We have setup Apple’s Server notifications for auto-renewable subscriptions. Last month we still able to get all notification type(INITIAL_BUY, RENEWAL, INTERACTIVE_RENEWAL).
Recently when we tested with sandbox (1 year subscription), we receive only 'INITIAL_BUY' server notifications, we were expect to receive 'RENEWAL' server notifications after 1 hour, but we are not getting those notifications.
Question:
I just want to confirm that is it a new notifications service that only send us 'INITIAL_BUY' notifications? And there are no server-to server notification if the renewal is successful?
Note:**
We did validate receipt with verifyReceipt server to check latest_receipt_info.
Correct. According to this technical note (https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes/tn2413/_index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS40016228-CH1-SUBSCRIPTIONS-MY_SERVER_PROCESS_RARELY_RECEIVES_RENEWAL_NOTICES_WHEN_THE_AUTO_RENEWING_SUBSCRIPTION_RENEWS_)
The App Store attempts to charge the user account 24 hours before an auto-renewing subscription expires. If the renewal is successful, there is no server-to server notification because the auto-renewing subscription did not enter into the expired state.
You have to actively call Apple's receipt validation endpoint on or around the expiration date of each receipt (and possible for a few days after that) to fetch the renewal receipts. Apple will not notify your servers.
Related
I am trying to update the user's subscription renewal state. I had set up the endpoint in the app information section "URL for App Store Server Notifications" in the app information. But didn't receive any notification. Also, I had tried to set up revenuecat but got no notification. Does anyone know about this issue?
We have a problem with Apple subscription callback on Sandbox environment. When I purchase an auto-renewable subscription on Sandbox env, apple sends first callback only after 1-2 min. It's ok. But when the first expiration period ends apple not always notify us about extending a subscription. But we should receive notification_type = RENEWAL always at the end of the expiration period. Sometimes we receive notifications sometimes we don't. Do you know how can we check where is the problem? Maybe Apple has some troubles because we couldn't find any problems on our side.
RENEWAL events are sent when a subscription has expired, then later, the user starts the subscription again.
See: Apple Subscription Notifications are Almost Useless
We are implementing server side receipt validation for auto renewable subscription. Now when a user turn off the subscription or when it auto renew there is no notification send from apple server to our server. We want to poll apple server when the subscription is about to expire. So how can we do this?
Is there a way to schedule such polling at specific date ?
First when any in app purchase made you need to store receipt data after validating it. Also you need to store expire date of that particular purchase which you will get by receipt validation.
Now create a crone job in your server to validate auto renew purchase, crone job time interval is up to you as per your project need but let say for example take 1 hours. In the crone job you need to select only those record which expire time with in next 6 hours(You can change this time as per your need). Then again validate this receipt and if purchase get auto renew then you will get list of receipt. You will get always new receipt in the list whenever purchase auto renew. In this you will get new expire time. Suppose you are not getting any new receipt then it means user has cancel subscription
You would need Receipt validation.
If your app offers auto-renewable subscriptions, you can receive server notifications from the App Store about key events by setting up an optional URL that links to your server.
Before sending a notification to your server, the App Store will try to establish a secure network connection with your server by using App Transport Security (ATS) protocols. If a secure connection cannot be established, notifications will not be sent to your server. See Requirements for Connecting Using ATS to learn more about security requirements.
After a secure HTTPS connection has been established, the App Store will deliver JSON objects through an HTTP post to your server for key subscription events. See the In-App Purchase Programming Guide to learn more about the contents of this HTTP post.
Use server notifications together with Receipt Validation to validate a customer's current subscription status and provide them access to content or services from within your app.
For more info : Link
Not get notifications such as cancel as these notifications are only sent when a subscription is canceled by Apple directly.
The renewal notification, "Automatic renewal was successful for an expired subscription. Check Subscription Expiration Date to determine the next renewal date and time." In general, iTunes will attempt to charge the user account a day before an auto-renewing subscription is scheduled to expire. If the renewal is successful, there is no server-to-server notification because the auto-renewing subscription did not enter into an expired state. There is no support at present to simulate this event in the sandbox environment.“
Read more: https://forums.developer.apple.com/message/283579#283579
Using In-App Purchases, Does the subscription status notification via Subscription status URL has a retry mechanism? That is if the receiving server is down what happens to the call made, is it lost?
Apple documents for the same
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/StoreKitGuide/Chapters/Subscriptions.html
I created an API to be called by Apple webhook to work with subscription. I've set the API url in Itunes to be called by the webhook.
According to Apple help site https://help.apple.com/app-store-connect/#/dev7e89e149d in regards to the Testing Auto-Renewable Subscription, when testing auto renewable subscriptions in the test environment, the Apple webhook will make a call to the API after 5 minutes if I select 1 month subscription duration.
But the thing is, after making first purchase, apple webhook doesn't follow up call to the API that I created to renew the subs. Even after I waited for more than 5 minutes. So I can't do any processing from the API to renew user subs in the database.
Is there some configuration that I had to make in order to test the auto renew and make apple webhook call the API to renew the sub?
We've found that Apple's subscription update webook calls are rather unreliable.
Based on experience:
Don't count on Apple to notify you of renewals. The notification may arrive arbitrarily late (often leaving a "gap" in time), or not at all. We've resorted to retaining and retrying the original iTunes-provided receipt to revalidate renewals at the end of subscription periods --the expiration dates will change to account for the renewal.
Don't count on Apple to notify you of cancellations, either. Same as above, calculate subscription duration, and retry receipts at the end of a period (the expiration date will NOT be updated if the subscription is cancelled).
Generally, this involves mapping the additional transactions/in_apps that are returned with the retried receipt to the original_transaction_id --and updating the expires_at accordingly on your end.
Hope this helps!
Update: In WWDC2020 Apple announced that they add a new notification type called DID_RENEW which will be sent after any successful auto-renew. More info on that in this video, starting at around 16:00.
Original answer:
I can't find the page you linked to, however this page may shed light on the subject (emphasis by me):
The App Store attempts to charge the user account 24 hours before an auto-renewing subscription expires. If the renewal is successful, there is no server-to server notification because the auto-renewing subscription did not enter into the expired state. However, in the few cases that iTunes is unable to renew the subscription (generally there was a connection problem with the credit card server) and the auto-renewing subscription is not renewed before the expiration_date passes, the auto-renewing subscription is technically considered expired. iTunes may continue to attempt to renew the subscription. If iTunes is successful, then the RENEWAL event is sent.
Meaning, you're not supposed to receive notifications for renewals, but only for cases where the subscription became expired and only then renewed. This might be the case for sandbox renewals as well.