How to get an APK into the market with an extra certificate... because I lost my first keystore

Question

My keystore has gone missing. I most likely deleted it by mistake, but I can't find it in my recycling bin. --My keystore was originally in my bin folder, not a good place for it as files get automatically deleted when publishing

I know the details for the previous keystore... except maybe the date of expiry.

I want to put an update onto the market, but because the new certificate is different, it won't let me.

I was hoping that I could add an additional certificate to the current published file so that it would accept the updated version with just the new certificate. Similar to what is described here... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2881904/how-to-sign-an-apk-with-more-than-one-certificate

I skip the first line in the above description because it is already signed through eclipse, but when I do the second line I get a ZipException due to "invalid entry compressed size (expected X but got Y bytes)"

Is there a way to put a second certificate on my apk?

Is there a way to recreate the original keystore from the information I know?

I'm not yet ready to believe, that I will have to submit the update as a completely new application.

Answer 1

you are screwed.

Answer 2

If you've lost the private key then you'll be unable to recover it and sign future versions of your app.

The certificate fields are just text. The thing that actually proves your identity as the developer is the private key, which is basically a random sequence of bits.