We created an app and uploaded the bundle from dev1 developer account.
The app is in draft stage as can be seen in the screenshot below
We created the internal testing track and send the link to 4 friends to install and provide feedback.
Later we decided we want to publish/release the app from a different developer account (dev2)
We paused the internal track , uninstalled the app and requested google support to delete the app. However support is saying that as the application has 'install statistics' they cannot delete the application at this time.
Question 1: As per https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9023647 it should be possible to delete a draft. Am I misunderstanding draft status somehow?
Question 2: Is there something I can do to reset the install statistics. I could not find clear meaning of 'App must have 0 lifetime installs'. From literal meaning it appears if any one installs it even once, then it can never be deleted.
Question 3: If it is not possible to delete the app, is following workaround inline with google's policies
We leave the application as is in dev1 account (i.e. not published, internal testing track paused) .
We also unhook this version of the application from the back end server.
There after we publish the app from a different account (dev2) with new package name.
Related
We have developed a app for Microsoft teams and our first version was published on the app store. We are now working on the next version. However we are not sure how we have to submit the new version for team store review without impacting the existing users. For instance, some of our bot commands will behave differently in the new version. If we have only one backend instance running, when we submit it to store team for review we will impact the experience of existing production users as well.
Ideally we would follow a blue-green approach to release new features to selected customers, but in this case we are not really sure how and where to differentiate requests coming (mainly through bot communication, since we can add a app version header in web communication) from multiple versions of the app. We thought of creating new set of resources (app registration, bot channel registration etc) on Azure portal but I guess that would be treated as a new app and not a version update.
Any ideas or pointers on how to achieve this would be of great help.
This is a good point, I don't think there's anything out of the box to deal with this. What you've suggested might indeed be the best way:
create new app registration & bot channel registration, with temporary name (e.g. MyBot2)
update manifest to use new bot, and submit for store approval with this manifest
once approved, and app is live (you can schedule a go-live time when you submit the app), rename both bots (original to MyBotV1 or something, and MyBot2 to MyBot)
In any case, I'd work with the app submission team around this, they're very helpful and engaged.
Looking into building some Gsuite Marketplace apps, but we have having issues at the publish time already.
Publishing an app following these steps makes the app to be accessible from the Chrome Marketplace.
(e.g. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/qwertzuiopasdfghjkl/publish-accepted)
Using Chrome web store app link (e.g. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/app-name/qwertzuiopasdfghjkl)
redirects to a Gsuite link (e.g. https://gsuite.google.com/marketplace/app/qwertzuiopasdfghjkl?pann=cwsdp&hl=en-US) but brings a 404 page.
Waiting seems to do the job (url works after a couple of days - approval)
Changing app type from "Private" to "Unlisted" break it completely; even waiting up to a week, the link never works again.
My questions are:
How do you switch between "Visibility options" without breaking your
app?
How do you guys deal with updating publishing apps on Gsuite
Marketplace and keep it working?
Cheers!
Every new update requires a new installation. So everytime you make changes whether feature or visibility settings, treat it as if you were uploading a new app.
If you change the visibility, it will undergo a review process as if it were a new app.
Users who have already installed your app will still be able to use it.
I'm working on GSuite application and wondered how my backend can be notified when new domain admin installs my app?
You can use the license notification api to retrieve a list of current installs. https://developers.google.com/apps-marketplace/v2/reference/licenseNotification/list
After installation the user will probably start or setup your app. You could add your own webhook notification when the user goes through this First Run Experience. (This is what we did)
There is another thing you might be able to pull off: As far as i know, an event is fired to Google Analytics on install. Maybe you can add an alert/webhook in Google Analytics.
However, i was having some problems with the events to show up in GA in the first place.
I set up Google Play Games Services through the Google Play Developer Console by following the instructions here.
I went through the troulbeshooting guide here.
If i run my app through eclipse, it can connect fine to Play Games. However now the update is released and if I download it from the Play Store it cannot connect.
I verified that my SHA1 from the android export matches what is in the developer console. I even tried linking a new app with the SHA1 and it says: "This client ID is globally unique and is already in use."
I am now panicking because my game is live and can't connect. Help!
EDIT:
I added my client ID through the Google Play Developer Console, not the Google Developer Console. I removed the Client ID that was in the Google Developer Console.
Edit:
I cannot add a new client in GDC, i get an error about "duplicate fingerprint":
Have you tried deleting the console project related with your play service game installed application ?
Before altering / adding new API clients, make sure that you have checked the following:
IS your play games project published?
Or, are the accounts you are using for testing included on the testers list?
Are you signing your app correctly? If you are using your debug keystore in a released game, the app will not correctly be able to authenticate.
At any rate, deleting clients could fix working apps if you have already published and I'd hate to give you advice that breaks stuff. That said, if you're sure you need to create / recreate your client, move on.
The reason you are encountering the "This client ID is globally unique and is already in use." issue is that there exists a client with the same package name and SHA-1 hash in any Google Developer console project (not necessarily a Google Play Games project, not necessarily the current project, and not necessarily a project for your account if you are working on teams). This is because the combination of package name and SHA-1 hash must be unique for authentication.
At any rate, it's possible that the project still has a client (for Android) created that needs to be removed. This means that you must either remove the "bad" client from the developer console, re-sign your app with a new keystore, or use a different package name.
Option 1 - Removing clients
Although this is the most destructive option, it may be a good approach if you already removed clients from the Play Games Developer console and don't want to change your configuration.
Access your project from https://console.developers.google.com because this will give you a superset of the clients created from the play games console and will have an according project. Select the APIs & Auth -> Credentials section. From here, remove any Android clients you intend to replace.
Return to https://play.google.com/apps/publish and select your games project. You should now be able to add another client.
Option 2 - Create a new keystore
This is best covered in the Android documentation. After changing your keystore, you will be able to add another client using the new keystore signature.
Option 3 - Change the package name
You must update com.yourname.app with something other than com.yourname.app. This means renaming folders in your Android project, changing includes and package namespaces, and updating your project's AndroidManifest.xml.
After changing any of these, you should be able to create a working Google API project and get your app ready.
Have you only one account?
"This client ID is globally unique and is already in use."
Maybe someone is using your sha1... or you with another account
We've seen cases like this:
Migrate a GAM1 domain to GAM2, the 'new' Gmail Gadget works fine for a couple days, then a few days later it stops showing for the entire domain. The client re-installs the GAM2 app which triggers the Gmail gadget to show again, but unexpectedly their migrated product review is no longer visible.
We asked one client to re-check this and they reported back that they can see the review from within their own account, but other marketplace users cannot see it.
We can demonstrate this by confirming their domain is migrated then comparing the previous review in GAM1 with GAM2. I can provide a couple examples privately.