I created an auto-renewable In-App Purchase (IAP) and added it to an app in iTunesConnect (ITC). The app got rejected because of missing information for the end user in the binary and the AppStore metadata (I had to explain how much it costs, that it is auto-renewing etc.). So I added the missing info to the app and metadata ...
tl;dr
... but now I no longer can add the existing IAP to the app version in ITC.
Detailed Walkthrough
... which (hopefully) fixed the issues, then I removed the old build (which cleared the error state of the app version) and instead added the fixed build. The IAP in the "Features" tab still had a red flag on it; I fixed this by following this tip. I dug further into the belly of the beast and found the the IAP group's name also had a red marker next to it. This time I followed this tip and got rid of that error as well.
The IAP status is now "Waiting for Review", which I don't fully understand as I cannot send the IAP into review on its own (or can I?). When going back to the app version page I no longer can add the IAP to the version (as depicted in the first screenshot of this guide).
What should I do now?
Delete the IAP and create a new one?
Delete the whole app and create a new one?
Just submit the app and hope that the IAP will still be available, even though it's not shown in the app version's details?
EDIT
As already mentioned in the comments: my question is not a duplicate of this one. There, the solution is to add the IAP to the
"In-App Purchases section of the Version Details page".
I am well aware that this would be the solution. However, the whole point of my question is that this very section is not available to me. I already have performed all the mentioned steps before, but after getting the app rejected once this section vanished and thus I cannot add the IAP anymore.
It looks like ITC considers my (single) IAP invalid and thus doesn't allow me to select it... and so for ITC there's no reason to even show the UI for adding an IAP.
It seems that just re-submitting the same version works! Make sure the In App Purchase is in the "waiting for review" status again (maybe by editing the description).
Related
So we've submitted first version of our app with over 60 iAPs, but it got rejected because of the bug. When we resubmitted a new bundle, iAP section in "Prepare for submission" page was not available anymore, and iAPs were in "Developer action needed" state.
All the iAPs have "Rejected" on default English localization row. When I change something there and save, it change to "Prepare for submission", but state of the iAP is still the same.
I've also asked app review team twice in review notes to review our iAPs. Twice new versions have passed the review but iAPs are still the same, and they're not working in the app at all, products are just not showing.
Please help, any ideas are appreciated.
To anyone reading this in the future and struggling - there's no obvious way to solve this. It is (yet another) bug in App Store Connect.
We had another app that was rejected after first submission, but after resubmitting iAPs changed to "Approved" and worked. But not for this one though.
Had to submit a ticket to support, in the end they manually pushed iAPs and subscription to "In review", and after that they were approved. It was done without resubmitting another binary.
I read many answers here with similar problems but none helped me to get my app approved. It's been 3 weeks of trial and error. I am totally frustrated of it.
What I am trying to do:
I am submitting my first app (there is no other app with my account created yet).
I have one in-app purchase (nonconsumable) in my app that removes ads and opens all content.
Sounds easy right?
I have been rejected for a few different reasons that has one thing in common - they (Apple testers) cannot successfully perform in-app purchase.
What I did:
Successfully bought and restored in app-purchase with my sandbox user.
At first I was using swifty storekit library. Got refused with "Unknown error. Please contact support" So I ditched this library and Implemented whole code myself, according to apple documentation.
As I read there can be problem with my agreements, tax and banking settings in Itunes connect - found out that there was red line about transfering my account settings (dont remember exact line) - did dissapear after 2 days by itself as I read in some answer here. There is no problem there now.
Did find out that I must wait some time before in-app purchase starts working. I takes about 2 days to in-app purchases start working with testflight user, so waited until it starts to work - then successfully bought in-app purchase and restore also works fine even with testflight testing account. (again got refused)
there is not exactly stated how to submit first in-app purchase ever, it is just said submit with binary. I did not get this at first, found out that I should not send in app purchase by itself, but I should "append" my in app purchase in the same form as I am sending my app. At first I tried to send my in app purchase in its own formular. But then I got rejected with error "We found that while you have submitted in-app purchase products for your app, the in-app purchase functionality is not present in your binary." (I say it again - there must be api there as I can successfully buy app with test account).
read in some other answer that I can ask to get my in app purchase approved, so I write "please approve my in app purchase - they did, but I got refused.
Now I cannot select this in app purchase with my binary, as it is not shown for selection probably because it is already approved. So I did submit app without it and got the "in-app purchase functionality is not present in your binary" error again.
Created new in app purchase, this one can be selected to be submited with app. Got rejected again, with error.
"can not connect to iTunes"
In app-purchase is then switched to "Developer Action Needed". This is probably a good thing as if they would approve it then I could not select it with binary as it would be invisible.
What else should I try? What to change? Where to look? I am totaly lost. 3 weeks of time lost. As I cannot reproduce the problem I cannot solve it. Programing is easy, but to get app approved looks like imposible.
Few of many many visited links:
In App Purchase functionality is not present in your binary
iOS In-App purchase works in development but not in production
https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/13324
https://www.innofied.com/in-app-purchase-working-ios-solution/
What I did next: recorded video of myself successfully buying in app purchase with my testflight account and uploaded it to youtube, added link to my reply form.
Next try: I sent them this message:
"Good evening,
I am totally out of options. Is there anybody at apple who I can consult this? ... Because, everything is working on my side. As I cannot reproduce your problems I can't make it right.
I have tested it with my sandbox user - it works - I can make a purchase successfully and I can restore it too. I noticed that with testflight it needs some time to start working (about two days). So with this build I waited two days and when it did start working on testflight i submited my app. This is my first submit of app ever, should I do something special? You already approved my first in-app purchase in one of my trials, but I cannot select it to be published with my app as it is already approved (it is not shown, so cannot be selected) and if i dont submit it with my app then I got rejected with confusing error stating that in app purchase api is not included. So I created second in-app purchase - the one submited here which is now after rejection in "Developer Action Needed" as you rejected the app. So what can I do now? Don't you need to wait some time after you approve my in app purchase (submited with the app) to start working? Did you approve my in-app purchase which I submited with my app by the way? Please dont send me link to the documentation. As everything works on my side there is nothing I can find there. Give me some advice or contact to someone who can Investigate what is wrong on your side, as you cannot make it work... thank you in advance"
After rougly one day, status did change (they changed) to "in review", and after another half hour I did get email with "Congratulations! We're pleased to let you know that your app, Juggling, has been approved for the App Store"
So to answer my own question ... how to get through application approval? I don't know. What I did wrong, what should I do? I don't know. Are there real people there or artificial inteligence? I don't know. What exactly was the problem? I don't know. What did finally do a change? I don't know. Hope this answers will help next generations of programmers get their apps approved in the future. (Pun intended)
Thank you
I'm trying to release a new version of an existing app to the app store. The app already has consumable IAP's and the new version is implementing Auto renewing subscriptions.
When i submitted the new version of the app to review i had already linked the IAP's to the new binary.
The first time, the IAP's got rejecting due to metadata issues and the IAP's went into the "Developer action needed" state. After this i included the metadata they asked for and i made a trivial change to the localized descriptions, which caused the IAP's to go into the "Waiting for review" state.
These (1, 2) stackoverflow posts state that i should resubmit the binary for review again. However when i did that, the reviewer was not able to locate the IAP's in the app so i got rejected again due to "Performance: App Completeness". He attached a screenshot where the new subscriptions weren't loaded with the other IAP's, so the subscriptions were in fact not visible during review. The same build works and loads the products correctly in TestFlight so i don't understand what is causing the issue.
I have tried submitting for review again with the same result.
The reviewer mentioned the auto renewing subscriptions explicitly by their reference names, so they must be linked to the binary. He just wasn't able to see them...
Has anyone experienced anything like this? Am i maybe missing something?
Hope you guys can help! :)
I am trying to change my Bundle-ID & SKU but i came to know that its not possible.
So i decided to delete this app and create the new one with appropriate naming, still i didn't submit anything to itunes.
But there is no option for deleting the submission
This is my 1st experience with itunes connect. When i created my 1st project, i gave random Bundle-ID & SKU, now my app is ready and i realised that it should be something else.
Any help will be great.
You can change it here (follow the red square as shown below)
In my case i accidentally entered version number '6.0.1' when i actually wanted '6.1'.
The 'version' field is editable. when you change it and hit the 'save' button (give it a second..) it will change.
There is no way to delete an app in that state, according to the iTunes Connect Developer Guide.
Apps that have not been approved yet can’t be deleted
The only thing we can do for now is to change the name and bundle ID until Apple changes its mind.
Edit: Seems that Apple finally made this possible according to Leszek Szary's answer here
As of Year 2017, everything is still the same.. what a shame
This rule is so counter-intuitive especially for people who plan to test the app with testflight like us..
I don't know if this is gonna work. But we will prepare two apple accounts, one for testing and just name the SKU and etc whatever works. The other one is the official account use to submit app to app store..
Hope it will get fixed soon.
I saw many people experiencing this issue. The only way update version is to contact apple team. Here is it how I did.
Click on the help icon on the iTunesconnect and click on contact us. Check screenshot.
You will see
Please choose from the following topics: (select itunes connect upload or general error help)
Now you will see
If you need further assistance resolving your iTunes Connect error message, contact us.
Now click on contact us and you will see contact form like this.
Write your issue properly with your apple id. You will get the option to change version once they review your issue.
It took me only one day to get their reply. You will get email like this from apple team.
We are in 2019 and Apple finally (!) added a possibility to delete an app in "Prepare for Submission" state which was not previously accepted in the App Store at all (for example if you added a test app only for Testflight).
Now you can simply go to "App information" section and at the bottom you will see "Remove App" option which removes the entire application.
Also Apple's website with help: https://help.apple.com/app-store-connect/#/dev28d17ed35 was updated and now it confirms that you can remove apps in "Prepare for Submission" state:
To remove an app from your main view in My Apps, it must be first
removed from the App Store and any associated in-app purchases must be
removed from sale.
Additionally, 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
Removed from Sale
Apps can’t be removed if they are part of a Game Center group, in an
app bundle, currently available on the App Store, associated with
in-app purchases available for sale, or if they're being actively
transferred to another account.
If the app is part of a Game Center group or app bundle and hasn't
been approved yet, it must be removed from the group or bundle before
it can be removed from your main view in My Apps. App bundles and
approved apps that are part of a Game Center group cannot be removed.
I also got the version ID wrong for an update and then there was no way to change it.
I think the best way is to update the build numbering. go to project and under identity section increment the build number.
for me it was
Version : 1.4.3
Build :0.4
I changed it to
Version : 1.4.3
Build :0.5
I didn't find any other solution to my problem. Hope this helps someone
Not sure if this is fixing the issue at hand, but I managed to change my wrongly assigned version number by simply going to the "General App Information" section in the bad version and updating it in the textfield!
I'm not sure how this works with new apps that don't have published versions yet but if it does you'll first need to set the old version to "Remove from Sale". After that you'll be able to remove the entire app.
First, submit your app for review purpose, after some time (In my case 3hr) remove option will appear on your app version details page, you can remove build and upload new build again with the same version but after removal of the build, it takes some time before uploading again.
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