Today I experienced some strange behaviour of the Appstore. We released new update for our app, it became live for couple of hours -> I could see it also in our analytics, but after couple of hours the update was rollbacked & is not accesible on the Appstore anymore, although in iTunes Connect this update is in state Ready for sale.
I was looking for reasons why it disappeared from the AppStore, but I couldn't find one.
Our app doesn't provide any in-app purchases, nor any advertisements/iAds.
The only thing I've found on the Itunes Connect was this official explanation in Apple's documentation.
My app status is Ready for Sale but I cannot see my app on the App Store. Why?
The following factors could prevent your app from showing up on the App Store:
Make sure to check the status of your agreements. If the agreement status is Pending Contract, you may have to agree to the PLA or Paid Applications agreement or complete the associated bank and tax information for that agreement.
Make sure the availability date provided in the Rights and Pricing section is prior to today's date.
If the date provided in the Rights and Pricing section is in the past, make sure you made your app available in at least one App Store territory.
If your app was scheduled to go live within the last 24 hours, the app may still be updating in the App Store cache. Once the 24-hour caching window has passed, close and open iTunes and search for your app again. You can also click View in the App Store from the More tab on your app's page in My Apps.
Because the app version went live, I believe we don't apply to any of these points. Furthermore - the dev account is paid & all contracts updated.
Any suggestions?
After all it was the window cache thing. Update made it to the production, but was rollbacked until the appstore cache system didnt push it to prod again. Strange, but after all Apple made our update available to our users
Related
During development I've created test accounts which are able to obtain the price of the in app purchase as well as actually purchasing it without an issue. However after publishing the iOS app to App Store, the version of the app in App store can't even retrieve price of the product, and nothing shows up when I press the button to send the purchase request.
Uninstalling the app and redeploy the development version to the same device got it to work again.
What could be the problem? Is there a way to debug or see logs on the app store downloaded version? (iOS noob here)
Thanks!
I had the same problem. The app was approved but in-app purchases were not working. After 24-48 of app publishing problem was fixed by its own. By the time app approved it was not appearing on App Store through search. After it was indexed on App Store in-apps started to work also.
It takes a little time even when everything is approved.
My binary was approved.
My In-App Purchase (IAP) was approved.
Testing the purchase in development with a sandbox iTunes Account worked great.
Purchasing in production with a real or sandbox iTunes Account would fail.
I didn't have to wait long, something like a couple hours and it just started working.
Now, my binary and my In-App Purhcase were approved at the same time and almost immediately after they were both approved, I released the app version to the store.
I'm not positive, but what I probably should have done was wait a couple hours before releasing that new app version and give the In-App Purchase a chance to "register" or "propagate" in the Production App Store.
Just a recommendation for others.
It takes some time, but the amount isn't predictable. In my case, I launched 3 very similar apps at the same time, so just add some data on this :
Everything was approved, the apps were quickly available on the App Store.
It took about 4 hours for 2 of the apps to show up in search results.
After 6 hours, IAPs started progressively showing up (not all at once) for these
After 9 hours, IAPs for the two apps were complete.
After 12 hours, IAPs for the last app started appearing, but the last app itself still wasn't showing up in search results.
After 14 hours, the last app appeared in search results.
The order in which I hit the "Publish" button didn't seem to have any influence, nor the number of IAPs, weight of the app, etc.
So delays are unpredictable and do not follow a specific rule ("First-in, first-out" or "search results and then IAP")
I found this Apple Tech note, which is includes follow:
Q. App Review has recently approved my application, but my In-App Purchase identifiers in the production version of the application are being returned in the invalidProductIdentifiers array.
A. When an application is approved, the developer must also approve the application for release to the App Store. On approval, the application ID is activated to the App Store. The same activation is required for the in-app purchase identifiers and can only take place once the application is activated. In some cases, the activation of the In-App Purchase identifiers may lag up to 48 hours following the activation of the application.
If the developer does not approve the release of the production application to the App Store, then any new in-app purchase identifiers will not be activated. This is an issue when a developer wants to verify the application prior to activating it on the App Store. If the desire is to test the in-app purchase process for the new items, the application must be activated to the App Store. This is only an issue for new in-app purchase identifiers in a corresponding application submission. Once these in-app purchase identifiers have been activated, application updates to the submission will find that these in-app purchase identifiers are validated, even if the update is not activated.
But in my case it takes even further, about 52 hours.
I found that doing a simple edit of the description in each IAP helps. Just make an edit, save it, revert to the original and save again. It took up to 8 hours for it to propagate across Apple servers. IAP's I didn't do this to had no change.
I submitted a brand new app to AppStore and it got rejected by the Lords ... (nothing new there). What I want to do is delete that app completely from my itunesconnect account. I don't know what apple recently changed but in the past once the app was rejected I use to see a "delete" button on the summary page. Now I don't see one anymore.
I even checked Apple official documentation HERE and that too says that I should be able to delete it from appstore using delete button as long as the app is in reject state but the delete button is no where to be found.
I already tried removing it from all territories under "rights & pricing" and availability date is in the past Jan 22nd, 2014 ... still no delete button is visible.
How can I remove it?
Note: there were no in-app purchases or game center.
Here's the answer to my question I got back from Apple support.
Hi XXX,
I am following up with you about the deletion of your app, “XXX”. Recent changes have been made to the App Delete feature. In order to delete your app from iTunes Connect, you must now have one approved version before the delete button becomes available. For more information on the recent changes, please see the "Deleting an App" section of the iTunes Connect Guide (page 96-97):
You can only delete an app from the App Store if it was previously approved (meaning has one approved version).
From iTunes Connect Developer Guide - Transferring and Deleting Apps:
Apps that have not been approved yet can’t be deleted; instead, reject the app.
As of 2016, new changes have been made to iTunes Connect. Here are the screenshots of deleting an approved app from your account.
Edit December 2018: Apple seem to have finally added a button for removing the app in certain situations, including apps that never went on sale (thanks to #iwill for pointing that out), basically making the below answer irrelevant.
Edit: turns out the deleted apps still appear in Xcode -> Organizer -> Archives and there is no way to delete them from there even if there are no archives! So more looks like a fake delete of sorts.
Currently (Edit: as of July 2016) there is no way of deleting your app if it never went on sale.
However, all information except for SKU can be edited and thus reused for a new app, including the app name, Bundle ID, icon, etc etc. Because SKU can be anything (some people say they use numbers 1, 2, 3 for example) then it shouldn't be a big deal to use something unrelated for your new app.
(Honestly though I'm hoping Apple will fix this soon. I almost hear some Apple devs finding excuses for not implementing it (you know, it will break the database and will kill innocent pandas) and some managers telling the devs to just frigging do it regardless.)
You Can Now Delete App.
On October 4, 2018, Apple released a new update of the appstoreconnect (previously iTunesConnect).
It's now easier to manage apps you no longer need in App Store Connect by removing them from your main view in My Apps, even if they haven't been submitted for approval. You must have the Legal or Admin role to remove apps.
From the homepage, click My Apps, then choose the app you want to
remove. Scroll to the Additional Information section, then click
Remove App. In the dialog that appears, click Remove. You can restore
a removed app at any time, as long as the app name is not currently in
use by another developer.
From the homepage, click My Apps. In the upper right-hand corner,
click the arrow next to All Statuses. From the drop-down menu, choose
Removed Apps. Choose the app you want to restore. Scroll to the
Additional Information section, then click Restore App.
You can show the removed app by clicking on all Statuses on the top right of the screen and then select Removed Apps. Thank you #Daniel for the tips.
Please note:
you can only remove apps if all versions of that app are in one of the following states: Prepare for Submission, Invalid Binary, Developer Rejected, Rejected, Metadata Rejected, Developer, Removed from Sale.
As per 2018 in App Store Connect. We can delete/remove application with following stats.
App Store Connect details for Remove an app
So, from now onwards we can delete our test applications too from app store connect.
Easy.
(as of 2021)
Click your app, click App Information in the left side menu, scroll all the way down to the Additional Information section, click Remove App.
Boom. done.
As the instructions state on the iTuneconnect Developer Guidelines you need to ensure that you are the "team agent" to delete apps. This is stated in the quote below from the developer guidelines.
If the Delete App button isn’t displayed, check that you’re the team agent and that the app is in one of the statuses that allow the app to be deleted.
I have just checked on my account by logging in as the main account holder and the delete button is there for an app that I have previously removed from sale but when I have looked in as another user they don't have this permission, only the main account holder seems to have it.
I had the same problem with a dummy app that happened to have the same name as my final app and couldn't publish because the App Name is already in use
To fix it, instead of deleting it(which you can't) I just changed the name of the dummy app to something random and hit SAVE. Then I was able to add the new app with the proper name
Apps can’t be deleted if they are part of a Game Center group, in an app bundle, or currently displayed on a store. You’ll want to remove the app from sale or from the group if you want to delete it.
Source: iTunes Connect Developer Guide - Transferring and Deleting Apps
I've uploaded binary to Appstore for review and approval. How to change following settin now:
When they approve it, I don't want to be automaticaly be visible on AppStore. I want to change the setting so i can put it on Appstore when I decide.
It asked me for this setting before binary is uploiaded, but can i change it now?
You can't. iTunesConnect will only ask you this once. Your update will released once approved.
Just reject the binary and upload again, you will be asked the question again.
You Can Not do this.
Check the list here in detail :-
Editing and Updating App Information
Goto rights and pricing info screen (where you can select pricing tiers for your app), and then either choose your app's availability date or deselect all countries from appstores.
The following text was from Apple' doc.
If you choose to automatically release your app update, it will go live as soon as it is approved by Apple (pending the availability date you have set).
If you choose to control the version’s release, your app status will change to Pending Developer Release after it has been approved by App Review, indicating that you can release it to the App Store whenever you are ready.
When you're ready for your app update to go live on the App Store, you are responsible for releasing your app version to the App Store.
i've searched around a similar question but i didn't found any, so:
I have an old iphone paid app on iStore (and a free/lite version with iAds banner), now i want to renew it, adding iPad version and other stuffs;
with this new version i'd like to set the app free, add in-app purchase to the paid app (and delete the lite version), adding iAd banner until user buy the in-app purchase item.
the problem is that an old user who paid for the old app and now download the new version will see the iAd banner (and of course i don't want this) and must pay again to avoid it.
Is there any way to check if a user of my new-version app is also an old user of the old-version app?
A partial solution i found out is to check a preference file that the old app saves in it's bundle documents folder, but that could work fine just in case the user has installed the old app on the device when he update my app, not in case he deleted from device (or installing to a new one)
Other solution could be to keep the lite version on iStore and add the inApp purchase only to that version, and let the full version with the current price, but doing so, the lite version after a user pay for inApp purchase item would become exactly equal to the piad app (and Apple may refuse this, and i don't like this solution too)
Any idea for this purpose, is there an easy way i have not seen?
thanks in advance
There is no way how to find out if the user paid for the app. The solution with the "bundle documents folder" is not good in my opinion, because once the user delete the app, he will not have available the premium version of the app again.
Similar questions:
Convert existing iOS paid app to freemium model with in-app purchase
Transition an existing paid for app to free version with In App Purchase
iPhone + upgrade existing paid application on app store to free application with In App purchase + what about the customers who have already purchased the paid application
I too had similar issues where I wanted to switch a paid app to free. There really isn't anyway to reliably check which user had already downloaded your app in the past. If you add iAds and they only disable through in-app purchase then it means it applies to everyone.
While writing this post I thought of one trick. Lets say you submit your app with iAd changes today to app store and it gets approved on 7/20/13. What you can do is upon app startup have a grace period code check i.e.
if (TodaysDate < 8/20/13)
{
//Make your NSUserdefaults to true. As if the user had purchased your in-app purchase. So don't show them any ads.
}
else
{
//Month has passed and hopefully most of your users who owned the app already had updated it by now
}
This way you have given your existing and any new users a month time (with no iAds). Any users who download the app after 8/20/13 will see your iAds and will have to pay in-app to disable them.
From my experience I have found that it's always advisable to keep your current users happy otherwise they will bomb your app rating with negative reviews. Which will show up under your latest app update.
Have you tried contacting developer support? https://developer.apple.com/support/
From what I know to be true you can't tell if they have previously bought the app without invading their privacy.
I uploaded an iOS app to appstore and now the app got released and the release date is showing as 3 August 2012 and yesterday the status (ready for sale) changed. In the uploading process we had specified some places like France, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Belgium in "Select the App Stores where your app will be sold" section.
We tried to get the app in the appstore (US) but we are getting a message as the app is not currently available in US appstore, we are now in India and also we tried to view the app by clicking the view in appstore link in the iTunes connect app page but the above given message is being shown (the app is not currently available in US appstore).
Is this a problem with the selected place for appstore?
In the uploading process we had specified some places like France, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Belgium in "Select the App Stores where your app will be sold" section.
Did those "some places" include the US? If not, I can't imagine why you'd expect the app to be available in the US app store.
Make sure that you have set the Availability date prior to current date. Check in Your App --> Rights & Pricing -> Availability date.
Hope this helps.
For starters, your app is not set as being available to be sold in the US App Store so you will not be able to find your app listed in the US App Store there.
To view the app, you will need an Apple ID that is set up for one of the countries in which the app is available e.g. France.
Log into iTunes/App Store using that Apple ID and you will be able to search the apps for that country.
If you are setting up a new Apple ID just for testing, then I recommend you follow the steps for setting up an Apple ID without a credit card (http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2534). Otherwise, you're going to have the extra hassle of having to enter credit card details for a credit card before you'll be able to access the App Store/iTunes Store.
Note: it does take time (i.e. numerous hours) for an app to appear in the app store once you've released it.