I have a question about the Google Play Billing Library (version 5) but I guess older versions are fine too.
In Google Play Billing, the purchase flow is launched like below:
BillingResult billingResult = billingClient.launchBillingFlow(getActivity(), billlingFlowParams);
A listener waits for the purchase response, like below:
PurchasesUpdatedListener purchasesUpdatedListener = new PurchasesUpdatedListener() {
#Override
public void onPurchasesUpdated(#NonNull #NotNull BillingResult billingResult, #Nullable #org.jetbrains.annotations.Nullable List<com.android.billingclient.api.Purchase> list) {
if (billingResult.getResponseCode() == BillingClient.BillingResponseCode.OK && list != null) {
....
....
Additional code here that makes an api request based on the Purchase Object
}
};
The problem is that as soon as we confirm the purchase Google charges for the purchase but I have a backend that also process the purchase, ie confirm the purchase is applicable etc... As a result what can happen is that someone confirms the purchase, Google charges the person but my backend goes, the purchase cannot be done for whatever reason. So technically the purchase shouldn't have gone through but google charges it no matter what since it does that as soon as we confirm a purchase.
I should mention that the API requires data from the Purchase object, which contains the purchaseToken and the subscriptionIdstrong text from the onPurchasesUpdated method.
My question is how are people overcoming this? As long asBillingClient.BillingResponseCode.OK is the response code the purchase goes through regardless of what the backend thinks. I don't believe I have control over the BillingResult.getResponseCode().
Some of my users tell me that my app forgets the purchased subscriptions every now and then. It works for 3-4 days and then it forgets them. This is a very important issue as users might suspect fraud. I am using billing library 4.0.0 and I have implemented the billing logic as per Google's guidelines.
From what I have gathered it happens when for some reason the billing service connection is interrupted. (Play Store is updating for example)
I have managed to replicate this scenario the following way
- Disable internet connection
- Clearing Play Store app data
- Fresh launch of my app.
- Call billingClient.startConnection()
onBillingSetupFinished called with responseCode BILLING_UNAVAILABLE
user sees -> The app says "no subscription purchased"
- Enable internet connection
- re-initialize BillingClient.
onBillingSetupFinished called with responseCode OK. billingClient.isReady() returns true.
- Call billingClient.queryPurchasesAsync() and billingClient.querySkuDetailsAsync().
onSkuDetailsResponse is called with the skuDetailsList filled with all the proper data. However:
onQueryPurchasesResponse is called with empty purchase list -> Again user sees "no subscriptions purchased"
Important If at this point I open Play Store it shows the purchased subscriptions. But the app still gets an empty purchases list.
If I keep calling billingClient.startConnection() or billingClient.queryPurchasesAsync() at some point after about 10 minutes one attempt will succeed and return a non empty purchases list.
Is it possible to tell Play Store to refresh its subscription data for my app? How can someone handle this scenario gracefully ?
You need to call acknowledgePurchase for every purchase.
See the official docs and the article for more details.
Worked for me!
BillingClient billingClient = ...;
billingClient must be ready -> billingClient.isReady() == true;
So, always call billingClient.queryProductDetailsAsync(...) from
#Override
public void onBillingSetupFinished(BillingResult billingResult) {
if (billingResult.getResponseCode() == BillingClient.BillingResponseCode.OK) {
// The BillingClient is ready. You can query purchases here.
queryProductDetails();
queryPurchases();
}
}
when initialize the billingClient connection! Keep it up :)
I'm implementing Android in app purchases, with BillingClient api.
I successfully set up billing client, like this:
billingClient = BillingClient.newBuilder(this)
.enablePendingPurchases()
.setListener(this).build()
And I implement the code I want to make the in app purchase, which in my case is a subscription.
My issue is as follows, I need to check (periodicly) if the user still has an active subscription, or if they canceled it. From what I read, I can do a call of the method, queryPurchases(PRODUCT_ID). I am doing this as follows:
override fun onBillingSetupFinished(billingResult: BillingResult?) {
if (billingResult != null) {
if (billingResult.responseCode == BillingClient.BillingResponseCode.OK){
// The BillingClient is ready. You can query purchases here.
Log.d(TAG_PURCHASES_ACTIVITY, "BillingClient ready and connected")
billingClient.queryPurchases(MONTHLY_AGENT_SUBSCRIPTION_PRODUCT_ID)
}
else{
Log.d(TAG_PURCHASES_ACTIVITY, "BillingClient ERROR: ${billingResult.responseCode}")
}
}
}
However, I get this message in the console:
W/BillingClient: getPurchase() failed. Response code: 3
Now after researching, many have said that this is coming from old phones, with older versions of google play services. But I am using new phone (Pixel 3a), which is up to date. This phone also has the google account registered in the google play console for testing.
Why I am getting this message?
Also, is this really the correct way to check if the subscription is still active?
I've tried for ages to find this solution, thanks for any help!
I was making a mistake, passing the product id as a parameter to the query request.
This is what I needed to do:
var list = billingClient.queryPurchases(SkuType.SUBS)
I'm trying to implement In-App purchases using 'com.android.billingclient:billing:2.0.3' library.
the app is released in the Internal test track, and have one managed product, and a single tester (another account of mine), I managed to launch a billing flow and buy the product, but I didn't acknowledge or consume the purchase, in spite of this the responseCode is now always ITEM_ALREADY_OWNED , I thought that if the purchase is not acknowledged within 5 minutes (for testers accounts) it will be refunded. why wasn't it ?
the second question is that I'm trying to consume the product so that i can continue the implementation using my only tester account, here's the onPurchasesUpdated function
override fun onPurchasesUpdated(
billingResult: BillingResult?, purchases: MutableList<Purchase>?) {
val resCode=billingResult!!.responseCode
println(resCode) // prints 7 i.e ITEM_ALREADY_OWNED
println(purchases!!.size) // nullPointerException
}
the purchases list is null, what am I doing wrong ?
please let me know if you want more details, thanks.
i had the same error(i'm using java, so code is a little different)
#Override
public void onPurchasesUpdated(BillingResult billingResult, #Nullable List<Purchase> list) {
in my case list was null, so what i did was just called queryPurchases() to load purchases again
List<Purchase> list2 = billingClient.queryPurchases(BillingClient.SkuType.INAPP).getPurchasesList();
creation of billingClient is in documentation
I'm currently testing my InApp billing mechanism (using the InApp Billing version 3 API, therefore taking the TrivialDrive example as reference).
I have one managed item, which is upgrade to premium version.
Now, purchasing the item with my test account works, but when I do a cancellation of the entire order in Google checkout afterwards, my code still tells me that the item is purchased an therefore grants the premium features.
Here is how I check for the purchase in my MainActivity. I do not save the purchase state locally somewhere, as I understood that the with the billing API v3, you can query for purchases ad hoc as needed.
#Override
protected void onStart() {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
super.onStart();
iabHelper = new IabHelper(this, Helper.getPKey());
iabHelper.enableDebugLogging(true);
iabHelper.startSetup(new IabHelper.OnIabSetupFinishedListener() {
#Override
public void onIabSetupFinished(IabResult result) {
Log.d("IAB", "SETUP FINISHED");
if(!result.isSuccess())
{
Log.d("IAB", "SETUP NOT OK");
return;
}
else
Log.d("IAB", "SETUP OK");
iabHelper.queryInventoryAsync(
new QueryInventoryFinishedListener() {
#Override
public void onQueryInventoryFinished(IabResult result, Inventory inv) {
Log.d("IAB", "Query inventory finished.");
if (result.isFailure()) {
Log.d("IAB","Failed to query inventory: " + result);
return;
}
Log.d("IAB", "Query inventory was successful.");
// Do we have the premium upgrade?
boolean mIsPremium = inv.hasPurchase(Helper.premiumSku);
Purchase p = inv.getPurchase(Helper.premiumSku);
if(p != null)
Log.d("IAB PURCHASE STATE", IabHelper.getResponseDesc(p.getPurchaseState()));
else
Log.d("IAB PURCHASE STATE", "Purchase is null");
Log.d("IAB", "User is " + (mIsPremium ? "PREMIUM" : "NOT PREMIUM"));
}
}
);
}
});
}
I keep getting getPurchaseState = 0, which means is Purchased, even one hour after I cancelled the order. Why?
After having waited for about 12 hours and having tried everything suggested here, I was still facing the same issue. What did the trick for me was the following adb command:
adb shell pm clear com.android.vending
I know this is a year old, but none of the answers/tips presented helped me so I thought I would add my solution.
First, I was experiencing the same issue. Namely, made a test purchase, cancelled it, still received a purchase state indicating valid purchase.
What I forgot was that I recently switched the 'License Test Response' field on the settings pane of the Google Play Developer Console from 'RESPOND_NORMALLY' to 'LICENSED'
After switching it back to 'RESPOND_NORMALLY', the purchase state of the cancelled purchase was correctly returned as such.
So, you might want to check that before you try waiting for days
Step 1. Wait approximately 10 minutes; Until you see the "cancelled order" was delivered. in your google wallet.
Sep 15 11:28 AM Cancelled The order was delivered.
Sep 15 11:18 AM Cancelled You cancelled this order. Reason: Customer request to cancel.
Step 2. Logout your test google account on the device and then re-login.
At least that solved my problem.
This problem also occures when using the app on another device with the same account. The item is not received as purchased until the device is restarted, even after hours. If trying to purchase again, the google wallet dialog says "item already owned". The return code from the iabHelper still is "user cancelled" cause the real response from the purchase activity is not given back, just written in the debug log.
else if (resultCode == Activity.RESULT_CANCELED) {
logDebug("Purchase canceled - Response: " + getResponseDesc(responseCode));
result = new IabResult(IABHELPER_USER_CANCELLED, "User canceled.");
if (mPurchaseListener != null) mPurchaseListener.onIabPurchaseFinished(result, null);
}
So its not possible to react to this google billing dialog cause we are always getting the same result IABHELPER_USER_CANCELED, even if the dialog said "item already owned".
Edit:
I fix it with this:
else if (resultCode == Activity.RESULT_CANCELED) {
logDebug("Purchase canceled - Response: " + getResponseDesc(responseCode));
if(responseCode == 7)
result = new IabResult(BILLING_RESPONSE_RESULT_ITEM_ALREADY_OWNED, "Item already owned.");
else
result = new IabResult(IABHELPER_USER_CANCELLED, "User canceled.");
if (mPurchaseListener != null) mPurchaseListener.onIabPurchaseFinished(result, null);
}
So now if the response from the billing dialog is 7 as "Item already owned" i report it back to my listener.
What you can use is the autoRenewing field of the purchase data. According to the documentation:
autoRenewing: Indicates whether the subscription renews automatically. If true, the subscription is active, and will automatically renew on the next billing date. If false, indicates that the user has canceled the subscription.
And this field get updated immediately after the cancellation.
if I see correctly the reference code in the trivialdrivesample is wrong, which would be a shame for the official reference project for in app billing.
if purchase == null it just means it has never been purchased. To get the real information you have to call
purchase.getPurchaseState()
according to here
purchaseState The purchase state of the order. Possible values are 0 (purchased), 1 (canceled), 2 (refunded), or 3 (expired, for subscription purchases only).
It’s already well answered in the Google official docs. Copying the words here.
When the user cancels a subscription, Google Play does not offer a refund for the current billing cycle. Instead, it allows the user to have access to the cancelled subscription until the end of the current billing cycle, at which time it terminates the subscription. For example, if a user purchases a monthly subscription and cancels it on the 15th day of the cycle, Google Play will consider the subscription valid until the end of the 30th day (or other day, depending on the month).
That should explain it all. getPurchase() will still return the purchase data till the end of the current subscription cycle.
I found the following section in the documentation (IAB API v2), but I am not sure if this can be used for IAB API v3. The broadcast might still be sent though.
"... your application can receive an IN_APP_NOTIFY broadcast intent when Google Play receives a refund notification from Google Wallet. In this case, Google Play sends an IN_APP_NOTIFY message to your application. Your application can handle this message the same way it handles responses from an application-initiated REQUEST_PURCHASE message so that ultimately your application receives a PURCHASE_STATE_CHANGED message that includes information about the item that has been refunded. The refund information is included in the JSON string that accompanies the PURCHASE_STATE_CHANGED broadcast intent. Also, the purchaseState field in the JSON string is set to 2."
from: http://developer.android.com/google/play/billing/v2/api.html#billing-action-notify
I noticed the exact same thing:
Making an in-app purchase with a test account -> refunding the purchase with removing access -> getPurchaseState still returns Purchased (even after relogin and restart) and thus the access to the premium features is not removed in my app.
But when I tested the same thing with a real purchase:
Customer made a real purchase -> a couple of weeks later I refunded it -> Customer did not have access to the premium features of my app anymore.
So could it be, that this is only a problem for test purchases?
As of 2022 March 06, Billing Client version 4 API, you might still need to wait a few hours after cancellation until a purchased item is cancelled in Google Play.
Sometimes I saw cleaning the project also helps (In Android Studio: Build menu > Clear project)
However, in case of subscriptions you can also check and adjust the "Grace period" for your product in Google Play Console: