electron: how to test a MAS package before submitting to the apple store?

3
votes

After a lot of pains and tribulations I managed to build my app using Electron 7 and electron-packager. All works fine when I create a local .app and also when I run npm start.

Now the MAS generation is fine but I can't run the APP. I suspect that this is normal due to sandboxing permissions. But now apple is saying this:

We discovered one or more bugs in your app when reviewed on Mac running macOS 10.15.

  • UI buttons (folder, save, print) do not appear to work
  • File > Open does not appear to work

How can I reproduce this error/run the .app from the mas folder before submitting it again ?

1
electronelectron-packager

1 Answers

1
votes

You can test the app locally by re-signing with a Developer ID certificate/provisioning profile. These are also for distribution (just not through MAS), and in theory should produce something very similar to the MAS build.

Developer ID-signed apps can be run by anyone. However, code that uses technologies only available to Mac App Store apps, such as receipt validation, iCloud, and push notifications, will not work if your app is Developer ID-signed. You might need to temporarily disable those parts of your app if you opt for the Developer ID testing approach. https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/qa/qa1884/_index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS40015141