In-app billing fails with "Took too long to deliver"

Question

I am in the process of integrating In-App Billing in my application for unmanaged products. I've configured my application in the market already to implement the BILLING permission. I've published the product ids as expected by my in-development version of my application. I've used test products so far, but for quality assurance have been trying to test with real products, charging to an AMEX card as well as personal VISA/Mastercard cards.

When I have a transaction go through, everything in my application works without a hitch. I'm even confirming all of the notification ids, so no problems there.

Throughout the process though, I have run into an issue where there is an inability to purchase the products.

The Market application responds to the user with a dialog with text

"Purchase canceled
Your payment could not be processed. Sign in to your Google Wallet account to request support."

This issue is seen on 2 Galaxy Nexus 4G devices as well as an HTC Sensation 4G. The issue occurs on WiFi, 3G, and 4G networks. The accounts purchasing initially receive an "Order receipt" email, followed by an "Order cancellation" email. The order receipt email properly includes the full information for the transaction including product name, cost, order number, date, etc. The order cancellation also includes all of this information and describes the reason for cancellation as, "Took too long to deliver". The application gets a broadcast of a purchase state change at this time, which is the cancelation of the transaction.

Any insight into what's happening and why I'm having all of my transactions fail to complete?

Answer 1

Through email feedback from an Android Developer Advocate, I have confirmed that this is a risk/settlement issue.

Full response from him:

Dallas,

I'm sorry to hear that you've been having difficulty getting adequate support for this issue. My apologies.

The issue you describe is currently a known issue. Your assessment was correct when you said that this was a settlement/risk issue.

Specifically, these users are being flagged by Google Checkout as being in a "risk bin" by our automated systems. These users' orders are temporarily delayed while we manually investigate the account. In the majority of cases, the orders are released for processing within 24 hours without problem.

In-app billing is a special case, as all in-app billing orders are subject to a 45 second processing timeout. (This was based on feedback from several prominent app developers.) Unfortunately, this means that any user who is placed into a risk bin will have their order canceled. Attempting the purchase again 24 hours later should work correctly.

In particular, all the orders mentioned in your bug report are from the same user, whose account is currently listed as "On Hold" while a risk review is completed. (Note that accounts used for developer testing are much more likely to get flagged for risk review, as they tend to display anomalous purchasing patterns.)

Again, the Market team is aware of this issue and is actively working on improving the customer experience. Thanks for your patience.

Answer 2

Apparently, this is a Google Issue. Please check this link for more info:

http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/66e26d87a7226000?pli=1