title: Renewing an expiring Enterprise provisioning profiles, and other aggravations
body: <p>Now that the app I created last year has enjoyed a year's worth of functional success, my Enterprise users are beginning to see alerts indicating that the provisioning profile is about to expire.</p>
  
  <p>The Code Signing business of the app gave me tremendous difficulty in the beginning, and now it's doing it again. I think it's because all the information I can find about it refers to apps to be distributed in the App Store, but not for Enterprise apps. The "Tools Workflow Guide for IOS" seems only to be helpful for App Store distribution.</p>
  
  <p>I did finally get it working just by trial and error, by setting all of the Code Signing Identities to "iPhone Developer," but I really need to understand the proper way to do it and why it works that way. And I need the "Idiot's Guide" version.</p>
  
  <p>First, I think what is hanging me up is understanding the Distribution aspect. Is "Distribution" only in reference to an app that is bound for the App Store? This being an Enterprise app, does Distribution apply? Any time I try to create a Distribution profile and include it in Distribution/Release for the Code Signing Identity, compile fails. It works ok if all Code Signing Identities are set as "iPhone Developer." Does that mean it is going to always need a Developer provisioning profile, and never a Distribution profile?</p>
  
  <p>The "iPhone Developer" profile always comes up in the Code Signing Identity section of Build Settings as "(currently matches 'iPhone Developer: Bill Norman(4GR2 etc) in 'iOS team". But any other profile doesn't say anything like that, and so none of the other profiles work. If they don't work, why are they there? And do I need to delete them?</p>
  
  <p>And yes, there are lots of profiles listed that are the result of many trials and errors. Only one appears in the Profiles section of the iPhone's Settings, and that's the iOS Team Provisioning Profile.</p>
  
  <p>If it does need a "Distribution" profile, how do I make it work?</p>
  
  <p>Next question: Will my Enterprise users need to download and re-install the app to get the new provisioning profile? Or will it do it by itself, seamlessly? Or will it inform my users that the profile has expired, and they need to do such-and-such to get their app to work?</p>
  
  <p>More: The Developer profile only lasts for a year, while the Distribution profile lasts three years. Obviously it would be helpful to make it last three years, but can we do that with an Enterprise app?</p>
  
  <p>My apologies for my continued inability to fathom the inner workings of this stuff. And many thanks to anyone who can help.</p>