I've run into similar issues, and found that it's more reliable in terms of impact on the end user to implement a second level of state tracking separately from what Google Play returns. So, you might want to do that depending on what your license policy is.
On Monday, March 31, 2014 9:32:41 PM UTC-4, Ted Hopp wrote: > > We have an app that uses the following license policy: > > - if a definitive response of LICENSED is stored in the app's > preferences and has not expired, allow access. > - if a definitive response is not stored in the app's preferences, or > if it has expired, or if the cached response is NOT_LICENSED, request > a license check from the server. > - if a definitive response (LICENSED or NOT_LICENSED) is received, it > is stored in the prefs, along with the license validity period returned by > the server. Access is permitted if the definitive response is LICENSED. > - if anything other than a definitive response is received (airplane > mode, server error, etc.), the last stored definitive response is used to > determine access, even if expired. If no response is stored, allow access. > > (This is basically the same as the LenientPolicy described in this > thread<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/android-developers/%22NOT_LICENSED%22$20response/android-developers/Pg1R5COMLD8/mBiKJyUxp0MJ>. > > We're aware of its weaknesses, but generally it works for us.) > > The problem is that we occasionally receive reports of customers being > denied use of the app due to a license problem. These are installations > that definitely should be receiving a server response of LICENSED. When > the problem happens, and when we've been able to obtain details, it always > turns out that the user's device was not fully connected. When full network > connectivity was restored, the app ran fine. Here's (part of) a report from > a customer who has been unusually helpful: > > I'm using an Acer Iconia A500 tablet, running Android 4.0.3, kernel > 2.6.39.4+. . . . So, I don't seem to be able to simulate it with airplane > mode on. I also tried turning airplane mode back off, and it works fine > right now. The situation where this happened to me it happened three > different times, it was during a reading group at another person's house, > and I don't have any access to their wifi network. So, there was wifi in > the area, but I wasn't connected to any at all, but I wasn't on airplane > mode either. . . If it happens again, I will try to watch more closely and > take note of any network circumstances. > > We have not been able to reproduce the problem on either an emulator or on > our test devices. As far as I can tell from our code, our app will always > run unless it receives a response of NOT_LICENSED from the license > client. Our assumption had been that this was only possible if the > licensing client successfully contacted the license server and received a > response of NOT_LICENSED (or had an unexpired NOT_LICENSED server > response previously cached). But perhaps our assumption is wrong. Is there > any situation where the licensing client on the device will return a > response of NOT_LICENSED due to a communication problem (or any other > reason besides having received that response from the license server)? Is > there anything we could ask the customer to do that might help sort out > what's going wrong? > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
