Demystify code signing and its importance in app development. Get help troubleshooting code signing issues and ensure your app is properly signed for distribution.

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Family Control Entitlements not recognized when distributing
I have been approved for family controls entitlements and see them in my apple certificates for my bundle identifier. I see them listed for Distribution in my Runner, however, when I try to distribute I get the error that I do not have the right permissions. Do I need to get the entitlements for each extension I have as well? I have three extensions that use the family controls.
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125
May ’25
Persistent “com.apple.security.get-task-allow” entitlement after signing¬arizing
After signing and notarizing our application, the entitlement “com.apple.security.get-task-allow” is removed. However, we want this entitlement to remain and we want to be able to create a corefile when needed. Is it possible to make the “com.apple.security.get-task-allow” entitlement persistent after signing and notarizing, so that our application can create a corefile?
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Mar ’25
How to move code signing certificates to another Mac
Hi, I recently created and installed new code signing certificates/keys on my main Mac. How to easily copy these certificates/keys to my another Mac with the same Apple ID? Earlier Quinn suggested: "The easiest way to do this is use Xcode’s import/export feature. Launch Xcode, choose Xcode > Settings, select Accounts, select the account in question, then choose Export Apple ID and Code Signing Assets from the action (…) menu." And it worked fine in 2020-2021. However import/export options are no longer available in XCode 16 anymore. Please suggest a simple solution.
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100
Mar ’25
How does xpc_connection_set_peer_code_signing_requirement work?
I have created a XPC server and client using C APIs. I want to ensure that I trust the client, so I want to have a codesigning requirement on the server side, something like - xpc_connection_set_peer_code_signing_requirement(listener, "anchor apple generic and certificate leaf[subject.OU] = \"1234567\"") This checks if the client code was signed by a code-signing-identity issued by Apple and that the teamID in the leaf certificate is 1234567. My questions are- Is using teamID as a signing requirement enough? What else can I add to this requirement to make it more secure? How does xpc_connection_set_peer_code_signing_requirement work internally? Does it do any cryptographic operations to verify the clients signature or does it simply do string matching on the teamID? Is there a way actually verify the clients signature(cryptographically) before establishing a connection with the server? (so we know the client is who he claims to be)
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Feb ’25
Struggling to Notarize Electron macOS App – Stuck for Hours
Hey everyone, I've been trying to notarize my Electron macOS app for the past two days without any success. My longest attempt took nearly 4 hours, and my current attempt has already been running for 2 hours and 26 minutes. From what I can see in the logs, the signing step has completed successfully, and the app is currently in the notarization stage. But it's been stuck there with no real updates or progress indicators. Is this kind of delay normal? Has anyone else experienced such long notarization times? Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.
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Mar ’25
Notarization Fails: “The binary is not signed with a valid Developer ID certificate” for Flutter macOS App Plugins (file_picker, file_saver, url_launcher_macos)
Hi all, I’m trying to notarize a Flutter macOS app built in CI (GitHub Actions). The app builds and signs fine locally—codesign --verify --deep --strict and spctl --assess both pass. However, Apple’s notarization service consistently rejects the app with errors like: The binary is not signed with a valid Developer ID certificate: file_picker.framework The binary is not signed with a valid Developer ID certificate: file_saver.framework The binary is not signed with a valid Developer ID certificate: url_launcher_macos.framework What I’ve tried: Explicitly re-signing all frameworks with my Developer ID Application certificate and --timestamp Removing existing signatures before re-signing Ensuring correct entitlements and bundle identifier Matching the app bundle name and identifier in all places Using both codesign --deep and manual signing of each binary Local validation always passes, but notarization fails in CI Certificate: I am using a “Developer ID Application” certificate (not a “Mac Developer” or “Apple Development” certificate). The output of codesign -dvv for the problematic frameworks shows: Authority=Developer ID Application: [My Name/Team] ([Team ID]) So I believe I am not making the common mistake of using the wrong certificate type. CI Environment: GitHub Actions, macos-latest runner Flutter 3.27.2, stable channel All secrets (cert, Apple ID, app-specific password, team ID) are set up Questions: Has anyone encountered this with Flutter plugins or CI builds? Are there known issues with signing Flutter plugin frameworks for notarization? Is there a way to get more detailed feedback from Apple’s notarization service? Any advice or pointers would be greatly appreciated. I’m happy to provide logs, scripts, or a minimal project if needed. Thanks!
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139
May ’25
SystemPolicyAllFiles code signing requirement
Hello. I have an enterprise application that requires specific privileges to execute correctly on MacOS. One of these privileges is SystemPolicyAllFiles (aka Full Disk Access), as we use the endpoint security framework. When we distribute our application, we generate: A signed, notarized pkg consisting of our application binaries. An MDM-compatible .mobileconfig, which contains the SystemPolicyAllFiles setting. We expect our users to install both to get the application to function correctly. However, we have three environments we deploy to: Internal (local development on a developer's workstation), "development" (where features are integrated prior to release) and "production" (what our customers get). For local, our developers create an Apple account and use a Mac Development certificate for signing. They also generate their own embedded.provisionprofile and drop that into their local installation config. For development/production, we use our Developer ID certificate and Developer Installer certificate, with an endpoint security embedded.provisionprofile bound to those. However, when we generate a .mobileconfig, we need to include a CodeRequirement (CR) for SystemPolicyAllFiles. I've been retrieving this using codesign -dr - ... (i.e., the designated requirement aka DR). However, the designated requirement is very specific to the certificate, which is problematic specifically for local development, where each developer has their own Mac Development certificate. Here's what the relevant section of our generated mobileconfig looks like right now: <dict> <key>SystemPolicyAllFiles</key> <array> <dict> <key>Allowed</key> <true/> <key>CodeRequirement</key> <string>identifier "com.example.app and anchor apple generic and certificate 1[field.1.2.840.113635.100.6.2.6] /* exists */ and certificate leaf[field.1.2.840.113635.100.6.1.13] /* exists */ and certificate leaf[subject.OU] = <TEAMID></string> <key>Comment</key> <string>app</string> <key>Identifier</key> <string>com.exmple.app</string> <key>IdentifierType</key> <string>bundleID</string> <key>StaticCode</key> <false/> </dict> </array> </dict> That's in a format that works for our Developer ID cert, but the DR for the Mac Development certificate looks like: identifier "com.example.app" and anchor apple generic and certificate leaf[subject.CN] = "Mac Developer: John Doe (12ABC34567)" and certificate 1[field.1.2.840.113635.100.6.2.1] /* exists */ Question: Is it possible to relax the code requirement so that it is generic enough to cover all Mac Developer certificates and Developer ID certificates we use? If not, is there a way to have one code requirement for our Mac Developer certificates and a separate CR for our Developer ID certificate? My use case is deploying a static "local" .mobileconfig using our internal company MDM (Apple Business Essentials) to all developer workstations so we don't have to have each developer manually configure their system for the software to run. Thanks! D
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Mar ’25
Notarization of Electron MacOS App taking too long
I started the notarization process for my electron app (just a browser window loading a URL) yesterday (26/03/2025) at around 05:23 GMT. I noticed in a couple of posts here in the forum that it may sometimes take a day to notarize the first app submitted by a team, but it has been over 30 hours since I submitted the app for notarization Here's the log. createdDate: 2025-03-26T05:23:11.102Z id: ddcb3fca-4667-4acb-8fd1-3298a7c244cc name: xolock-browser.zip status: In Progress Is there any reason why it is taking so long? Thanks in advance!
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85
Mar ’25
Disabling Hardened Runtime For Ad Hoc Signing Only
How can I disable Hardened Runtime in Xcode only when signing ad hoc? If I make a new project, Xcode will say Disabling hardened runtime with ad-hoc codesigning. at the beginning of the build logs. However, somehow my project isn't doing this -- it's still hardening the runtime when ad-hoc signing. What should I do to debug this?
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134
May ’25
Issues Signing .app with Developer ID Certificate — Missing Private Key and Pipeline Concerns
I’m having issues trying to codesign a .app file. We generated the Developer ID Application certificate using the organization owner’s account. I downloaded the certificate to my Mac and imported it into my keychain, but when I run the codesign command below, I get the following error. Could you help me? What am I doing wrong? Is there any other way to sign the .app executable? From what I’ve seen in other posts, it looks like the certificate needs to have a private key, but the certificate I download from the developer portal doesn’t include the key. Also, about exporting it as a .p12 — I couldn’t quite understand if that’s considered a safe practice, since the organization owner’s private key would be included in this certificate that we plan to use in our pipeline.
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120
May ’25
App Signing and Uploading Intel/Apple
Hello, I am normally a windows programmer, but I am trying to get my PySide/Qt app into the app store. I'm almost there, I just have a couple of questions about the signing process. I have two laptops, one intel silicon, one mac silicon. I created 2 CSR's, one on each laptop and used them to generate 2 Mac Installer Distribution certificates and 2 Mac App Distribution certificates. When it came to downloading the provisioning profile, I selected one Mac App Distrbution Certificate on the interface at developer.apple.com, saved it and then downloaded to the appropriate laptop. I then switched the provisioning profile to the other Mac App Distribution Certificate and downloaded it to the other laptop. I then built the app and uploaded everything using xcrun altool. On the intel machine only(which has the first provisioning profile) I successfully uploaded the package but I get an email identifying lots of similar errors of the type (Lets call it error1): ITMS-90284: Invalid Code Signing - The executable XXXXX must be signed with the certificate that is contained in the provisioning profile. On the ARM machine only i get the following error (Lets call it error2): ITMS-91109: Invalid package contents - The package contains one or more files with the com.apple.quarantine extended file attribute, such as XXXXXXXX embedded.provisionprofile”. This attribute isn’t permitted in macOS apps distributed on TestFlight or the App Store. Please remove the attribute from all files within your app and upload again. On both I get the following error lets call it error3: ITMS-90886: 'Cannot be used with TestFlight because the signature for the bundle at XXXXX is missing an application identifier but has an application identifier in the provisioning profile for the bundle. Bundles with application identifiers in the provisioning profile are expected to have the same identifier signed into the bundle in order to be eligible for TestFlight.' My first inclination is that all the error1's are coming from having two sets of CSRs, Mac Distribution certificates, provisioning profiles etc. Should I have only used one CSR and made one each of the Certificates? I don't know why I have error2. I don't know where the quarantine attribute is coming from and why it would affect the mac silicon and not the intel. Any ideas? my entitlements file has the following: <key>com.apple.security.cs.allow-jit</key> <true/> <key>com.apple.security.cs.allow-unsigned-executable-memory</key> <true/> <key>com.apple.security.cs.disable-library-validation</key> <true/> <key>com.apple.security.app-sandbox</key> <true/> <key>com.apple.security.device.bluetooth</key> Error3 is the one where I need to try a few things but knowing what is expected will help. In the provisioning profile when viewed at developer.apple.com it has the APP ID listed as the 10 digit id followed by the bundle ID but I sometimes see just the 10 digit app ID being used and sometimes the bundle ID. I know that it's up to me to figure out how to get it into the build, but knowing what it should be would be helpful. On the other hand the text "Bundles with application identifiers in the provisioning profile ..." indicates that if the application identifier was not in the provisioning profile i might get away with it, but this might be grasping at straws. If you have made it this far, thank you for reading.
Topic: Code Signing SubTopic: General
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May ’25
productbuild hangs with no output in github actions
I am running into this error with productbuild in github actions where the program hangs with a specific developer id. I have verified that my certification files are properly uploaded etc. and i am able to run this without the --sign command online and with --sign offline. if i sign with a "3rd party mac developer installer: ***" it will run but then crash on stapling because this isn't the actual org i want to staple and don't really need to verify that i could staple with this other license since it is my personal license and i will be leaving this job soon so setting up all my other certs is a waste of time since it doesn't solve the problem. When i use my bosses/org "Developer ID Installer: ***" productbuild just hangs. I am at a loss here... the acutal command running is productbuild --resources ./resources --distribution distribution.xml --sign "${{ secrets.DEVELOPER_ID_INSTALLER }}" --timestamp "${{ env.ARTIFACT_NAME }}.pkg" I have confirmed that my distribution file is fine etc. because I can productbuild without signing fine. Any suggestions on where to go?
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May ’25
Failed qualification checks ad-hoc profile
Hi, We have an app that is a default mail client, so it has this entry in its entitlements file: com.apple.developer.mail-client. This seems to create issues with ad-hoc distribution. We can distribute the app on App Store Connect without any issues and have been doing so for a while. We wanted to try using Xcode Cloud to manage our releases. The app export works fine for both App Store Distribution and Development Distribution. However, the ad-hoc distribution step fails. (We don't need ad-hoc distribution, but Xcode Cloud seems to prevent us from removing this step.) I tried building and releasing the app locally for ad-hoc distribution and encountered the same error as on Xcode Cloud. When Xcode tries to generate the profile, it outputs the following error: Provisioning profile "iOS Team Ad Hoc Provisioning Profile: com.infomaniak.mail" failed qualification checks: Profile doesn't support Default Mail App. Profile doesn't include the com.apple.developer.mail-client entitlement. Is it something broken with our config ? What are we missing ? Local error in Xcode Organizer: Remote error on Xcode cloud:
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Mar ’25
Mac catalyst stuck at notarize
I have created a Mac Catalyst version of the same app, and it was transferred from an old account to a new one. However, the Mac Catalyst build has been stuck in progress for several days when attempting to notarize it. After many days, I got the rejection with the following error: Team is not yet configured for notarization. Please contact Developer Programs Support at developer.apple.com under the topic Development and Technical / Other Development or Technical Questions. I have already tried to create a new developer ID certificate, but it still has the same issue. On the other hand, the iOS app is working fine and has been published in the App Store. Could you please assist us in resolving this issue as quickly as possible? Your prompt help would be greatly appreciated.
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554
Feb ’25
security policy does not allow @ path expansion
I’ve been working on a Catalyst version of my iOS apps. Finally everything is working apart from the custom intents the user user to configure the widgets. The config UI loads: And changing settings at this level works. But it can’t load the options for the other settings: “No options were provided for this parameter” I see this crash in the intent: Termination Reason: Namespace DYLD, Code 1 Library missing Library not loaded: @rpath/CocoaLumberjack.framework/Versions/A/CocoaLumberjack Referenced from: <E1BF4CC5-4181-3272-828C-86B1CD1A66BF> /Applications/my.app/Contents/PlugIns/Intents.appex/Contents/MacOS/Intents Reason: , (security policy does not allow @ path expansion) (terminated at launch; ignore backtrace) I have added the Hardened Runtime Capability to the Main App Target, the Widget Target and the Intents Target. I also allowed “Disable Library Validation” just in case. What am I missing?
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Mar ’25
Is it Possible to Have Stray Content in a macOS Framework?
Is it possible to have some additional content at Versions/A/ in a macOS Framework bundle that is not in any of the standard folders? Will there be any side-effects during signing and notarization? The reason is it'd be a lot easier in my use case to be able to put content here instead of the Resources folder.
Topic: Code Signing SubTopic: General
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May ’25
Xcode failed to provision target. File a bug report...
I do have background Modes added to Xcode. How can I fix this? Automatic signing failed Xcode failed to provision this target. Please file a bug report at https://feedbackassistant.apple.com and include the Update Signing report from the Report navigator. Provisioning profile "iOS Team Provisioning Profile: com.designoverhaul.bladerunner" doesn't include the com.apple.developer.background-modes entitlement. I emailed Dev Support but they said they cant help. Thank you.
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May ’25
CodeSign : errSecInternalComponent
I’ve been wrestling with this for nearly a week now and none of the proposed fixes have worked. I’m trying to resign an app via Jenkins and have done the following: Created a custom keychain Imported the required .p12 certificates Installed the Apple WWDR certificate in the System keychain Made the login keychain my default Added my development keychain, the login keychain and the System keychain to the user keychain list Unlocked my development keychain Confirmed my signing identity is present Granted the appropriate partition list access to the keychain "security set-key-partition-list -S apple-tool:,codesign: -k pwd /Users/ec2-user/Library/Keychains/development.keychain-db" Yet when I invoke Fastlane’s resign action, I still see: _floatsignTemp/Payload/EverMerge.app/Frameworks/AppLovinSDK.framework: replacing existing signature _floatsignTemp/Payload/EverMerge.app/Frameworks/AppLovinSDK.framework: errSecInternalComponent Encountered an error, aborting! Any guidance on what might be causing this errSecInternalComponent failure or how to get the resign step to succeed would be highly appreciated.
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133
May ’25
App Groups Entitlement: ad hoc signing
On MacOS, I know that App Groups (com.apple.security.application-groups) do not require a provisioning profile. I was wondering if it's possible to sign them "ad hoc" and have it work? So maybe use a random TEAMID prefix and have it work? I would only need the app to work locally (for testing), not be distributed in that fashion, of course.
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443
Mar ’25
Need help with code signing.
My app designer cannot sign his code changes. He says the only way he can sign his code is for me to give him my Admin privileges. I have revoked and recreated my certificate, hoping to get a private passkey, but there was no private passkey issued with the certificate. Help, please?
Topic: Code Signing SubTopic: General
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Apr ’25