In-App Purchases not being reviewed with App Store submission

Looks like you are referring to the old docs. Have a look at this one:

https://help.apple.com/itunes-connect/developer/#/dev1986a0e5c

If that in-app purchase already existed and was approved before, then you should be able to update it at any time. So in that case that IAP will be reviewed without requiring you to upload a new app binary. In some cases the IAP is approved in one hour, and sometimes it may take couple days, but more than one week is odd for an IAP review.

I also encountered issues with IAP reviews before, and contacting Apple support always resolved it. You should receive an answer from them in usually between 1 day 3 days. So it is normal that you have to wait a bit.

Thanks for the correction. You're right, I did provide the old link, but the content I was referring to is the same in both. 🙂

Good thought on the previous submission, but none of the in-app purchases I submitted have been approved before. So, I guess that leaves waiting to see what they say. Support did reply, but they only said that they were "escalating" the issue. Maybe I figured out how to break iTunes Connect? Haha...

Dan

Well, I was reading you "updated" your IAPs and assumed they had been approved before.

If those IAPs have never been approved before, then the game is different: I guess these are also the first IAPs of your app; for the first IAPs of one app those have to be submitted together with an app binary. After you prepared your actual in-app purchases for review (which I read you did), you have to upload a new app binary and then from iTunes Connect select that binary and add the new IAPs to that new app binary and finally send the app binary into review. Here more about that:

Submit an in-app purchase for the first time

1. From the homepage, click My Apps, then select your app. The App Store page opens with App Information selected.
2. In the left column, click the app version you want to submit.
3. On the right, scroll down to the In-App Purchases section, then click the Add button ➕ next to In-App Purchases.

And about IAP issues in general: yes, there are some IAP review issues once in a while, especially early after new versions of iTunes Connect arrived. But fortunately it does not happen too often. ;-) And if you were told they are "escelating" your issue, that's good, then somebody is reviewing your case in detail very soon and will either resolve the issue on their side, or will tell you exactly what you have to do.

>I just submitted a few updates ..... the new In-App Purchases .... alongside this new update are not being approved.

As indicated by others, the first IAP of an app must be submitted with a binary. When the IAP is correctly attached to that binary then App review approves the binary and IAP together. If your binary was approved but the attached IAPs were not then either 1) the IAPs were not attached or 2) App Review did something wrong.

Hi PBK,

Thanks for your suggestion.

> As indicated by others, the first IAP of an app must be submitted with a binary. When the IAP is correctly attached to that binary then App review approves the binary and IAP together. If your binary was approved but the attached IAPs were not then either 1) the IAPs were not attached or 2) App Review did something wrong.

I think you might have missed the portion of my note where I mention that the section to add In-App Purchases on the relevant screen in iTunes Connect is not appearing for me, so I'm unable to attach any IAPs along with my binary. I see sections for iMessage App, Apple Watch, Build, General App Information, and a few others, but the In-App Purchases section is not visible. 😟

I'm still waiting on App Review to get back to me per their escalation, so I'll follow up if I have more info. It doesn't seem like the issue I'm running into is common...

Dan

> Well, I was reading you "updated" your IAPs and assumed they had been approved before.

Ah, nope, just updated the app itself. Apologies if that was confusing 🙂

> If those IAPs have never been approved before, then the game is different: I guess these are also the first IAPs of your app; for the first IAPs of one app those have to be submitted together with an app binary. After you prepared your actual in-app purchases for review (which I read you did), you have to upload a new app binary and then from iTunes Connect select that binary and add the new IAPs to that new app binary and finally send the app binary into review.

Yep, this is why I posted here. That section in iTunes Connect to submit In-App Purchases does not appear on the version screen. I'm unable to attach any new IAPs for review along with a binary. I tried resubmitting the app binary itself three times and never has a section to add In-App Purchases appeared. Each time, I just assumed that was a fluke and that they'd review the IAPs that are currently Waiting for Review, but they did not. 😕

Maybe this is an iTunes Connect bug? Thinking I might need to file a Radar...

So you are saying you didn't attach the IAP to your binary. If so, why are you surprised that the IAPs are not getting approved? Ignoring that question, have you:

1) signed all the contracts that need to be signed

2) attached a screenshot to the IAP

PBK--I know that I'm supposed to attach an IAP to the binary. That's what the documentation says, that's what I've done in the past, etc. I've been an iOS developer since it was the iPhone SDK, and I've never run into this problem. I assumed (now I know, incorrectly) that since the relevant UI in iTunes Connect was not appearing, that requirement had changed and the documentation was out of date (which it very often is).

In short, that's the entire reason I posted here--I'm literally not able to attach the IAPs. That section in iTunes Connect is just not appearing for me. Something is wrong and I'm hoping someone here can help me out.

In response to your questions:

1) All contracts have been signed.

2) Screenshots have been attached.

To be honest, I think I've run into an iTC bug. This app previously had an IAP about a year ago, but it was removed--I'm pretty sure that has something to do with why things are behaving weirdly.

Dan

So you may be stuck with the system being confused by "(t)his app previously had an IAP about a year ago" and "it was removed". If the system believes that the app has no IAPs then you must attach an IAP to a binary and submit the binary - and that select-an-IAP-to-attach should appear and there should be no way to submit the IAP directly from the IAP page. If the system believes the app has an IAP then you should be able to submit the IAP for review directly from the IAP page after attaching the screenshot and there should be no option to select-an-IAP-to-attach to a binary.

Question....if you add a new 'pretend' IAP and add a screenshot do you get to 'submit' it from the IAP page? Does it show up in the select-an-IAP-to-attach option?

Following up here to close this out. Thanks to everyone who commented with a potential answer. It turns out that this was an iTunes Connect bug. I opened a radar to report the problem (rdar://35297889), which was marked as a duplicate of rdar://35212039, which was just fixed as of November 16th, 2017.

We (WetterOnline GmbH) have the exact same issue today, but noticed the problem after we released the application. Our customers aren't able to purchase any in-app purchases cause we removed the old ones completely for the new auto-renewable subscriptions.

Can anybody help us out with a contact at Apple? It's seems to be a bug in iTunesConnect that it's not passed through with the app update.

Regards,

Andreas Grauel

Same issue for me today:

I have an app on the Mac Store with a non consumable in-app purchase since several years. I have prepare an update with a new subscription in-app purchase.

- On wednesday I have submitted both my new subscription with trial period in-app purchase and a first version of my app compatible with it for review.

- Yesterday, before the review began, I have rejected the app and submitted another to better show to my user the subscription periods on last OS.

- This app was reviewed and validated several hours ago but the in-app purchase is still in review.

So my users with the new app that have not buy the non consumable with an earlier version are not able to subscribe.

I have contacted Apple review team with the « contact us » form from iTunes Connect.

I am running into the identical issue on Feb 23. My existing app supports non consumable in-app purchase. I added a new subscription to the app and was approved and released, but the new auto-renew in-app purchase is "waiting for review". So my users with the new app cannot purchase the feature via subscription.

LiveQuartz - did you get a resolution for your app? What should I do next? Just wait or submit another version again?

Has anyone resolved this? My app is experiencing the same issues w/ IAP subscriptions but I haven't tried to release an update for a few months.

I'm in the same boat this week - no way to attach the IAP to a binary as the app previously had an IAP, and the IAP getting rejected:
> we have returned your in-app purchase products to you as the required binary was not submitted. When you are ready to submit the binary, please resubmit the in-app purchase products with the binary.
So, I just click save on the IAP again and it went into "waiting for review" status again - no idea if it will ever come out.
I then tried submitting a new binary with explanantion of how there is no way to attach the IAP to the binary, and screenshot of the form with no "attach IAP" section where taht scection normally is, and the review notes were ignored (from experience I don't know if anyone ever reads them), and the new binary approved for sale. So sadly I'm stuck with the app in the wild with broken IAP.
Trying to contact the app review team and app review appeal board has led to nothing so far.
Did the other folk in here just... wait it out?