Certification Issues with Windows Store

How do you all go with your certification in the Windows 8(8.1) Store ??

Personally, I cannot stand it... I will submit the same app to Windows Phone Store and Windows 8 Store and the 8 Store always fails with inane reasons like I described the app incorrectly.... whereas the app gets into the Phone Store very first time..

Also a strange one today was that both of my Unity apps failed certification due to crashing on load.. but they run fine for me on my PC and pass WACK on my PC without incident... so how on earth I am going to solve this I just do not know....

 

Have any of you submitted any Windows 8.1 apps to the Store yet ??

I have submitted 3 apps built with Unity 4.3.0 and every single one has been rejected.. They say they all crash on boot.. I have a Windows 8.1 PC, Laptop, and Tablet and they all run fine for me.. And of course they pass WACK without a worry....

They dont provide you with any info.. All you get is app crashes on load... No idea of RAM, Video Card, etc...

Am curious if others are failing submission too ???

 

Would you mind sharing the fail report?


I think the problem might be your test tablet and phone are too powerful, but your app doesn't run on a low device like Lumia 620. That was the case for me in Windows Phone Store, my first submission was rejected because it consumed more than 180 MB's (I had resolved this problem by overriding import settings for textures, making them smaller for Windows 8 Phone. I kept the track of memory usage on profiler.).

 

I have submitted apps with Unity 4.3 for Windows 8.1 that have been approved. Are you submitting for x86 or ARM or both? Have you tested the ARM builds, because it has been a problem with our apps crashing on ARM (Windows 8 RT) but not on x86 builds.

 

Yes I also thought maybe its the ARM builds so I submitted just the x86 file.. But they say it also refuses to load without crashing.. Just shows the Unity logo then crashes...

This time I have asked for more information as all they wrote was crashes on launch so unable to test..

The exact same apps have just been certified on Windows Phone... why they are failing on Windows Store I have no idea.... They pass WACK 3.1 without a problem, which thus shows they do indeed run without crashing, else I wouldnt be able to even submit them...

I just hope they can send me some useful information next time... But thanks for letting me know you have submitted ok.. I guess I just have something really strange occurring with my build...

 

I also got back the same responses, saying nothing more than "crash on launch" - never mentions what platform, what hardware, what OS (8.0 or 8.1). Makes it awfully difficult to debug. And in the additional information provided, it was a PDF with a picture of the splash screen in an app-debugging template from Microsoft. Not at all useful. The responses from the app submission process to the Windows Store can be very difficult to work with, hope to see some improvements from Microsoft in this area.

 

Submitting to the Windows Store is the most frustrating thing you can do. I'm only targeting Windows 8 (been a Unity developer long enough to know never touching a big release right after launch...) but they still fail it for stupid reasons. One reason this past time was "App must support keyboard, mouse, and touch" and they highlighted some tutorial text in my app that didn't happen to mention the mouse. Of course the mouse works! Just because that one sentence doesn't say "mouse" doesn't mean the mouse can't be used!

They must be trained to fail first and ask questions later, or maybe passing an app takes a lot more work on their part and they want to get through the queue? Either way, there are terrible apps getting on the Windows Store and to see mine failed for something as arbitrary as that is maddening.

 

oh dont get me started, I failed for a very similar thing.. In my description I said 'Use the mouse or touch the screen to slice the objects'... And they highlighted 'mouse or' ... as if this cannot be a valid description if the device doesnt have a mouse connected.. i mean WTF, I wrote 'OR' ...

and i also agree this is the most frustrating experience ever.. as previously stated the EXACT same apps have passed Windows Phone Store without a single issue... but trying to publish on Windows Store 8, this is killing me....

 

And you want to know what they just sent me.. an empty zip file as the additional information.. I didnt even know you could make an empty zip file..

 

It's never boring when dealing with the Windows 8 Store.. I just attempted to upload a new XAP.. After it finishes uploading I get an error 'You are running the wrong version of Windows, please run the correct version' ... WHA ?!?!

So i resend the exact same file again.... Processed fine.... Lets see if this one passes cert or not... I have left a note for the testers asking for more than the app crashed, a Unity logo, and an empty zip file.... Machine specs would be nice..

 

Well, I have to put my foot in my mouth a little. The app I was complaining about just passed (I thought it would never happen. Out of 10+ tries...)

What I did differently is fully explain how I corrected the previous failures or argued my point on why I didn't need to fix them (the mouse issue.) It might be that the "Note to testers" is the most important part of the submission process.