Fastlane: Send artifect to External Groups

Question

in our team, we are trying to send an Artifact to External Groups in TestFlight without Uploading a .Ipa.

We used Pilot() to build a solution. But when we run this command in a pipeline:

 upload_to_testflight(
  api_key: api_key,
  build_number: ENV["IOS_BUILD"],
  changelog: "Esto es una prueba Automatizada.",
  distribute_external: true,
  groups: "Pruebas POS",
  skip_submission: true, 
  skip_waiting_for_build_processing: false
 )

We get this message:

 +------+---------------------------+-------------+
 |                fastlane summary                |
 +------+---------------------------+-------------+
 | Step | Action                    | Time (in s) |
 +------+---------------------------+-------------+
 | 1    | default_platform          | 0           |
 | 2    | update_info_plist         | 0           |
 | 3    | app_store_connect_api_key | 0           |
 |    | upload_to_testflight      | 0           |
 +------+---------------------------+-------------+
 [20:59:14]: fastlane finished with errors
 [!] No ipa file given

When we provide the .Ipa with the command, i wrote before, we get this other message:

  upload_to_testflight(
  api_key: api_key,
  build_number: ENV["IOS_BUILD"],
  changelog: "Esto es una prueba Automatizada.",
  distribute_external: true,
  groups: "Pruebas POS",
  ipa: "build/App.ipa",
  skip_submission: true, 
  skip_waiting_for_build_processing: false
)

  Error uploading ipa file: 
  [Transporter Error Output]: ERROR ITMS-90189: Redundant Binary Upload. You've 
  already uploaded a build with build number '106.5' for version number '3.5.2'. 
  Make sure you increment the build string before you upload your 
  app to App Store Connect.

Has anyone run into this problem with Pilot? We don't need to upload the .Ipa. We only need to pass from Internal Groups to External Groups.

Thanks in advance. Regards

Answer 1

In case anyone else comes searching for an answer to this question, the distribute_external option in fastlane pilot will require either:

1. An ipa file path (as demonstrated by OP); or,
2. The distribute_only option set to true

The distribute_only option will automatically default to the latest version/build in TestFlight. If you'd like to specify a specific version and build number, you can use the app_version and build_number options to specify them.