Unable to install iOS app to my phone via Xcode and free dev account (Solved)

russelkgd · October 16, 2020, 12:32pm

Hi guys. So i followed the guide about developing for ios and got my provision profile and free dev account. I successfully run test application from Xcode and granted permission in general settings in my phone. After that i build a simple mobile game (default project) in Defold and tried to send it to my iphone via Xcode/Devices and got an error “Unable to install”.

Build settings:

Xcode error

I also tried via command line (ios-deploy) and got this error “error 0xe8008001: An unknown error has occurred. AMDeviceSecureInstallApplication(0, device, url, options, install_callback, 0)”.

Am i missing something? Do i need to have app name same in test app in Xcode and in Defold? Provision profile was created yesterday, so it should be valid.

Setup:
Xcode 12.0.1
Defold 1.2.174
masOS Catalina 10.15.7
iOS 14.0.1
Iphone SE 2gen

britzl · October 16, 2020, 2:13pm

I feel you. These kinds of problems are usually pretty frustrating to figure. It is very likely a provisioning profile problem or something like that.

Did you uninstall the test application from your device before testing to install the Defold app you built?

Mathias_Westerdahl · October 16, 2020, 2:16pm

I think you need to have the same bundle id, yes. (e.g. com.mycompany.myapp)

russelkgd · October 16, 2020, 3:07pm

Yep, that worked. I don’t know why i didn’t check it before.

russelkgd · October 16, 2020, 3:12pm

I tried several times and it didn’t worked. The problem was in bundle id, it wasn’t set correctly in Defold

Brun0oO · November 8, 2020, 3:57pm

Hi,

I got the same problem and this topic helps me a lot ! Perhaps, the documentation located here Defold development for the iOS platform needs to be completed about the constraint of the identical bundle ids…

russelkgd · November 8, 2020, 4:28pm

I agree

britzl · November 8, 2020, 6:12pm

Good point. I’ve added a note about this in the manual.

For future reference: The documentation is open source and available here: GitHub - defold/doc: Defold game engine documentation for www.defold.com · GitHub

We happily accept pull requests!

TheMember · September 20, 2026, 11:31pm

Wow, I honestly don’t know where to start. I ran into this problem and spent more than 10 hours trying to figure out how to fix it. There are so many different things that can cause an error like this.

I was actually going to create a new topic specifically about this issue, but then I saw britzl comment… That made me realize that my problem was related to the same issue.

Defold[49460:56070328] [ !! ] Error 0xe8008015: A valid provisioning profile for this executable was not found. AMDeviceSecureInstallApplication(0, device, url, options, install_callback, 0)
Failed to install the app.

So, what can you do if you get this error? Based on my experience, I would suggest deleting any duplicate certificates you may have. Also, every time you run the empty app from Xcode, delete it from your iPhone before running it again.

You can also try changing the Bundle Identifier in both Xcode and Defold. Just make sure the Bundle Identifier is exactly the same in both.

I’m exhausted after spending more than 10 hours trying to solve this, but I’m really happy that I can finally see my little game running on my iPhone!

Remember that the “Signing Certificate” in Xcode also needs to match the “Code Signing Identity” in Defold.

I’ve only been using Defold for three days, and I already love that it targets both mobile and web platforms. My main interest is mobile development, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what I can create with this engine.

I hope this brief information can help someone who is experiencing the same problem, or at least give them a better idea of what to look into when trying to solve it.