Error when distributing an IPA over the air with dropbox - iOS 7.1

Question

As Apple requested to use https instead of http for distributing the IPAs over the air, I tried to use dropbox. I followed this solution Enterprise app deployment doesn't work on iOS 7.1 but I'm getting this error:

"Cannot connect to dl.dropboxusercontent.com"

when trying to install the plist through this link: <a href="itms-services://?action=download-manifest&amp;url=https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/56ny312cwdacho7/xxxxx.plist> Install </a>

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I had exactly the same issue. Firstly I tried putting all of my files in the public folder of my dropbox account. It still didn't work but I noticed with modifying my plist file I had overwritten the closing "</string>" XML tag for the ipa file itself. Once I added that back in it all worked. So whether it would have worked without moving to the public folder I do not know. I haven't tried because I have the result I desire for my users.

Answer 2

NOTE : Shared links don’t render HTML content in a web browser

Refer https://www.dropbox.com/help/desktop-web/force-download

Check question

How to force render a file in a browser

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EDIT : Reason is you will need to change link url and reupload it :

• replace www.dropbox.com with dl.dropboxusercontent.com inall links
• Reupload by making changes in link which are in html and plist file again.

Thats it. Enjoy

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TOTAL SOLUTION

Needed file for distribution using example link are given below :

• Build your app from xcode using Build and Archive option. Upload your ipa file to Dropbox. And get public link for the ipa.

Note : replace www.dropbox.com with dl.dropboxusercontent.com in the link.

• Download the manifest.plist - edit the line #14 with the public link of your ipa . Modify other keys as well (bundle-identifier, bundle-version, title) .

• Upload the modified manifest.plist to Dropbox and get its public link.

• Download the index.html - edit url param at line #8 with public link of your manifest.plist

Hosting using Github. How that can be achieved is explained in following steps

1. Create a new project.
2. Add index.html as we will be hosting a site in Github Pages. Note html file with other name will not be valid as it should always be with index name.
3. Now go to project settings. Traverse through Github Pages
4. Under source tab select master-branch and click on save
5. Traverse back Github Pages you will see site will be published

Now you have Download link like https://paresh-navadiya.github.io/install.html/

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Refer How to distribute using DropBox by @ oldman's answer and Distribute your iPhone/iPad adhoc builds Over The Air using DropBox

It working 100% percent.

Have a nice day to all :)

Answer 3

I faced the similar issue with dropbox few days back, saying cannot connect to dl.dropboxusercontent.com, what I did is deleting the sharable link which I created earlier and created a new sharable link for both plist and ipa files. And I updated these links in plist and html page. I don't know what was wrong with my old sharable links. Hope this answer might be helpful for someone.

Happy coding.

Answer 4

As already pointed out in a similar reply here, if the PLIST file is malformed, this error will appear.

In my case, I forgot the fact that the ampersand ("&") charcater is forbidden in XML, and the name of my app contained "&" in it, so I had to replace the & with & in the containing the name and everything worked.