Sideloading Errors on iPhone Fixed: Refresh Failed, Sign In and More
Sideloading works until it doesn’t — and when it breaks, it usually breaks with the same handful of errors. “Refresh failed,” “something went wrong, refresh and try again,” “unable to sign in with your Apple account,” an app that installs but will not open. Some arrive as plain numbers instead — 7460, 3002, 1102 — and SideStore in particular likes to answer with a code. Here are the ones people hit most, what each one actually means, and how to fix it.
“Untrusted Developer” — the app installs but will not open
This means the certificate that signed the app is not trusted on your device yet. Fix it in Settings > General > VPN & Device Management: tap the developer profile (a free Apple ID shows under your email address) and choose Trust. Open the app again and it will launch.
“Unable to sign in with your Apple account”
The tool could not sign the app because Apple rejected the sign-in. The usual causes are two-factor authentication, or too many attempts in a short window. If 2FA is on, generate an app-specific password at account.apple.com and use that instead of your normal password. If you have been signing in repeatedly, wait an hour — Apple rate-limits sign-ins and will keep failing until the cooldown passes.
AltStore or SideStore “refresh failed”
The tool could not re-sign your apps before the 7-day certificate expired. For AltStore, make sure AltServer is running on a computer on the same Wi-Fi network — AltStore cannot refresh on its own. For SideStore, confirm the pairing file is still valid and the VPN it relies on (StikDebug or a local dev VPN) is switched on; if the pairing file broke, regenerate it and re-import. A refresh that fails once often works after the VPN is toggled off and on.
AltStore “Could not find AltServer”
AltStore is only half of the setup. The other half is AltServer, running on a computer on the same Wi-Fi network, and AltStore cannot sign or refresh anything without it. This error means the phone looked for that computer and did not find it — which is why nothing you try on the phone itself makes it go away. Work through it on the computer side, in this order:
- Same network. The phone and the computer must be on the same Wi-Fi. School, work and public networks often block devices from seeing each other; if you are on one, connect the computer to your phone’s hotspot instead.
- Trust on both screens. After the first USB connection, both the iPhone and the computer ask whether to trust each other. Both have to say yes.
- Windows firewall. Allow AltServer network access, or it cannot answer the phone.
- iTunes and iCloud from Apple, not the Microsoft Store. AltServer on Windows relies on them, and the Microsoft Store versions do not work. Uninstall those and install the versions from Apple’s website — then keep both running.
- Last resort: a USB cable. Plugged in, AltStore finds AltServer every time. The cost is the one thing Wi-Fi was for: apps stop refreshing in the background.
SideStore error 7460 — “you already have a current iOS Development certificate”
This one is not a SideStore bug at all. The message comes back from Apple, and it means exactly what it says: a development certificate already exists on that Apple ID, so a new one cannot be issued. Something else took it — another signer you tried once (AltStore, Feather, Sideloadly, iloader), or a second device signing on the same account.
The fix is the prompt itself. When SideStore offers to revoke your previous certificates, say yes: the old certificate is released and a fresh one is issued to you. What catches people out is what happens next — revoking kills the signature everywhere that certificate was used, so if a second iPhone is signing on the same Apple ID, that phone will now ask to revoke in turn, and the two devices will take the certificate from each other forever. If you sideload on more than one device, give each device its own Apple ID and the loop stops.
“AFC was unable to manage files on the device” — invalid pairing
AFC is the channel SideStore uses to put files onto your iPhone, and this error means the pairing behind it is no longer valid. Work through it in this order:
- Make sure the VPN it relies on (StosVPN or LocalDevVPN) is running and up to date, and that the phone is on Wi-Fi, not cellular data.
- In SideStore, open Settings → Reset Pairing File, then Manage Pairing File → Place in All Apps.
- Still failing? In Settings → VPN Configuration, set the device IP to 10.7.0.1 manually.
- If none of that helps, switch the anisette server and reboot the device.
- As a last step, generate a fresh pairing file on a computer and import it again.
Most cases clear at the second step. A pairing file is not permanent — it goes stale after a reset, an iOS update, or a restore, and this error is usually how you find out.
Sign-in error codes: 1004, 3002, 1102 and 1100
Sign-in failures come back as numbers, and each one points somewhere different:
- 1004 — you are not signed in yet. Enter your Apple Account in the settings tab.
- 3002 — wrong Apple ID or password. Check both; if 2FA is on, use an app-specific password.
- 1102 — the Apple ID cannot be used for development. Accept Apple’s developer terms at developer.apple.com once, or use a separate account kept for signing.
- 1100 (and -20101) — the session expired or the credentials are stale. Verify the date and time on the device, then sign in again.
“Something went wrong. Refresh and try again later.”
Common on tweaked apps, this usually means the app’s signing lapsed or its backend hit a temporary snag. Re-sign or refresh the app first. If it keeps happening, reinstall the current IPA — an outdated build often breaks after the base app updates. If only one tweaked app is affected, check whether that tweak has shipped a compatibility update.
“Device not registered,” UDID errors, or stuck on processing
These mean your device is not active on the certificate yet. It is not a bug — it is Apple registering your device, which can take up to 24 to 72 hours the first time, and occasionally a longer cooldown if a certificate was revoked. Do not remove and re-add the device; that restarts the wait. Give it up to three days, then it installs normally.
Apps vanished or “could not verify app integrity”
If your sideloaded apps disappeared or refuse to open with a verification error, the certificate they were signed with was revoked. That is a separate issue with its own fix — see why sideloaded apps get revoked on iPhone.
The fix that skips most of these
Most of these errors come from the free-certificate setup: weekly re-signing, VPN pairing files, sign-in throttling, and shared certificates that get revoked. Managed signing removes that whole class of problems — on builds.io, apps are signed long-term and re-signed for you, with no weekly refresh, no VPN, and no computer. Fewer moving parts, fewer error screens.
