Mac users have been facing a problem with their applications over the past week, popular password manager 1Password for Mac has repeatedly failed due to expired Apple developer certificates. Most of its users received the error message while trying to start the application.
Similarly many other Mac apps faced the same problem, the Mac OS checks for legitimate apps that are downloaded from sources other than the Mac store. Earlier there was no effect on already shipped software, but that changed last year since the release of Sierra as per 9 to 5 Mac.
Apple was aware that the developer certificate was going to expire, but they took no action because they believed it was needed only when publishing a new version. In this case the Mac OS refused to launch 1Password properly and in reality it experienced an unexpected side effect.
It process works simple, when the certificate expires the provisioning profile becomes invalid. In order to resolve this issue for Mac users, developers need to renew their certificates and update the application after which users need to download the latest version. It turns out that Apple has already fixed the issue and they have already upgraded the latest version of the app.
Other apps that have been downloaded from outside the Mac store are likely to experience launching issues. The only possible way to rectify these issues is for users to download the apps from the legitimate developer website. The Mac OS repeatedly checks to ensure that the developer's code signing certificate is current or not.
By this it leaves users to only get proper and valid licensed applications and ensures error free usage of apps. The apps are usually checked by Apple against an online database and are allowed to perform certain system actions. Since the issue has been resolved users will not be facing such problems.
