No providers for notarizing (1080)

my Apple ID account is a free one … which works fine for codesign but apparently not for notarizing.

That’s correct. You need a paid account to notarise. There’s probably explicit documentation that mentions this, but it’s natural fallout from the fact that notarisation is an extra step on top of Developer ID and that requires a paid account.

I just want my app to work on macOS 10.15 like it worked fine for the last 10 years until 10.14

Gatekeeper’s requirement that non-App Store Apps be signed using Developer ID is not new (I can’t remember when that changed, but it’s a long time before 10.14). Generally this only matters if you ship the app to a wide range of users, where the users download the app in a way that causes it to be quarantined. If you build the app and run it locally, its not quarantined and thus Gatekeeper isn’t involved.

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!”
Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware

let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"

ps DTS is closed 21 Dec through 1 Jan.

Signing isn't a problem (it's been required since 10.11.5), but you're saying that there's no way for me to distribute an app on my website for people to download it without me paying Apple $99 per year for the privilege?

Signing isn't a problem

Can you post a link to where I can download your current app? [It’ll require moderation, but I can take care of that.]

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!”
Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware

let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"

ps DTS is closed 21 Dec through 1 Jan.

Sure, https://photosounder.com/photosounder-1.10_demo_mac.dmg

Thank you.

Just as an aside, that disk image is not signed. When distributing an app via a disk image, you should:

1. Sign the app.

2. Build the disk image from the app.

3. Sign the disk image.

4. Notarise the disk image.

5. Staple the disk image.

This isn’t the root cause of your current problem, but it something to keep in mind for the future.

Coming back to your main issue, earlier you wrote:

Signing isn't a problem

However, looking at the app you uploaded, I see that it’s signed with a development code signing identity:

% codesign -d -vvv /Volumes/Photosounder\ Demo/Photosounder.app
…
Authority=Apple Development: appleid@photosounder.com (AB6N7M35LU)
Authority=Apple Worldwide Developer Relations Certification Authority
Authority=Apple Root CA
…

Code like this [1] hasn’t passed Gatekeeper since Developer ID was introduced, way back in 10.7.x. To distribute a Mac app outside of the Mac App Store such that it passes Gatekeeper, you need to have a Developer ID signing identity. And that, in turn, requires a paid programme membership.

Once you have that, you’ll also be able to notarise you app.

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!”
Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware

let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"

ps DTS is closed 21 Dec through 1 Jan.

[1] In this case it’s signed with an Apple Development signing identity, which was introduced last year. However, the logical predecessor to that was a Mac Developer signing identity, and that would behave the same way.

FWIW, I am seeing exactly the same thing with a 99 USD/year account.
The account was created 3-4 days ago, came online a couple of days ago and since then I've spent... oh maybe 10 hours trying to get this to work.

Really surprising that it's so hard to get started developing and distributing macOS apps..

I suspect my problems are related to the fact that I cannot access the App Store Connect service at all. Some broken account setting maybe. And little response so far from Apple support, unfortunately.
Oh well, have to focus on other platforms until I hear back from support, I guess.
$99 could have been better spent though..