CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidgoogle-playplay-billing-library
Martin Gudmundson
Martin Gudmundson

Reputation: 21

Google Play Billing, ITEM_UNAVAILABLE for Unpublished / Transferred app?

I've gotten an Android app transferred to my developer account. This app was a payed app. It will transition to a subscription based model, so i first Unpublished the app, and changed it's price to free.

After that I configured subscriptions and started testing and always get the response ITEM_UNAVAILABLE when trying to do a purchase. Doesn't matter if I try with one of my test accounts or someone that is not added to that list.

I have set up a clone of the app on the same developer account with the exact same configuration and built with the same source code and it works properly there which makes me think it's something related to the app being in a strange state due to being unpublished or having been transferred.

I've had a support issue opened with Google since January, they are telling me that they there is an issue on their side, but gives me very non specific answers regarding if they will fix it.

Things i've already done and verified:

  1. I've added testers to the Licence testing page in Settings
  2. Configured prices for the countries in which the testers have their accounts connected to.
  3. Not using any hard coded offer tokens. Everything sent back to the Billing framework is data recieved from the Billing framework.
  4. Sent in the new version through review (And gotten it accepted even though subscriptions doesn't work) Changes are ready to publish, but is held back by Managed publishing.
  5. Changed App Availability to Published in Advanced Settings.
  6. Tested with users that are not added to our testing lists, with an direct APK installation
  7. Tested with exact same codebase and subscription configuration with another app in the same developer account.

My hope is someone else has been in the same situation as me and have figured out a way to go around this issue.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 213

Answers (1)

Martin Gudmundson
Martin Gudmundson

Reputation: 21

Can confirm that this resolved after changing the app back to published.

My problem was that the old version that was previously deployed had policy issues which blocked the app from being set back to publish, without also sending out a new version.

Since i did not have the codebase for the previous version, I couldn't do anything else than sending out an untested version in production.

I recieved a tip from a discord group to control the subscription feature with a Firebase Remote Config so that if it didn't work, i at least could hide the subscription functionalities in my app.

Very stressful release day..

Upvotes: 1

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