RiDP provides a convenience signing servlet (nicknamed "SignFish") which provides partners with a self-service tool for demo or beta signing their SmartSDK applications. This servlet is provided to create signed packages for deployment to any device in a time-limited manner, suitable for customer beta tests or Quality Assurance purposes.
Under some circumstances SignFish may reject the signing request with a message similar to this:
Invalid Message : Invalid Vendor ID
The reason for this failure in most cases is related to an unexpected Product ID. Because Product IDs are closely associated to the vendor name and the vendor region, occasionally an existing Product ID will not pass certain checks prior to signing, which results in this failure. For example, if the Product ID was provided by RiDP in another global region than RiDP Americas this error might occur.
There are a few solutions for solving this failure.
- If the signing request was related to day-to-day development on select devices, probably the best way forward is to not use SignFish, but rather make sure a development key is generated and the application packaging process modified to self-sign application packages using this key.
- The process for applying development signatures to SmartSDK applications is documented in the Smart SDK documentation: Smart Operation Panel > Start Guide > Installation > 02. Signing by Developer
- If this failure is observed while attempting to sign a modified version of one of the SmartSDK sample applications then it is best to also change the Product ID of the sample application to one that is associated with your own company or organization. Either use one that has been previously requested, or request a new one if this is new development.
- For testing purposes a Product ID can be reused, but note that a signed application will fail to install if that Product ID is already found in an application that is already installed to a device
RiDP recommends that a new Product ID be created for each new development endeavour, and that development signatures be used for day-to-day development using those Product IDs. Beta and Demo signing should be used for limited customer and QA deployments only.
If the Demo or Beta signing service fails with a different message, or after retrying with a known good Product ID, please feel free to open an RiDP incident.