Subscription Unavailable - Strange Behavior with StoreKit

App & System Services StoreKit Subscriptions StoreKit App Store Connect In-App Purchase

Created Jul ’24

Replies 26

Boosts 13

Views 2.8k

Participants 20

I added my first subscription to my app using StoreKit's SubscriptionStoreView. Everything worked as expected in the debug environment and also in TestFlight. So I submitted my app and subscriptions to App Store Connect, got everything Approved and released. After updating my app through App Store and checking the Subscription View, it just says "Subscription Unavailable. The subscription is unavailable in the current storefront."

I waited around 3 days and still getting the same message. Now the very strange behavior starts. I went to App Store Connect, I made and edit to the subscription description, saved, removed the edit, saved, and submitted to review. 15 minutes later the subscriptions appear in my app and everything works as expected. After getting the edit approved, the Subscription View in my app again only showed the message "Subscription Unavailable. The subscription is unavailable in the current storefront." No user is able to see the subscriptions anymore, even though it worked as expected before the edit was approved.

So I did the same as before. Again, make an edit to the subscription description, save, remove the edit, save, submit to review. 15 minutes later the subscriptions are again available in my app and it works as expected.

This is definitely not the expected behavior and submitting the subscription edits every day is wasting the App Review Team's time as well as mine. I contacted Apple Developer Support but I didn't get any reply back (at least yet).

I am not the only one experiencing this. I found a friend online who has the exact same issue, and is able to temporarily solve it by making an edit to the subscription description as well.

So far it has been a huge headache, and we are losing customers this way. Please if anyone has experience with this problem, or has any suggestions, they will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much,

Tomas

Boost

hanstardev OP

Aug ’24

Update: it turns out I had to re-sign the paid app contract after migrating the developer program from individual to LLC recently. Actually, I thought I signed it but it was not Paid App contracts which I had to search around the AppStoreConnect to find out the fact that it was missing. I doubted this when I found yesterday that storefront didn't work even in the Sandbox environment which worked fine before.

Within 3 hours of signing the contract the storefront started working in the sandbox environment, and within 15 hours, the production build with the AppStore started to work. I should probably note that I also updated the reference name of the products in an attempt to enforce them to be refreshed quickly, but it didn't take in effect until 10 hours were passed additionally, so without the heck it might have just worked after some time has passed after the paid app contracts were signed.

I'm still opening store front using groupID, so this might not be applicable to SPEEDCUP and Thomssie.

rickystone OP

Aug ’24

@SPEEDCUP @Thomssie I am still gathering information but it seems the Subscription View is still active since the fix 🙂

blue_box OP

Aug ’24

I can confirm that the issue still exists. Just released a new app that uses SubscriptionStoreView(groupID: "someGroupId"). I tested on Simulator and Test Flight, there were no issues at all. After the app is approved and released, I got a message from a user who was complaining about the "Subscription unavailable" screen on my app. I didn't test my app after the release because I thought if everything works on Test Flight, there shouldn't be any issues on the App Store.

After the message, I installed the app and got the same error. Then, I implemented the change, SubscriptionStoreView(productIDs: ["someProductId1", "someProductId2"]) and submitted a fix this morning. The app is just approved, I installed the new version and the store page works now.

It is really sad that Apple is not acknowledging this issue and trying to fix it. I shared my app yesterday on LinkedIn and my landing page got hundreds of visitors. Probably I missed a lot of sales because of the bug in the StoreKit API. I guess from now on, I will need to test my app not only on Test Flight but also on the App Store.

@SPEEDCUP thank you for sharing the workaround!

_blahblahblah OP

Aug ’24

I encountered the same issue with my app that was first released on 7/21. It all of a sudden stopped working on 7/30 with the same behavior everyone else has described on the same release from 7/21 in production.

I used the workaround suggested by @SPEEDCUP using SubscriptionStoreView(productIDs:) instead of SubscriptionStoreView(groupID:), and released a new version today, and that fixed the problem.

Would still love to see this fixed, because I would rather not have to hardcode the product IDs, instead of the group ID.

I submitted the issue through Feedback Assistant and the issue number is FB14689938.

Aerocan OP

Aug ’24

Same issue here. Will implement the workaround. Apple should pay attention to this bug....

Wegerhoff OP

Aug ’24

I had the same issue "subscription not available in storefront." The problem was gone after confirming the new requirement, if my app would offer loot boxes to minors.

rickystone OP

Aug ’24

@Thomssie @SPEEDCUP I am now getting strange behavior when using more than one product in the SubscriptionStoreView using the product ids, when tapping either button nothing happens and both buttons are tapped! Anyone else having this issue?

matheo-at-apple OP

Aug ’24

Hi everyone,

I'm currently testing my app's subscription feature in the sandbox environment, but I'm encountering an issue where my subscriptions are not appearing in the StoreView. I've implemented the StoreKit configurations and ensured that the product IDs are correctly set up. However, when I try to display the subscriptions in the StoreView, nothing appears.

Here are a few details about my setup:

I’m using StoreKit to manage auto-renewable subscriptions. The product IDs are correctly registered and match those in App Store Connect. Testing in the sandbox environment. I’ve confirmed that my internet connection is stable, and there are no apparent issues with the request. Despite this, the StoreView remains empty, and I'm unable to see any subscription options. Has anyone else encountered this problem? If so, how did you resolve it?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Horatiu OP

Aug ’24

Hi,

I had the same problem and also filed a bug report.

Since this morning, everything works as expected. Perhaps it was a problem on their backend.

Apple

Aug ’24

Thank you for reporting and to those who also raised a ticket. This issue has been resolved and SubscriptionStoreView(groupID: "someGroupId") will return the products info correctly.

jforward5 OP

Aug ’24

Suddenly I am now having the same issue. Using the product id's is allowing the store view to show but the subscriptionstatustask doesn't work...How are we to make that work with product ids?