"Debug certificate expired" error in Eclipse Android plugins

Delete your debug certificate under ~/.android/debug.keystore on Linux and Mac OS X; the directory is something like %USERPROFILE%/.androidon Windows.

The Eclipse plugin should then generate a new certificate when you next try to build a debug package. You may need to clean and then build to generate the certificate.

It's a pain to have to delete all your development .apk files, because the new certificate doesn't match so you can't upgrade them in all your AVDs. You have to get another development MAP-API key as well. There's another solution.

You can create your own debug certificate in debug.keystore with whatever expiration you want. Do this in the .android folder under your HOME directory:

keytool -genkey -v -keystore debug.keystore -alias androiddebugkey -storepass android -keypass android -keyalg RSA -validity 14000

keytool.exe can be found in the JDK bin folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_31\bin\ on Windows).

ADT sets the first and last name on the certificate as "Android Debug", the organizational unit as "Android" and the two-letter country code as "US". You can leave the organization, city, and state values as "Unknown". This example uses a validity of 14000 days. You can use whatever value you like.

Upon installation, the Android SDK generates a debug signing certificate for you in a keystore called debug.keystore. The Eclipse plug-in uses this certificate to sign each application build that is generated.

Unfortunately a debug certificate is only valid for 365 days. To generate a new one you must delete the existing debug.keystore file. Its location is platform dependent - you can find it in Preferences - Android - Build - Default debug keystore.

On Vista, this worked:

1. DOS: del c:\user\dad\.android\debug.keystore

2. ECLIPSE: In Project, Clean the project. Close Eclipse. Re-open Eclipse.

3. ECLIPSE: Start the Emulator. Remove the Application from the emulator.

You are good to go.

I was pretty worried when I say that error, but I fixed it from reading here and playing around for 10 minutes.