Process for Renewing Certificates/Push Notifications

Question

Can someone please help me understand the process for renewing my Apple certs & push notification files? More specifically:
1. Will Apple notify me when a cert needs to be renewed? Can I do this before it becomes due?
2. What happens if a cert expires? Will my app no longer work?
3. Do I need to rebuild/resubmit to Apple my app via the App Builder to update my certs or is there a way to update just the certs via Apple's portal?
Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

1. No, Apple does not send a notification. If your dev and dist p12 cents expire, your app will be rejected at some point in the submission process--I don't recall when. It might be while building the app. If you don't update your app, expired dev and dist certs don't matter. Users can still use your app as before. You can even submit an app with expired push certs and your app will work fine--except for push, of course.
2. The distribution app in the store and on users' devices will still work if the distribution p12 is expired, but you'll need to update the cert before you resubmit a new version of the app. That's my understanding. An expired push production cert affects only push itself. If your push cert is expired, you'll get an error message when you click Notify. Users can still subscribe, download, and view articles regardless of push, but they won't get badges or background downloads.
3. If your dev and dist p12 certs are expired, just update them before you submit a new version. You don't need to rush to do it. For the p12 push cert, I don't believe that you need to resubmit the app. I believe that if you revoke and rebuild the push certs, the change is registered with Apple, and you can click Notify without an error. I'll be testing this soon.