We’re trying to add Apple Pay support to our mobile app (via the Developer Portal) but keep getting the error “the uploaded certificate could not be validated.” We’ve tried several times with both sandbox and production selected but keep getting the same error. We even tried adding Apple Pay to a different Application to see if that was the problem, but still same error.
I’m pretty sure we are following the instructions given on Square’s and Apple’s sites for the process. Am I missing something or is there a problem on Square’s end with processing Apple certificates?
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Thanks for reaching out! Are you able to verify that your Apple Pay merchant identity certificate is publicly accessible and not restricted to internal/private distribution? Square needs to be able to validate the certificate during upload, so if it’s locked down, validation will fail.
I assume everything is public. There is no option anywhere when creating an identity or adding a certificate to indicate public or private.
@ChadDev Can you let me know what your application ID is (with the sq0idp-… prefix), as well as the approximate timestamp (date/time/timezone) of when you last got this error? Happy to dig through the logs and see what I can find here!
We’ve tried probably about 6 different times to get it to work with different apps but the one we need to get it working for has the ID: sq0idp-tVNdDmIaXmrObKCUPP-LbQ.
The approximate time of one of our tests is: 10:55 AM (PST) Mar. 30, 2026.
@ChadDev Would it be possible for you to do another test and let me know the timestamp of that? It looks like your earliest test at the end of March may have expired from our logs.
Ok, just tried it a couple seconds ago. Still same error.
Could we get an update on this issue please?
@ChadDev Apologies for the delay here! The logs I was able to find on this were limited, but they seemed to indicate that a Sandbox certificate was generated. For this test, did you verify that the same environment was used for downloading the CSR and for uploading Apple’s processing certificate?
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by environment, but I have a Safari tab open to Square’s developer portal and other tab (in same Safari window) open to Apple’s developer site to upload the CSR and download the certificate. I tested again with the JavaScript Console open and, after click on the error, I see the following:
{
“errors”: [
{
“category”: “INVALID_REQUEST_ERROR”,
“code”: “VALUE_EMPTY”,
“detail”: “Field must not be blank”,
“field”: “certificate”
}
]
}
I get the same error whether I drag and drop the file on to the page or choose a file before clicking on the “Complete certificate” button.
@ChadDev Sorry, to clarify I mean Production vs Sandbox! There’s a toggle at the top of the Developer Console that can be used to switch between the two.
Within your Network tab when testing this, are you able to Export a .HAR file and send it to me in a PM? That will give more details I can use to track this down.
I used Sandbox. The error from the JavaScript console gave me an idea. I tried the process of adding Apple Pay using Chrome and it worked. So, it appears the problem is with the website, the process is not working with Safari.
@ChadDev Thanks for following up with your findings, and I’m happy to see you found a path forward. I’ll look into what browser-specific errors might be at play here.
