Back at the first of July I started getting emails from users
saying my apps on Android like JyotishTools and Tropical Skies
were stuck at “Activating…”. First off the only thing I could
think was wrong was that the user was somehow not reaching the Google Play server to check for a valid license. Usually though if it cannot connect the license will just fall back and allow the app to run (it will do this only so many times). So
I suggested try again or contact Google because it was their
problem not the app.
And that was the problem. Later that day I read this was happening to a lot of published apps on Google Play and making many developers angry (not to mention users). Seems that Google released an update to Google Play that actually did not contain the necessary code to contact the licensing server. Not everyone got this update (I didn’t for example). I had already contacted Google Developer Support about the issue but at the time they seemed to be unaware of the situation. However just yesterday they wrote me to say that an update has been issued to solve the problem.
Here’s a link to an article about this on the Android Police site:
https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/07/03/google-play-store-app-licensing-bug-putting-developers-horrible-spot”
In the meantime I had my own fires to put out including a server change for this site which has taken some time to fix issues including temporarily a problem with software downloads. Unfortunately this put a little delay in a forthcoming new release: JyotishTools Pro for the iPhone.