Question

If I lost the original certificate.keystore file created with keytool, but have the exact terminal output and all the stuff I entered to make it, is that enough to be able to create a new certificate that the android market publish site will accept without saying that the new apk must be signed with the same certificate?

Answer 1

This is a MAJOR flaw in the google android market. unlike apple where you can request your certificate with your apple developer account, google has no such service yet. If you loose your certificate, thats it. You will be unable to publish an updated version of your app for people to download.

Best thing to do is let your userbase know there is a new version of the app out with changes that made it impossible to update normally, and they need to uninstall the old version and download the new version, unpublish the old version from the app store and publish the new one. (its a bit of a white lie, but people wont cry too much, and its a lot better than saying you lost the certificate, most users wont even know what you are on about)

Then keep your certificate duplicated for backups and keep it SAFE!!! Email it to yourself, put it on a unnamed flashdrive (incase it gets stolen people wont know what the certificates for). Gmail is good because its easy to retrieve mail from months ago with keywords. Burn it on a CD and put it in your medicine cabinet if you have to.

Hope this helps, good luck