I am completely stuck and need help. I’ve been trying to resolve this with Apple Support for over a month without success.
I recently took over an app from a company that went out of business. This app has been on the App Store for over 10 years.
The old app was sold for a fixed price, and we planned to move to a subscription model, but we didn't want to lock out legacy paid users. So our idea was to submit a new app with the same name but a different bundle identifier.
Unfortunately, this hasn’t been possible. Even though the bundle ID is different, the name remains the same. Apple Support advised me to rename the old app to something like “MyAppLegacy” to free up the name so I could submit the new app with the original name.
I followed their instructions, but when submitting the new app, I encountered this error:
“App Record Creation failed due to request containing an attribute already in use. The app name you entered is already being used for another app in your account. If you would like to use the name for this app, you will need to submit an update to your other app to change the name, or remove it from App Store Connect.”
Since then, I’ve been bounced around between multiple support staff with no resolution. I have been told by multiple support team members that renaming the old app was the correct procedure. I was told the issue would be forwarded to engineering, but after waiting over a month, I was instead again handed off to someone else with no clear progress.
This situation has locked us out of distributing the app, and we are losing money. I cannot run a business like this.
Does anyone know what is going on or how to escalate this? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated—I’m at a loss.
Steps to Reproduce the Issue:
- Remove the old app from sale.
- In App Store Connect, rename the app and submit a new build for approval.
- Build approved; the app now appears in App Store Connect with the new name, with the status "Pending Developer Release".
- In Xcode, archive the app with the new bundle ID and old name, and submit it for distribution.
- Encounter the following error:
I have also attempted to create an App Record directly in App Store Connect without using Xcode, but I encounter the same error.