failed to convert APPLE_PROVIDER_SHORT_NAME to string

Error message

failed to convert APPLE_PROVIDER_SHORT_NAME to string

What it means

When bundling for macOS/App Store uploads, the CLI overrides the config's provider short name with the APPLE_PROVIDER_SHORT_NAME environment variable. to_str() returns None when the variable holds non-UTF-8 bytes, and this expect panics. As with the signing identity, only the encoding of the env var matters, not the value.

Source

Thrown at crates/tauri-cli/src/interface/rust.rs:1461

      resources.push(path.display().to_string());
    }
  }

  let signing_identity = match std::env::var_os("APPLE_SIGNING_IDENTITY") {
    Some(signing_identity) => Some(
      signing_identity
        .to_str()
        .expect("failed to convert APPLE_SIGNING_IDENTITY to string")
        .to_string(),
    ),
    None => config.macos.signing_identity,
  };

  let provider_short_name = match std::env::var_os("APPLE_PROVIDER_SHORT_NAME") {
    Some(provider_short_name) => Some(
      provider_short_name
        .to_str()
        .expect("failed to convert APPLE_PROVIDER_SHORT_NAME to string")
        .to_string(),
    ),
    None => config.macos.provider_short_name,
  };

  let (resources, resources_map) = match resources {
    BundleResources::List(paths) => (Some(paths), None),
    BundleResources::Map(map) => (None, Some(map)),
  };

  #[cfg(target_os = "macos")]
  let entitlements = if let Some(plugin_config) = tauri_config
    .plugins
    .0
    .get("deep-link")
    .and_then(|c| c.get("desktop").cloned())
  {
    let protocols: DesktopDeepLinks =

View on GitHub (pinned to 52e4b6e71d)

Solutions

Check the raw bytes: `env | grep APPLE_PROVIDER_SHORT_NAME | xxd | head`.
Re-export as clean ASCII: `export APPLE_PROVIDER_SHORT_NAME="MyTeam"`.
Re-create the CI secret from plain text.
Confirm the correct value in App Store Connect (Users and Access > keys/providers) before re-adding it.

Example fix

# before
export APPLE_PROVIDER_SHORT_NAME=$'Bad\xffName'

# after
export APPLE_PROVIDER_SHORT_NAME="MyTeamName"

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

# Reject non-UTF-8 before building
python3 - <<'EOF'
import os, sys
v = os.environb.get(b'APPLE_PROVIDER_SHORT_NAME')
if v is not None:
    try: v.decode('utf-8')
    except UnicodeDecodeError:
        sys.exit('APPLE_PROVIDER_SHORT_NAME is not valid UTF-8')
EOF

Prevention

Keep App Store provider names as simple ASCII strings in secrets.
Re-create (not edit) CI secrets when they were pasted from rich text sources.
Validate all APPLE_* env vars decode as UTF-8 in a CI preflight step.

When it happens

Trigger: Running `tauri build` (App Store connect flows) with APPLE_PROVIDER_SHORT_NAME exported containing raw non-UTF-8 bytes from a mis-encoded script, secret, or locale-mangled shell profile.

Common situations: CI providers writing secrets with bad encodings; team names copied from web pages with smart quotes or non-breaking spaces in a non-UTF-8 terminal.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of tauri-apps/tauri@52e4b6e71d (2026-08-20). Data as JSON: /api/errors/44ebfdff79d71093. Report an issue: GitHub.