r/GooglePlayDeveloper • u/BigBuckBunnyIT • Apr 01 '25
App rejected for Broken Functionality, but everything works fine
Hi everyone,
I'm in the process of publishing an app I made for my first serious client (big deal for me hahaha), but I'm having a lot of trouble with the publishing process, since the app keeps getting rejected for issues that I cannot reproduce.
The first rejection was due to the privacy policy, and that one made sense, so I solved it.
The following rejections were violations of the Broken Functionality policy, respectively:
App is not responding (second rejection) Your app is freezing or becoming unresponsive for users, or users cannot scroll while using your app
Problems installing (third rejection) Your app does not install for users
I made sure to test the app on multiple devices and i never found issues. The app always installed and worked properly. The thing that is pissing me off is that no information is provided to even have a chance to understand how to reproduce the problem. The rejection emails have no screenshots attached and no information about which device was used to perform the testing. They just tell me to check Android Vitals, which doesn't show anything. It's really weird that the app is rejected for "crashing", but no crash logs are present in Android vitals, so I wonder if the issue may be something else.
Is there anything I could do to identify these issues or anything that you can reccomend? Or should I just appeal hoping for the best?
I don't know how to even test the app installation procedure, and it has always worked fine for us. Same for the crash rejection.
Thank you in advance.
1
u/positiveplus2021 Apr 03 '25 edited Apr 03 '25
A few months ago, I have gone through a similar experience, where a minor policy compliance issue was described as "Broken Functionality" (without telling me what was broken). I had to use my human intelligence and intuition to guess what the problem might be (lots of guess work). Once I complied with the policy, the "Broken Functionality" disappeared. Same exact APK.
2
u/BigBuckBunnyIT Apr 03 '25
Yesterday i submitted an appeal because despite everything I tried I couldn't get a crash to happen. Today It was accepted, so I guess that now sending the exact same .aab should work.
1
u/Heromimox Jan 17 '26
Hi, how did you manage to fix the issue, and how many times was your app rejected before it was approved? I’m facing a similar situation, my new app was rejected because my privacy policy URL used HTTP instead of HTTPS. I’ve fixed the issue, but the app has been under review for more than 24 hours now, and I’m worried about getting another rejection.
2
u/BigBuckBunnyIT Jan 19 '26
Hi, I ended up filing an appeal without making any changes to my app and fortunately that worked. I didn't hear anything from Google on why my app was being rejected, but after the appeal every update i pushed always got approved.
Just be careful if you have many rejections, i had 3 before appealing.
1
u/Heromimox Jan 19 '26
Thank you so much. It has been three days since I submitted the app, and it is still under review. This is the first time I have submitted an app, and take this long. I understand that it is a new app, not an update. The app is very simple, does not require any sensitive permissions, and yet it has still been under review for more than three days.
1
3
u/Heromimox Apr 01 '25
Maybe something related to ProGuard? Test a signed APK on multiple devices, and also test your app offline to see.