With our latest release, we converted our app from paid to in-app subscription purchase. We promised our current users that we would grandfather them into the subscription because they already paid for the app. In our code, we look for a valid receipt with an original application version prior to our first subscription version. It all worked great in our tests.
When we released the new app, we started getting feedback from our long-term users that they were being asked to subscribe (they shouldn't even see the subscribe button). As we researched the issue, we noticed that all of these users purchased our app prior to the app being transferred to a new developer in September of 2014.
Recreating this issue is difficult - how do we simulate an app install in 2014? I may be able to login as one of the affected users, which would involve using their Apple credentials. I'm not very comfortable asking users to share their credentials.
Since I haven't been able to recreate it and our code is pretty simple, my best guess as to what is happening is that we aren't receiving a valid receipt for users that purchased prior to the app transfer in 2014.
So, I have a few questions:
Has anyone else experienced this?
If so, how have you resolved it?
How would you troubleshoot it?
FYI - I've filed an issue with Apple (3045378).
In speaking with Apple Developer Technical Support, we discovered a way to pull the NSLog messages off of the devices using the recently released Unified Logging feature. A couple of our users submit their logs, which clearly showed that they were getting valid receipts, but the originally purchased versions of those receipts are 4 and 2.8.
Given that our current version is 1.7.1, these are strange and non-typical numbers. However, the Original Application Version reported from the receipt is actually the CFBundleVersion (or Build), which can be a completely different string than the App Version reported in the App Store.
I assume that the developer prior to the app transfer was using a different build numbering system than the standard ... scheme.
I refined the version check within my code and re-submitted the app. It was released today, and, so far, all are being grandfathered correctly.
Related
Short Version:
My freemium iOS app sends the app receipt to my server for validation and to check wether a users is eligible for subscription introductory offers. I noticed that there are a lot of receipts with no IAPs inside. This would mean that many users have been using the free trial version for years, which is quite unlikely.
So when is IAP informatioin added to the receipts?
Long Version:
My app has been offered in the iOS App Store for several years using a Freemium Model: User can download the app for free and test it for an unlimited time with limited features. A non-consumable in-app purchase can than be uses to remove these feature limits.
In theory users can use the app indefinitely without any purchase just using the test feature set. However, the due to the limitations this is highly unlikely.
Recently I have updated the app to offer subscription. To check if users are eligible for introductory offers the app receipt is send to my server for validation.
I noticed that there are a lot of receipts with no IAPs inside. Even for receipts with original_app_versions which are several years old. This would mean that many users have been using the free trial version for years, which is quite unlikely (due to the very limited feature set).
So when is IAP informatioin added to the receipts?
The new app version send the receipt to my server on the first start. There are three possible cases:
The app was never used before and this is the first installation of the app ever.
original_app_version == current version
Of course on the first start there are no IAPs, so nothing unusual in this
This an updated of an earlier version which was installed before
original_app_version < current version
The app / App Store hat plenty of time to include possible IAPs in the receipt
An earlier version of the app was used but than uninstalled. Now the current version has been re-installed
original_app_version < current version
Since has just been installed it might be possible that the IAPs are not included in the receipt yet?case.
So, only the 2. and 3. case interesting here. Why should previous non-consumable IAPs be stored in the 2. case since the app has been installed and running for a long time?
On the other hand it quite unlikely that thousands of previous users have now re-installed my app and thus resulted in case 3. Even if this really the case, is there anything the app can do to manually trigger the store to add previous IAPs to the receipts? Or does the user have to restore previous purchases first?
EDIT:
As far as I understand the Appel docs it does not really matter what information is stored in the receipt which can be found on the devices. When I upload this receipt to my server it acts like an token when being send to Apple for validation.
Apple than responds with the latest receipt information available (if the receipt/token was valid) in clear text.
Thus it shouldn't really matter how long the app was installed on the device or wether it was a new install or a re-install: Apple provides the latest information available. Thus if there ever was an IAP it should be included in the returned information. Right?
But this would mean that there are thousands of users which have been using a very, very, very limited trial version over years which seems very, very, very unlikely...
Is there any other explanation?
I have what I believe to be a pretty unique situation and I can't seem to find a solution online. The problem timeline:
4 years ago I paid a developer to build/upload an app to the iOS App Store for me under my own developer account.
Over the years it became outdated and this April it was kicked out of the App Store
I took some online courses this year and rebuilt the app from the ground up.
I would like to post my rebuilt version to the App Store - completely fresh like it's a brand new app (because it basically is)
A couple more things to consider...
I used Swift vs the original Objective-C that the developer used.
I used UserDefaults instead of what appears to be iCloud. (the dev account seems to be littered with permissions for things I don't intend to use - so advice on how to get rid of all of the weird stuff I don't use would be helpful, too)
I also have a different but similar bundle identifier (it replaces "RandomRuby" with "Random-Ruby") that Apple's App ID registration system seems to not like.
The level content and game play are the same - but I have no idea how to figure out what level the previous users were on. (which I'm ok with if it's ethical to make people start over).
It had In-App purchases (they could purchase consumable "Rubies" to use for hints and there was an "Ad Free" upgrade option. The new app doesn't use ads - it just has consumable "Rubies" for monetization). I have no plan to add ads back in - so I imagine a complete reset would be ok here, too? Again - is that ethical?
With all of this context - my question is...
How do I upload a completely-rebuilt-from-scratch app with the exact same name from the exact same company as an expired app through the iOS Developer system? Is this even possible? I'm having a hard time figuring out where to start. I can't even get past creating an App ID.
To update an existing app in your Apple Developer account you only need to use the same BUNDLE ID (e.g. com.apple.keynote) in your Xcode project and a higher version/build number. Everything else is not relevant.
Your previous iOS APP is bounded with the Apple Developer account when it was submitted. And the APP name is unique, just like anyone else may not create another app named 'Facebook'.
So, if the Apple Developer account was not yours, you are in trouble. You need to ask the previous programmer to transfer the APP to you.
If the Apple Developer account was merely expired, and you can prove that the account belongs to you, I guess you can contact Apple Support for help.
I have a paid app that was released on iOS 4. It hasn't been updated and I'm now reworking it to work with iOS 10. Since in app purchasing was not a thing, I made a free (lite) and paid version of the app. I would like to update the paid version to iOS 10 and change it from paid to free with ads and an in app purchase to remove ads.
I tried researching various methods and I have not found a fool proof way or evidence that one will work in all cases. The two most prevelant methods I found:
Use an existing UserDefaults key value to determine if they opened the old app and then grant them no ads in the new version.
I don't think this method will work, as if the app was uninstalled or the user redownloads it after the update they would not have that value.
I believe iOS 7 offered receipt checking. Use receipt checking to determine if the user has paid for the app and check if the date is before the new version date.
I'm not sure if this would work either. I saw in the documentation to verify locally. Would everything I need exist if the app was an iOS 4 app originally? Would this work for users who had the app through a promo code? What if they don't have an internet connection at the time they open the app? I had trouble finding sample code for this option to test.
How would I go about doing this? Are any of the methods above the only way or are there others?
Out of all the resources I found on this subject, checking the receipt seems to be your only feasible choice. If you have an account where you purchased your app, you can run the new version of the app via Xcode with that account and see if the receipt validation gives you the expected information. Though installing the app via Xcode may alter the receipt that the account has, you may want to check on that.
NSUserDefaults option could work if you were setting any value to NSUserDefaults on the iOS 4 version.
We have had users reporting that they have paid for our product via in-app purchase but we have failed to unlock the content. The common denominator between these reports is iOS 9 so far. It seems like the purchase with success method does not get called. The IAP seems to work and even says that the purchase has been restored successfully (Apple's own alert), yet it does not deliver the content (unlocks the app).
This is a very odd bug because it works perfectly fine on iOS 10, and there is no reason why it should't work on other older devices. At some point, we had a customer complain of the same issue with iOS 10 as well and we just can't produce the issue. I am using RMStore for my in app purchases but this has not started since we used this library. It has been happening even with standard IAP integration.
Does anyone knows or may have heard of what causes this issue?
Any tips would be great!
I have several apps on the App Store and I'm facing similar issues. For about 1% of the users, the success callback is not called after an in-app purchase. If the users restore their purchases later, the purchased features unlock properly, so the App Store processed the purchase properly, and this is likely a bug in the app. I could never find the issue as I could not reproduce it on any of my devices.
After I just read that you use RMStore, I checked the emails that my users sent me during the last two years about this issue and noticed that this occurs exclusively with apps that use RMStore. While the code of that library looks really clean, I assume that the bug is somewhere hidden in there.
As RMStore hasn't been updated since almost two years, I consider it deprecated and will remove it from my apps in the near future. I will update this answer if the issue persists after the removal.
Update after three months: After the removal of RMStore for the in-app purchase handling from one of my apps, the problems have apparently disappeared.
Here is the history of my app.
In v1.0 I didn't have IAP.
In v2.0 I had IAP code, and it worked while I was developing. When v2.0 was released, I checked and run a non-testing device (an iPhone under my itunesconnect user name, but does not have provision file installed, so I take it as a non-relevant device) and I got error message, which of course was set up by myself. The error is for situation that the app could not connect to Apple or could not find IAP for the app. The error shows up quickly right after clicking buy IAP. This is as expected since no product ID is available. It doesn't need wait payment queue at all.
Then I checked itunesconnect and found the IAP probably not linked to the app, so I updated to v2.1 and added the IAP to my app in itunesconnect (no real code change, at least no IAP-related code changed), and IAP works fine finally in development stage in my testing iPad. Now v2.1 came out, but I still have the same problem as v2.0, that means IAP encounters error, most likely no IAP product ID found. At the time I'm typing, v2.1 has been released for 2 hours, and I still have quick error --- the product ID problem, most likely.
[edit]
BTW, there was a glitch between v2.0 and v2.1. When I noticed the IAP was not linked to my app, I did something too quick so that I cannot remember exactly. Basically the IAP was hung over there, I could modify it or submit it. After talking to Apple, I was told I need reject my binary of v2.1 and resubmit v2.1 along with the IAP. I don't know if this is related, but anyway I can buy IAP in development stage with my sandbox testing iPad.
[edit]
Any idea? Thanks.
BTW, the app is set to English default, but with Chinese/Spanish localization.
[edit]
One more thing, don't know if it's related. All v1.0, v2.0, and v2.1 versions are deployed to iOS 6 or later. When I was developing v2.1, I was trying to back to iOS 5 (via adopting so deprecated methods or constants). My app could run on iOS 5, but IAP wouldn't work iOS 5. Since IAP doesn't work, there's no point for me to go compatible with iOS 5, so I removed all deprecated methods and constants and went back to original v2.0 version and resubmitted with linked IAP to become v2.1.
For those who cares, here is my app. You're welcome to try. long press first page would get you to options page where you can try buy IAP --- no worry, there is supposed to be a confirmation dialog where you can cancel, even if my IAP works.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/icalc24!/id566916783?mt=8
[edit]
One more edit:
OH yeah, it works now. I don't which step of the following make it work:
1, I delete my app and restart my iPhone again (and again, yes) and re-download
2, it's 4 hours now after v2.1 is approved.