“The item you were attempting to purchase could not be found” Android in-app billing

Question

I am receiving this error while testing my app.

The app is signed and uploaded to the alpha testing portion of the developer console.

The in-app item has t

Answer 1

I was experiencing this issue and just chatted with Google's support via https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/?hl=en#contact=1

and they said that I needed to publish the app. That meant adding screenshots, a description etc and then publishing (Clicking on the publish button in the upper right corner of the developer console). If your app is in the draft state, that could be the issue.

edit: This is now spelled out in the developer docs here:

http://developer.android.com/google/play/billing/billing_testing.html#draft_apps

Draft Apps are No Longer Supported

Previously, you could publish a "draft" version of your app for testing. This functionality is no longer supported. Instead, there are two ways you can test how a pre-release app functions on the Google Play store:

You can publish an app to the alpha or beta distribution channels. This makes the app available on the Google Play store, but only to the testers you put on a "whitelist". In a few cases, you can test Google Play functionality with an unpublished app. For example, you can test an unpublished app's in-app billing support by using static responses, special reserved product IDs that always return a specific result (like "purchased" or "refunded").

Answer 2

In my case I didnt accept alpha tester invitation after adding my email address. You need to go to generated link in google play console and accept invitation.

Answer 3

I am having significant trouble with the in-app-billing as well, but I found some pointer's from Stefan's blog here: https://www.gaffga.de/implementing-in-app-billing-for-android/ and found that he was using a special prefix "android.test" So for example, I create an sku in the developer console called "purchased" And then, use "android.test.purchased" in referencing it.

This worked for me to at least get the error message to go away. However, it may still be stuck in a test mode limbo.

Answer 4

Had spend hours trying to test IAB, though few days ago it worked.

Here is the change ....

"Draft Apps are No Longer Supported Previously, you could publish a "draft" version of your app for testing. This functionality is no longer supported. Instead, there are two ways you can test how a pre-release app functions on the Google Play store:

You can publish an app to the alpha or beta distribution channels. This makes the app available on the Google Play store, but only to the testers you put on a "whitelist"."

@ http://developer.android.com/google/play/billing/billing_testing.html#draft_apps

Hope these crucial changes are emailed to developers saving hours..

Answer 5

Had the same problem. I contacted as well and got this response from Google

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Thank you for contacting Google Play Developer Support and reporting the behavior you're seeing with in-app billing.

We recently made some changes to our systems and we are now requiring an app to be published before testing. We are currently recommending to publish your APK to the Alpha channel in order to test licensing, in-app billing, and expansion files. There is no need to create a special testing group in the Alpha channel to test these features, however the app must be published and not in draft mode.

We apologize for the inconvenience and are working to update our documentation to reflect these changes.

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After publishing my APK to Alpha (as I haven't launched yet) and waiting an hour or so, my IAP test purchases started working again.