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I've been having similar issues with one of our apps, the reviewer can't seem to log in and keeps getting network error messages. No customers have had any issu

I've been having similar issues with one of our apps, the reviewer can't seem to log in and keeps getting network error messages. No customers have had any issues, I've tried logging in to multiple accounts including the apple reviewer account on multiple networks and I have no issues whatsoever. It's really frustrating.

kevinob11 6y ago
I had the same issue once and was convinced that I must have pointed the reviewer account to the wrong server. I spent 2 days debugging before I finally asked the reviewer to check their network connection, I was approved the next day. They did send a nice response admitting the issue was on their end, lesson learned.
- _qulr 6y ago
  > lesson learned Did they learn a lesson, or just you?
  - kevinob11 6y ago
    Just me, spend ~15 minutes sanity checking then just ask them to test again.
ehsankia 6y ago
Yep, I've been hearing a lot of issues like this for the past week. It's definitely an issue with their internal test servers, and even though hundreds of different apps are having the exact same issue, they keep insisting it's the devs fault...
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  Apple takes 30% of all sales and yet can't even hire skilled quality assurance workers to run the approval process for their App Store? There needs to be real competition in the mobile app distribution space because this is absurd.
  - _qulr 6y ago
    Apple said they review 100,000 apps per week. I don't think anyone can do that sanely at scale. Which is why nobody should try.
    - heavyset_go 6y ago
      1,000 - 2,000 dedicated quality assurances workers could review between 1 to 2.5 app per hour each week. Adding more personnel cuts this number down drastically. It certainly can be done. Besides, this is a problem Apple has decided it can handle, since it decided that its customers can't benefit from competition between app stores with different approval processes.
      - _qulr 6y ago
        > 1,000 - 2,000 dedicated quality assurances workers could review between 1 to 2.5 app per hour each week. Are those people even out there and available? I mean, maybe there are right now because of Great Depression II, but were they available from 2008 to 2019? As a company, Apple is generally against remote work, with only grudging exceptions, so that's another issue in hiring.
        heavyset_go 6y ago
        > Are those people even out there and available? There are over 4 million of software engineers in the United States alone, and I'd wager that many of them are capable of doing QA. Apple is a company that is able to pay competitive wages for their talent.
        _qulr 6y ago
        I'm a software engineer, and I would never want this job. It's got to be incredibly boring and tedious. Most reviews are for minor app updates. "Bug fixes and performance improvements." Ho hum. Twitter and many other companies release app updates every week, just because they can. I suspect the job of app reviewer has a pretty high turnover.
foobarbazetc 6y ago
Is this for macOS? We have the same issue and have never been able to get our macOS app approved (not a big deal but... annoying).
- drampelt 6y ago
  iOS, we don't have macOS apps so haven't run into it there but could be a similar problem.
yxhuvud 6y ago
Latency issues? Perhaps the reviewer is on the other side of the globe?
scblzn 6y ago
If it can help you, you should know that they test everything over a VPN that doesn’t support UDP. So if your app makes use of UDP you’ll need a fallback method.
- packetlost 6y ago
  What kind VPN doesn't support UDP!?
  - causality0 6y ago
    For example, I've never managed to establish any sort of UDP connection over an AT&T line, neither home nor cellular.
    - jchb 6y ago
      UDP on AT&T and other carriers is just fine, but you need to do NAT hole punching or proxy the UDP packets. See my comment to the grandparent.
- ifmpx 6y ago
  What, so iOS can't run UDP-dependant apps at all?!
- jchb 6y ago
  UDP is fine. We have apps on the App Store that use UDP. This is likely a NAT related issue. That is not going to be an issue just for App Store review, but also for tons of other networks out there. As of lately, carrier-grade NAT deployments are very common. It's usually impossible to establish a two-way UDP "connection" between two peers that are both behind NAT. This varies depending on the type of NAT. If just one peer is behind NAT you can typically establish the "connection" using NAT hole punching. If both peers are behind NAT you may need to proxy the UDP packets using an intermediary server. There are protocols for hole punching, such as ICE (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8445 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8445), but you can also roll your own - if you control all endpoints. "Connection" in quotation marks because UDP is a connection-less protocol, but the NAT port mappings that are established are sometimes referred to as a connection.
ubertoop 6y ago
Firebase auth?

kevinob11 6y ago

I had the same issue once and was convinced that I must have pointed the reviewer account to the wrong server. I spent 2 days debugging before I finally asked the reviewer to check their network connection, I was approved the next day. They did send a nice response admitting the issue was on their end, lesson learned.

_qulr 6y ago
> lesson learned Did they learn a lesson, or just you?
- kevinob11 6y ago
  Just me, spend ~15 minutes sanity checking then just ask them to test again.

ehsankia 6y ago

Yep, I've been hearing a lot of issues like this for the past week. It's definitely an issue with their internal test servers, and even though hundreds of different apps are having the exact same issue, they keep insisting it's the devs fault...

heavyset_go 6y ago
Apple takes 30% of all sales and yet can't even hire skilled quality assurance workers to run the approval process for their App Store? There needs to be real competition in the mobile app distribution space because this is absurd.
- _qulr 6y ago
  Apple said they review 100,000 apps per week. I don't think anyone can do that sanely at scale. Which is why nobody should try.
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    1,000 - 2,000 dedicated quality assurances workers could review between 1 to 2.5 app per hour each week. Adding more personnel cuts this number down drastically. It certainly can be done. Besides, this is a problem Apple has decided it can handle, since it decided that its customers can't benefit from competition between app stores with different approval processes.
    - _qulr 6y ago
      > 1,000 - 2,000 dedicated quality assurances workers could review between 1 to 2.5 app per hour each week. Are those people even out there and available? I mean, maybe there are right now because of Great Depression II, but were they available from 2008 to 2019? As a company, Apple is generally against remote work, with only grudging exceptions, so that's another issue in hiring.
      - heavyset_go 6y ago
        > Are those people even out there and available? There are over 4 million of software engineers in the United States alone, and I'd wager that many of them are capable of doing QA. Apple is a company that is able to pay competitive wages for their talent.
        _qulr 6y ago
        I'm a software engineer, and I would never want this job. It's got to be incredibly boring and tedious. Most reviews are for minor app updates. "Bug fixes and performance improvements." Ho hum. Twitter and many other companies release app updates every week, just because they can. I suspect the job of app reviewer has a pretty high turnover.

foobarbazetc 6y ago

Is this for macOS? We have the same issue and have never been able to get our macOS app approved (not a big deal but... annoying).

drampelt 6y ago
iOS, we don't have macOS apps so haven't run into it there but could be a similar problem.

yxhuvud 6y ago

Latency issues? Perhaps the reviewer is on the other side of the globe?

scblzn 6y ago

If it can help you, you should know that they test everything over a VPN that doesn’t support UDP. So if your app makes use of UDP you’ll need a fallback method.

packetlost 6y ago
What kind VPN doesn't support UDP!?
- causality0 6y ago
  For example, I've never managed to establish any sort of UDP connection over an AT&T line, neither home nor cellular.
  - jchb 6y ago
    UDP on AT&T and other carriers is just fine, but you need to do NAT hole punching or proxy the UDP packets. See my comment to the grandparent.
ifmpx 6y ago
What, so iOS can't run UDP-dependant apps at all?!
jchb 6y ago
UDP is fine. We have apps on the App Store that use UDP. This is likely a NAT related issue. That is not going to be an issue just for App Store review, but also for tons of other networks out there. As of lately, carrier-grade NAT deployments are very common. It's usually impossible to establish a two-way UDP "connection" between two peers that are both behind NAT. This varies depending on the type of NAT. If just one peer is behind NAT you can typically establish the "connection" using NAT hole punching. If both peers are behind NAT you may need to proxy the UDP packets using an intermediary server. There are protocols for hole punching, such as ICE (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8445 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8445), but you can also roll your own - if you control all endpoints. "Connection" in quotation marks because UDP is a connection-less protocol, but the NAT port mappings that are established are sometimes referred to as a connection.

ubertoop 6y ago

Firebase auth?