Testing in-app billing: “The publisher cannot purchase this item”

Question

My app seems ready to get a \'real life\' test for an in-app purchase procedure on my device. However, I receive an \"The publisher cannot purchase this item\" error message in

Answer 1

I had fixed this issue by:
1. Using Signed apk
2. I had not activated in-app products, means they were in Inactive mode

Answer 2

I solved this by uninstalling the app, going to Play Store and switching to my non-developer account and downloading and installing the app.

Answer 3

You are trying to purchase that item using the same account that you used to upload the app to the store.

If you upload an app on the android store using abc@gmail.com and you try to make a purchase on that app using abc@gmail.com you will get that error.

Try making the puchase using another Google play-store account, on someone else's phone for example.

Bottom line: You can't purchase it yourself.

Answer 4

I was facing same error, now solved there were two main reasons of my failure:
1. I had not activated in-app products, means they were in Inactive mode
2. If you want to test, you must add Beta testers.

Answer 5

Best way in my opinion is to fully test the paid/free version features without the Google Play inapp code. Only at the very end, add the inapp code to switch between free or pro. Upload the APK to the alpha release and get a device which has never seen your developer account nor the app itself. Install and buy it with redeemable codes. If the codes work then the actual payment should (the payment method is not part of your codebase, it's on Google side)

Answer 6

I think the reason you got this result is because you ran the app in development environment.

To test in-app billing, you'll need to sign the app. See more info here and here.

This is indeed a nuisance and prolongs the dev cycle :(