I gather from other postings that it is near impossible to my check licensing code until i publish a new app for the first time in the google play store?
I have uploaded my apk to the Play dev console, (promoted to prod, but unpublished), tested with account owner ID, and still come up with "ERROR_NOT_MARKET_MANAGED" as the license response.
If true what is a good strategy for not making it available to anyone else who might purchase and then complain that it fails licensing checks before i test licensing and fix any related coding problems? Can I make it available in "no countries" at first? Should I put a ridiculously high price in a single country (and does that have to include my own country)?
I would hope there are better solutions to this dilema.
Assuming you are using Google Play Licensing, they write:
Note: Previously you could test an app by uploading an unpublished "draft" version. This functionality is no longer supported; instead, you must publish it to the alpha or beta distribution channel. For more information, see Draft Apps are No Longer Supported.
Related
Currently our update getting rejected because of Intent Redirection Vulnerability. Support Link
Google Support is not giving us any method/class or package name to address our issue.
So we did try their answer with very little information, but update kept getting rejected.
Google states (one of their email);
"This rejection doesn't Impact the standing of your Google Play Developer Account, but repeated violations can result in the suspension of this app or your Google Play Developer account."
First Question; I am wondering, getting rejects counts as violation? If it is, i would like know is there a way to send my app to the review process without any negative consequence.
Second Question; I looked up about rejections and suspensions in Interntal Test Track(or related to internal test track) but couldn't find a solid information.
Should we keep trying to solve the issue without expecting to get suspended by Google.
About this;
I couldn't find an answer to my questions but we found out how Google Play Tracks works. Maybe this would help to a hopeless android developer who suffers from google play console polices
Currently;
If you have issued or non-compliant apk/aab in one of your Track(Internal/Alpha/Beta or Production), your new versions will be rejected until you fix the issued track.
For example; Lets assume your current Production version, lets say versionCode=1, violates one of the Google Play policy, and lets assume you have a fix in your versionCode=2. If you try send versionCode=2 update to Internal/Alpha or Beta, that update will most likely get rejected(or it appears like that on Console). Actually it is not rejected, it is just bad UX. Google Play Support states the issued apk versionCodes in their Notification Mail. Why this is happening? Because Google Play checks all the tracks, not the track you just sent your update. It seems like all tracks depended to each other so if you got rejected or have violating version on any track, that will most likely block your other tracks.
This becomes an issue if you are using other distribution tracks, In our case we don't want to send our new versions directly to release track.
I am trying to test google play services features in an app, without publishing the app.
I went through the below link to do that.
https://developers.google.com/games/services/console/enabling
This process worked earlier but i think it has changed now, as i am getting the following error even after checking all the steps mentioned in the link above.
"The application is incorrectly configured. Check that the package name and signing certificate match the client ID created in Developer Console. Also, if the application is not yet published, check that the account you are trying to sign in with is listed as a tester account. See logs for more information."
Does anyone know if there has been any change in the process or if i am missing out something? Thanks.
You need to publish the app before it becomes available for testing.
If you publish the app and it is only in the "alpha testing" section then it is NOT available to general public; it is only available to activated testers in the alpha section.
EDIT: One additional note: "normal" uses will not find your app on Google Play, but also the activated tester can not find the application by using the search box.
Only the direct link to the application package will work (only for the activated testers).
You do not need to publish an app for testing. From the error it seems that the users/testers who want to test are not white listed. Quoting from the official documentation.
If your game is in an unpublished state, you must whitelist the user accounts that you want to grant access for testing. Otherwise, your testers will encounter OAuth and 404 errors when attempting to access the Google Play games services endpoints. Also remember to add yourself as a tester, or the Play Games SDK will not work for your user account
Hope this Helps!!
I have my application published in Production in Google Play Store. Now I would like to provide new version for Alpha tests. I added testers to google groups, they have recieved proper link to test APK. But when they click on "download it", it links them to not Alpha, but Production version. It's already more then 1 day since I published the Alpha version. Anyone knows what can be the reason?
Somethings you can try are:
Make sure that the version code for your Alpha APK is higher,
otherwise it becomes inactive.
Ensure that the testers have opted in. Your share link should be:
https://play.google.com/apps/testing/PACKAGE_NAME
Clearing cache/data and restarting your Google Play Store
application. This might refresh the Play Store App to see any
available updates.
Make sure your app is in a published state. You do not need a production apk, but it shouldn't be in a draft or unpublished state.
The device a user is testing may have to remove all other account except for the account invited to test. Multiple accounts may cause problems.
I've uploaded my app to the Developer Console, but didn't publish it yet(it's still in draft mode).
Whenever a user who is not a test user tries to use the In App Biiling he receives the following error -
User is not eligible for this purchase
I've looked around and read some other question regarding the issue, and now I know that the reason for this error is because the user is not a test user and the app hasn't been published.But I still want to be sure of one thing -
When I publish my application, will the In-App Billing work and users will not receive these errors?
Thanks!
The best way to make sure it works like this would be to try it out by yourself.
You can create a new Google Play user account, register it as an alpha/beta tester and release a alpha/beta version of your app (look for "Testing with real transactions" section for more details). It's safe because only your beta tester user can see published application and nobody else. Then install this app to the beta tester's device and check in-app billing works. Then upload a new draft version and make sure beta tester is not impacted.
I had same concern before I published a first version of my application. From today's experience I can say, that normal Google Play users can only see a published version and they do not get any error messages when a new draft is uploaded. Hope this helps.
I have an application that I want to release for $x amount to the public, however, I want to allow the Google Developer Console Alpha/Beta APK to be downloaded for free. I want the testers to be able to download it for free? How do I do that?
Thanks in advance,
PS. I could swear I found the link on Google, but I can't seem to find it again.
Here is my conclusion (in short, no solution):
1- (Edit: unfortunately this point is not correct, you wont get the updates unless you download directly from the store.) The only issue is delivering the first APK to the testers, as they wont be able to download the application from the Play Store, however, downloading updates from the Play Store is doable and okay, (delivered APK must be signed with same key as Play Store APK).
2- If the application is never publicly released yet, testers must have some sort of a direct link to the application on the Play Store, as searching for it will never show up (even with package name: com.example.application). But after having the first APK, you can just look through the 'My Apps" section in the Play Store and find it.
3- Google sucks for not making this easier, especially given the triviality of the concept and the need for it.
Thanks everyone for your suggestions. But considering none of them were the answer, because there is no answer, I had to sum up my findings here.
Cheers.
After discussing this with a Google representative I found that there is a round-about way of offering the app for free to testers. The tester must initially pay for the app. However, it turns out that refunds initiated by the developer actually behave differently than those initiated by Google.
Google refund: License is revoked and the user will no longer have access to the app.
Developer refund: License is NOT revoked, the app will remain fully functional IF you are only testing for license response. If you verify Order IDs it will fail since the order status will have changed (this would be a custom implementation). For developers who implemented the recommended license verification example this would effectively yield a free app.
Caveat: I haven't tested this yet as my app is a couple months from release, but here's my chat:
me
Ok can you please explain the refund then. As I understood it a refund would deauthorize the user's license, so I assumed you meant refund outside of the Google payment system.
Artemis
If you yourself initiate the refund, the user will not lose access to the app in their library.
Unless you have designed your app to constantly check the order ID's status to trigger the revoke action or the like.
If a user initiate's a refund through Google, yes, they will no longer have the app in their library and they will lose access to the content.
me
OK, since I only check the license response from the server any refund I initiate will yield a fully functional and free app in the user's library?
Artemis
Well, I am unable to validate your app's code or what you have done in its design.
I am only able to confirm that if you refund a user's purchase for an app, that Google will not revoke the app from their library or their access to the app's content.
me
Excellent, perhaps I missed the documentation on this somewhere, but I searched quite thoroughly and most information states that the developer can NOT offer the app for free to testers.
This would be great information to add to the developer console help and the testing pages.
Artemis
That is true, you cannot offer the app as free to testers.
The app must be paid for, no matter what.
However, as with all apps, alpha, beta, or production, you are welcome to refund your users however you would like.
The google play developer console now give developers the chance to provide promotion codes offering a free app or free in-app purchases, perfect for providing a free app to Alpha and Beta users: