We have an iOS App (v 1.0.3) in Test Flight. We have made extensive changes to the new test version (v 1.0.4) which we plan to release for testing on Saturday. We only have 13 or 14 testers.
Yesterday the app expired (we added it 90 days ago). This kind of snuck up on us. A tester tried to download the app and was told "This app has expired". I removed the tester and then added him to a different group. Sent him a link and it worked! I thought I found a way around expiration.
Maybe not. I did the same trick on two users late last night, one who had been using the app and the other who had not. Everything seemed to go fine. But now the manager is reporting that at least two these users can no longer use the app. The most information we have is that one user used it last night, closed the app overnight, and then when he opened the app today "it didn't work" (love those specific user reports).
Don't know what's going on but it seems we can avoid a lot of heartache by just extending the testing by 5 days.
And we cannot push out the latest version, as the web app must be upgraded at the same time and that is not happening until Saturday.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Over the past two years, we've had around 3-400 beta testers. After Apples update to TestFlight the summer of 2017, we've had problems with nearly all our TestFlight-uploads. Sometimes our beta testers receive email/notification about "a new build is ready to test" 90 days too late, at the exact time the build expires, and sometimes they don't receive notification at all. Just a handful of times it works as expected, that they get notified when we the build is available to test.
Is there a secret trick to managing TestFlight?
I upload the build, click "provide export compliance"-thing, add my internal and external group, and click "Start testing". The build automatically gets available for internal testing, and is sent to beta-review for Apple for external testing. They approve it within 24h, and the build is available in the TestFlight-app for all our beta-testers. But none of them got a notification saying there's a new build..
Followup: How can we fix this now? Do we have to upload a completely new build, or can I remove the "external testers"-group from the build and re-add them again. Will they receive a "new build available"-notifications?
Will they also receive "Build is no longer available for testing" at the moment I remove the external group from the currently active new build? Meh..
Ok. It baffles me how extremely bad Apples dev-websites and services are.
So, in my newly uploaded build, there are two "groups". One called "iTunes Connect Users", which are the internal users who are invited to the developer team. They got an email and a notification immediately when I clicked "Start Testing", because a review is not needed for internal testing.
The other group is called "External testers". The build is available for them, but they didn't get notified when the build was approved by Apple.
I was considering removing the "External testers"-group from the build, hoping for a notification when re-adding the group. But, I also thought the group might first receive "This build is no longer available for testing" or something if I removed the group from the build.
I figured I wanted to test this first, to see if testers receive a notification when I remove their group from a build, so I created a new group (called "ExternalTest"), added one single (new)test-member, and added this new group to the same active build, so that there are three groups under that build.
At the very moment I clicked "add group to build", all of our test-devices here, and apparently every single beta-tester, received a push notification from TestFlight, saying that the new build is available to test. Now, our "installed"-number is skyrocketing, as people are updating.
What the hell, Apple?
I agree with you, #Nitish, TestFlight sucks badly.
Having the exact same problem - a build was approved for external testing by Apple yesterday, but no one received a notification. I created a new group now, added my private email to it, and then added the group to the build. Swoosh! All out test devices received the push notification about the new build. Thumb down emote from me, Apple.
I myself have encountered the same problem. My client who is added as a Beta Tester receives a notification when a build is uploaded. (Never reached a state where he would need a notification where build has expired after 90 days). However, his further client is also added as a Beta tester. But doesn't receive notifications.
This is where I would like to say keenly, TestFlight sucks badly. I would suggest, the best way to track this is to check the status of Build installed or not. Usually Apple reviews the Beta build within 24 hours. At that time, make sure to check the above mentioned status. Re-invite the tester if it still doesn't work.
That's the lame way to get along this, unfortunately.
Otherwise, I would suggest going for other libraries such as Hockey or Diawi.
This is the best I can offer :)
I had a go round with the TestFlight crew a while ago about how bad their interface was. I wanted them to have a simple list that you filled out and a Save button so that you didn't have to do it all at once. Then there should be another button, Send To Testers, that you touched when done. Simple, no? Nah, they rejected my suggestion. I pointed out that when you submit an app to iTunes that's exactly how you do it. Nope, we're doing it this stupid way.
The best I can figure out is that you should walk down the left hand list in the TestFlight section one at a time starting with Builds/iOS . When you reach the bottom and fill out App Information/Test Information hitting Save sends out the invitation. Maybe...
I have an app that has been on the App Store for a few months now with about 6 previous updates that have gone very smoothly. I use Test Flight to test the app on my device before submitting. This time around everything looked fine on Test Flight as usual so I went ahead and submitted the app for review. It was approved and the status switched to ready for sale, however, when I tried to download the App from the App Store it said it was unable to downlaoad again with the options to try again or done. I have tried it on numerous devices and it appears to be a problem for everyone, not just myself. This happens even though the same build worked great with Test Flight. Can anybody help? A lot of people have failed to download or update their app and it is affecting us a lot.
Now, i understand that you have checked several devices and all got the same installation issue.
But i think, it is important for you to know,
You might face issue in installing app from App Store, with TestFlight build still installed in your device.
Please try uninstalling the Test Flight build first and then install app from App Store.
I currently have an app on iTunesConnect with a few hundred external beta testers using it. Important to note, we will have 2000 testers by the end of the month. I want to push new builds to this app- and this, I know how to do.
What I don't know is, what is the expected behavior for my beta users when I add a new build?
Our company cares a lot about user experience, and we don't want to have our current testers of our current build open the version that they've already installed, only to see it crash because I added a new build that i'm hoping will just update their current version automatically.
Apple does a good job of making a developer think this might happen. I've searched everywhere to find this answer in the docs- please help! After selecting a newly approved build to switch to in the External Testing portal, upon selecting Save, this alert appears:
(405 is the first build, 407 is the new build)
So, what happens when I save this- will users be notified that they need to update the app?
Will the "update" happen automatically for them if they've already installed the first build?
If they open the already installed version, will it simply crash?
If so, what can I do to prevent this from happening?
My team will likely want to send out 1-2 builds / week (of the same app, with fixes and improvements) to the same group of testers until we're ready to officially launch the app. I'd hate to think this would crash the app on them every time. As far as I know, there is no way for me to test this before performing this action- I'm already added as an Internal Tester, but that's a completely different UX in TestFlight (builds are made available to internal testers immediately after uploading)
If you think this has been asked already:
This is not a duplicate of this question- because I haven't attempted to send out the build yet. I want to make sure that linked issue does not happen to my testers!
My question is unlike this one where the user did not know how to properly increase his build number, unlike this one, referring to testing a new build of an app that already has a version in the app store, unlike this one which refers to a bug in the app store where a user couldn't initiate an external test after uploading a build, and unlike this one where the user just didn't know how the iTunesConnect portal works.
I'm using TestFlight to test an iOS app. For my first testable version I only invited 5 friends, of which only 2 installed the app. I'm not sure if the others got the email but I just assumed they did and ignored it.
Yesterday I submitted a new version and invited another 10 or so people. I noticed today that only the original 2 people installed the new app so I contacted 3 or 4 of the new testers and nobody has seen an email invite yet.
I read that turning off testflight, then turning it back on, would force emails to be sent. I tried that, still no joy.
Am I missing something? I have a hard time believing this is a TestFlight bug or we'd be hearing a lot more about it, right?
I see a similar question was closed as "not about programming". But this is very much about the iOS development process... I can't "program" an iOS app without getting it out for testing.
It depends where you add the users...
If you add them through "Users & Roles>TestFlight Beta Testers>External" then they are invited to test the app but not invited to the pre-release build.
If you add them through "My Apps>Your app name>Prerelease>External Testers" and tap + then you can choose to "Add New Testers" which both invites new testers to your app and adds them to the pre-release.
The only way you can add additional testers (as far as I've seen) is to update your tester list, and then upload a new binary. In other words, I don't believe you can modify the tester list on a build that's already actively being tested.