App Rejection for Freeze but testers not providing enough info

App Review is not run by engineers. They may not even know what you are asking. They may not be testing more than a single device. They also may be running in a configuration that you don't expect. If there is anything they want have, it is ambiguity. Your app needs to run on App Review devices. If there is a problem there, you can guarantee there will be problems with a few hundred million more users. You don't want to be on the receiving end of that. Sometimes, you just have to review the code, do a better job of error checking, and code defensively.

I appreciate you elucidating the experience of app reviewers, helpful to know how they may be undergoing the review process.

With all due respect however, we obviously don't want to harm our large user base and that wasn't the question. Additionally, ambiguity in debugging is precisely what you do not want. A freeze at boot can be numorous things, including an issue with Apple's latest iOS release or a bug in their latest frameworks, which is something I'm curious other's have experienced. Shared experiences is what I'm curious of.

Fundamentally, without either a locally reproducable case or without some detailed causal factors (from the reviewers or forums) you're left with wasted people hours shooting in the dark. Even the most defensively coded, precisely reviewed app cannot somehow supplant causal modeling.

App-Review is not a QA Department. They are just checking if apps follow the Appstore-Guidelines. If your app crashes at start, the reviewer can't review and this is what he (or she) has told you. Even if your app passes app-review, it can crash on millions of user devices and I don't think that many of the disappointed users will give you more information than a bad ranking.

Brigitte, as I've written earlier, I would like to fix the issue. We have tried throwing a ton of weight at the problem already and we'd simply like some clarification on device model and iOS version. For what reason would we be denied access to that information? Also, how could one conclude this affects millions of users without an actual explanation of the problem, which would be deduced by a combination of gathered information and testing over some device population?

We got in touch with a contact at Apple and they concluded it was indeed an issue from their end. The app has been subsequently re-reviewed and approved.

OK. So what was the "issue" and who is this "contact"? Most developers don't have contacts at Apple. App Review is not a debugging service. It is one of the few times that a neutral party ever tests an app before release. App Review is also one of the few people who, when they find a problem, are guaranteed to tell you.

You started this thread complaining about ambiguity. Now you've closed it with far higher degree of ambiguity. So what was this issue that can cause an app to freeze at launch? And if this happens, what other channels exist to find out more details? I'm sure people would love to know.