Confusion around provisioning profiles

[jmillar]

Hi there;

I'm just looking for clarification.  I thought I understood how this worked, but I'm not sure.  In trying to do some scenario testing, I have a user assigned to an iOS app published in AppManager.  The UDID for the users device is not present in the provisioning profile used to sign the app.  When I look in the profile in AppManager that user is listed in the "Not In Profile" section.  However the user sees the app in AppManager on their iPad, and can install as use the app.  Am I misunderstanding how development and ad hoc provisioning profiles work?

Thanks,
Jason

[Martin Yankov]

Hello,

I took a look at your case and it indeed looks strange. Your app does not provision the device, yet it obviously installed on it. There is one possible way of this happening. I see that you have resigned this app four times. Here is my guess to what steps you took:

1. The device was originally provisioned in the provisioning profile and the app was signed with it. You tested it and it successfully installed. Then uninstalled it from the device.
2. You removed the device from the provisioning profile and resigned the app with the newly generated provisioning profile. You tested the app install and it succeeded although the device is not provisioned anymore. 

The reason for this is that iOS caches this check for some time and in fact does not make it the second time. It simply remembers that this provisioning profile provisioned this device lately. You can clear this cache by restarting your device. Restart your device and try installing the app again.

Other than that, I have no idea what could cause this behavior. Let me know if this was the case.

Regards,
Martin Yankov
Telerik