Application Loader stuck at "Authenticating with the iTunes store" when uploading an iOS app

Question

We have been trying to submit an app to the iTunes store using Application Loader for three days and keep getting stuck at the "Authenticating with the iTunes store" step.
We have read many forums (including stackoverflow) and tried what was suggested:

• making a new provisioning profile
• using different or multiple versions of Application Loader
• changing proxy settings
• rebooting the Mac
• uploading at a different time of the day, etc.

We have even left it running overnight and have not had success with getting past this step. Unfortunately, no feedback is given about what the issue may be, and we have not gotten any error messages. We have submitted multiple apps without any difficulty in the past but are completely stuck this time!
How were you able to solve it?

Answer 1

Deleting all network settings as described here https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/284588/225828 & restarting the mac did the job. (I've also removed & added back my Apple Id in preferences->accounts) This works as well for inability to add apple id to accounts, infinite loading on accounts tab, inability to sign in with already added acc etc. (worked on Xcode 12 & 13)

Answer 2

In April 21, 2021, I followed @DawnSong's answer, outlined in the image below but I also restarted my Mac and voila it worked.

Spec Xcode 12.4 macOS Big Sur 11.2.3

Answer 3

In my case the issue was that I was not using an app specific password on that account.

Answer 4

Using Xcode 12.3 Distribute App and xcodebuild both got stuck today at this point.

I finally was able to solve this. Peeking around my system I found 3 versions of iTMSTransporter. Printing the version of each using ./iTMSTransporter -version gives the following results:

• /Applications/Transporter.app/Contents/itms/bin/ has version 2.0.0

• /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/SharedFrameworks/ContentDeliveryServices.framework/Versions/A/itms/bin/ has version 2.1.0

• /usr/local/itms/bin/ has version version 1.9.3

So it looks that old version in /usr/local/itms was used by Xcode. After deleting /usr/local/itms I was able to upload my binary within Xcode 12.2 and using the xcodebuild command line tool.

Answer 5

In 2020 Dec, the fix did finally worked for me was restarting my mac.

Answer 6

I solved the problem by removing ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.amp.itmstransporter. For safety, renaming will be better,

cd ~/Library/Caches
mv com.apple.amp.itmstransporter com.apple.amp.itmstransporter.old

Then, xcrun altool uploaded my ipa successfully.
By the way, I'm using Xcode 11.x & 12.2, macOS Catalina.

Answer 7

I tried everything above but nothing worked for me. I am using macOS Catalina: 10.15.6 and it doesn't have .itmstransporter/

Until I...

• I was uploading in US peak time-zone. So, I waited and tried again in the morning here (India) GMT +5:30.
• I cleared the cache of my laptop and re-added the account.
• Made another Archive.

It took me 5 minutes total to upload the archive.

Answer 8

I'm running MacOS Mojave 10.14.6, Xcode 11.3.1 and Transporter 1.1.1, and always got stuck at the Authentication with App Store stage, no matter how long I wait, I tried uploading using Xcode, using xcrun altool, Transporter, nada.

Finally I got it working by exporting the ipa file to a new Macbook (10.15.3, Xcode 11.3.1, Transporter 1.1.1), and used the Transporter app to upload it there.

The key difference is the Transporter tool on my new Macbook asked for a 6-digit code as authentication while the old Macbook did not, I suspect the authentication token on my old device expired but the system didn't ask for a new one when trying to upload the app. I had 2-FA enabled.

So I think forcing a manual re-authentication when you upload the app is the answer, the only other difference is the MacOS version, but I didn't test if it'll make a difference.

Answer 9

The updated answer for Xcode 11.x.x and Transporter application, open terminal:

1. rm -rf ~/.itmstransporter/
2. "/Applications/Transporter.app/Contents/itms/bin/iTMSTransporter"

Wait a while Problem solved!

Answer 10

Not a proper answer but in my case

something completely strange. I was trying from last six hours using Transporter app, Application Loader and via Xcode but none of them was working.
And suddenly I got an error message on the Transporter app that App with same version number is already available on Apple store. So App was uploaded but the progress status of the app (Transporter, Xcode, Application Loader) did not notify me. Try to change your network, if possible try with other system.

Answer 11

Just wait longer. Do not cancel. As long as 30 minutes or more. Then you see "success" message.

I got same problem more than a week, with exact same problem, and finally found the solution with hands-on experience of my own.

Answer 12

Dec 10th 2019, Xcode Version 11.2.1, MacOS X 10.15.1

I was facing exactly same issue yesterday and I thought it might be network issues, at least it looks like so. But this morning I had tried couple different networks and several VPN connections, none of them is working!

The highest voted answer here asks me to reset a cache folder named .itmstransporter under my home dir, the run a program iTMSTransporter under a specific folder, but I can't find both of them.

But soon I figured that it is the cache folder for the people who uses the legacy uploader program: Application Loader, which is deprecated by Apple and can be no longer found in Xcode 11. Then I found that the latest Xcode has located iTMSTransporter here:

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/SharedFrameworks/ContentDeliveryServices.framework/itms/bin/iTMSTransporter

And its cache folder is here:

/Users/your_user_name/Library/Caches/com.apple.amp.itmstransporter/

I removed my existed cache folder, and run iTMSTransporter without any parameter, it soon started to output logs and download a bunch of files, and finished in 2 or 3 minutes. Then I tried again to upload my ipa file, it works!!!

CONCLUTION:

1. Either the old Application Loader, or the latest Xcode, uses a Java program iTMSTransporter to process the ipa file uploading.
2. To function correctly, iTMSTransporter requires a set of jar files downloaded from Internet and cached in your local folder.
3. If your cache is somehow broken, or doesn't exist at all, directly invoking iTMSTransporter with functional parameters such as --upload-app in our case, iTMSTransporter DOES NOT WARN YOU, NOR FIX CACHE BY ITSELF, it just gets stuck there, SAYS NOTHING AT ALL! (Whoever wrote this iTMSTransporter, you seriously need to improve your programming sense).
4. Invoking iTMSTransporter without any parameter fixes the cache.
5. A functional cache is about 65MB, at Dec 10th 2019 with Xcode Version 11.2.1 (11B500)

Answer 13

Today I ran into this issue, on Xcode 11.2.1 I solved it by going to Xcode -> Preferences -> Accounts -> Tapped on the '-' next to my Apple ID, then signed in again. This fixed it for me!

Answer 14

I've tried all provided solutions with no luck and finally machine restart resolved the problem (as it pretty often happens with XCode issues..)

Answer 15

For those using beta versions of Xcode, just change the application name in the command to Xcode-beta.app:

cd ~
mv .itmstransporter/ .old_itmstransporter/
"/Applications/Xcode-beta.app/Contents/Applications/Application Loader.app/Contents/itms/bin/iTMSTransporter"

Depending on your internet connection, the update may take some time. For me it was around 15 minutes.

Answer 16

Go to Preferences -> Accounts, remove your account and add it again. Then try uploading again and wait a few minutes.

Answer 17

For me I tried almost all the suggestions given above but the problem still reoccurred after the first success in uploading to App store. Until I found this website. In summary, do the following

1. Open terminal

2. Run this command:

     rm -rf ~/.itmstransporter/
     “/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Application 
     Loader.app/Contents/itms/bin/iTMSTransporter”
   

Note: this command(which is different from others above) will delete your ITMSTansporter folder and create a new one and ensure that xcode is quitted before running this command. 3. Start Xcode and all should be well.

Answer 18

It started to work after I closed Docker app

Answer 19

This only started happening to me today (May 2017) and no answers in this thread solved my issue. The resolution for me was from here;

https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/76803

Open Terminal. Change to home directory,

cd ~  

Move the current transporter directory,

mv .itmstransporter/ .old_itmstransporter/ 

Invoke the following file to let Transporter update itself.

"/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Application Loader.app/Contents/itms/bin/iTMSTransporter"

Wait till it updates, then open Xcode and attempt upload.

Answer 20

Another reason could be that you have changed the machine from which you're submitting the app. Or the user account on the machine. The new machine may lack the private key and/or certificate for the App Store. Although a certificate with the correct name is displayed in Xcode.

In this case, go to https://developer.apple.com -> certificates, use the plus sign (+) to add a new certificate (distribution), and follow the steps to request a certificate for the private key on your current machine. After installing the certificate, authentication may work.

Answer 21

Try answer mentioned in this Reference Link, it really worked for me and for others as well.

Mentioning answer here as well. Open Terminal and run:

cd ~
mv .itmstransporter/ .old_itmstransporter/
"/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Application Loader.app/Contents/itms/bin/iTMSTransporter"

iTMSTransporter will then update itself, then you can try uploading in XCode again or via application loader.

Answer 22

For me I was using Xcode 8.2's application loader and fortunately I've Xcode 7.2 as well so I used Xcode 7.2's application loader and it's working.

Answer 23

You have to agree to a new sign up in Application Loader. Select "Application Loader" under the "Xcode -> Open Developer Tool" menu (the first menu to the right of the Apple in the menu bar). Once you open Application Loader there will be a prompt to agree to new terms and then to login again into your iTunes account. After this any upload method will work.

Answer 24

Following worked for me.

1. Open another instance of Application Loader. ( Select "Application Loader" under the "Xcode -> Open Developer Tool" menu)

2. "Agree" to the terms.

3. After completing Step 2. First instance of Application Loader proceeded to the next step and build got submitted.

Answer 25

Check your Firewall, If it is "On" then just Off it, then try

Answer 26

In my case, I hadn't agreed to the newest Developer Agreement. Just run Application Loader once, click on [Accept] to agree, then quit the Application Loader and the Upload to App Store should work fine.

Answer 27

All i did was duplicate my Application Loader.app in /Applications and ran both Application loaders at the same time.

this solution is out there, it used to work for me, but today not even that! what I did and worked is that (2 instances) + uploading with XCode (organizer). Had to try a couple of times and it worked.

hope this helps someone, this bug has been there for quite a lot of time now() an apple doesn't seem to care too much

Answer 28

It might be a network issue. If you are running inside a virtual machine (e.g. VMWare or VirtualBox), try setting the network adapter mode from the default NAT to Bridged.

Answer 29

my upload failed each time when I uncheck the "include bitcode" option when uploading. So I checked the "include bitcode" option and upload went well.

Answer 30

Changing network connection helped.

1. Turned off wifi on my phone
2. Enabled 3G
3. Created HotSpot
4. Connected my mac to the hotspot and got through the authetication issue