Access to NSUserDefaults via App Group after an Account Transfer

My app was recently transferred from account X to Y. We went through all of the documentation and it's gone ok bar one big issue.

The app update that we last sent to Test Flight no longer has access to our apps App Group shared user defaults.

It's been suggested to me to delete the app group id from the old account, and recreate it in our new account. I'd like to confirm a couple of points before I proceed.

  1. Will the production version of the app be affected if I delete the app group from the old account.

  2. After recreating the app group in the new account, will the data in shared user defaults become available again?

Access to NSUserDefaults via App Group after an Account Transfer

What platform are you targeting?

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Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

Hi Quinn. This an iOS app.

iOS-style app groups are owned by a team and there’s no documented process for moving groups between teams. Earlier you wrote:

It's been suggested to me to delete the app group id from the old account, and recreate it in our new account.

I’ve seen folks give that advice as well but without a documented process it’s not something I can weigh in on.

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Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

We gave this a go this morning and it worked.

Step 1: Delete App Group ID from the old account.

Step 2: Recreate the Group ID in the new account.

Step 3: Let Xcode do it's thing and regenerate entitlements/profiles etc

After we did this all of our App Group functionality started to work. Data that was stored in our NSUserDefaults suite became available again.

On a side note it wasn't immediately clear to us that this would be an issue when we initiated the transfer. May I suggest adding App Group considerations to the documentation here: https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/transfer-an-app/overview-of-app-transfer

May I suggest adding App Group considerations to the documentation here

The best way to make a suggestion like this is to file a bug against the docs. Please post your bug number, just for the record.

We gave this a go this morning and it worked.

To be clear, there is a large set of things that work but are not supported. Without a documented formal process, I can’t recommend that you go down this path.

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Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

Access to NSUserDefaults via App Group after an Account Transfer
 
 
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