs in the future, should I also routinely build/sign/notarize non-debug builds of my application during the development process?

I’m not sure B follows from A, but B is fine. Lemme explain…

It’s find to routinely notarise new builds of your app, up to the daily limit discussed in Customizing the notarization workflow.

However, there’s no guarantee that this will avoid unexpected delays. It’s a complex issue, and not something I’m able to discuss here.

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

@DTS Engineer I have an app that app refactoring, remove unncessary files, now it always take me few days to notarise it, even I don't change anything. Eventually they are completed, but the delay always happen. What is the channel to discuss about the delay? The delay affected badly our business that we can't release the our version on time anymore, and any bug take longer to solve.

I recommend that you start a new thread for your specific situation. Copy the topic and tags from this thread, so I see it go by.

Oh, and reference this thread so that I remember the context.

Oh, and please include a timeline with request UUIDs; that’ll help illustrate the consistent delays that you’re seeing.

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

Notarization Issue
 
 
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