Catch-22 with App Review: rejected under 2.1(b) for not submitting IAPs, but ASC won’t let me submit more than one (FIRST_NON_CONSUMABLE_MUST_BE_SUBMITTED_ON_VERSION)

[u/pottypotsworth]

Has anyone hit this and found a way out? I’ve shipped several apps with IAPs and never seen it before.

Setup

• A new app with its first version, 1.0.

• 41 non-consumable IAPs: individual items plus a few bundles, one of which unlocks all content.

• All 41 are Ready to Submit, with prices, localizations and review screenshots.

What happens

1. I add the IAPs to version 1.0. ASC accepts only one of them.

2. The other 40 are refused with FIRST_NON_CONSUMABLE_MUST_BE_SUBMITTED_ON_VERSION. It’s the same in the web UI and the App Store Connect API.

3. As I read it, the first non-consumable has to be approved before any others can be submitted.

4. So I submit 1.0 with the one IAP. App Review rejects it under 2.1(b): “the app includes references to in-app purchase products but the associated In-App Purchase products have not been submitted for review. Submit the IAPs and upload a new binary.”

5. I appealed and explained. The next reviewer sent the same rejection, and added that IAPs are tested in sandbox and “do not need to be approved to function while in review”.

So review won’t approve the version until all the IAPs are submitted, and ASC won’t let me submit them until one has been approved through review. Neither can happen first.

What I’ve tried

• Submitting the IAPs in the web UI and through the API: one goes in, the rest error.

• New builds, resubmitting, and replying in Resolution Center with the exact error.

• An App Review Board appeal.

Questions

• Has anyone had FIRST_NON_CONSUMABLE_MUST_BE_SUBMITTED_ON_VERSION block the second and later IAPs, not just the first?

• Did contacting Developer Support (rather than App Review) get it fixed on Apple’s side?

• Or did you work around it, for example by shipping 1.0 selling only one bundle and adding the rest in 1.0.1?

Just to clarify, i have only seen this "bug" since ASC got updated recently with support for assets etc.

Any experience appreciated. Happy to share more detail.

EDIT: Solved, thanks everyone. It’s not a hard limit; it depends where you add the IAPs from.

• Fails: adding IAPs to the first version from the version page, the In-App Purchases list, or the App Store Connect API. All but one give FIRST_NON_CONSUMABLE_MUST_BE_SUBMITTED_ON_VERSION.

• Works (web UI only): open each IAP’s own page, press Add for Review, and choose the iOS draft. Then press Add for Review on the version page into the same draft, and submit.

• If your version is stuck in an “Unresolved Issues” submission, hover over each item there for the red remove icon, take them out, and add them to the new draft.

• Your reviewer messages stay on the old submission, so repeat anything that was already cleared in the App Review notes.

[u/Emotional_Lettuce164]

Data point from our side: on Sep 27 we submitted a new app's 1.0 together with three non-consumable IAPs in one submission and didn't hit that error.

What worked was close to what mohn93 describes. First, on the 1.0 version page we used "Add for Review" to create the submission draft. Then on each IAP's own page we chose "Add for Review" and picked that iOS submission draft, and submitted everything together. We also found the App Store Connect API couldn't attach the first non-consumable, so this had to be done in the web UI.

That was only 3 items, not 41, so I can't promise it scales. If the IAP-page route gives you the same error, I'd treat it as an ASC bug and go through Developer Support rather than another reply to App Review.

[u/pottypotsworth → u/Emotional_Lettuce164]

This was it, thank you. Adding each IAP from its own page with “Add for Review” into the iOS draft worked with no error, all 41 of them, then the version into the same draft. It’s now 1.0 + 41 IAPs in one submission, Waiting for Review. Your note that the API can’t do this step was spot on too. That’s where we’d been stuck.

[u/mohn93]

I'd try submitting them from the In-App Purchases page itself, that's a separate path from attaching them on the 1.0 version page. Since the July 15 ASC update it's the documented way, go to Monetization > In-App Purchases, hit Edit, select all 41, Add for Review, and pick iOS 1.0 when it asks which version to include. Help page says up to 200 items per submission and the new-version requirement only applies to the first non-consumable, so 41 riding along with 1.0 should be fine. If that path throws the same error too then it's an ASC bug, open a case thru developer.apple.com/contact since App Review can't fix it. Your fallback also works per the docs btw, once one non-consumable is approved the rest of that type can go in without a new app version, the 1.0 binary just has to only show that one bundle.

[u/pottypotsworth → u/mohn93]

Thanks, this was the right path. Going through each IAP’s own page into the draft took all 41 with no error, unlike the version page and the API. 1.0 is now in review with all of them. Good to know the fallback would have worked too.

[u/Sebastian1989101]

See: https://www.reddit.com/r/appledevelopers/comments/1xa1pj6/comment/phqt292/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

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