Beta testing: App not appearing in Play Store Beta tab

Question

I have been trying for several weeks now to get the Google Alpha / Beta testing functionality on the Play Store to work with no success. As far as I can tell I have followed the process but clearly something is not working from my side. I hope someone on SO can tell me what I'm doing wrong.

I have created both an Apha and Beta testing community.

I have added the Beta testing community to the Beta testing section that relates to using Google+ communities to test. My Beta testing community does have members added.

Although I have an Alpha testing community, none of the Alpha testing methods are currently enabled.

On my test device, using a Google account that is a member of my Beta testing community, I only ever see the version of my app that is currently in Prod. I have spent days waiting just in case it takes a couple of days to show up (at least a week which I assume should be long enough).

I need to test the release version because I am trying to test some inapp billing functionality that I had to change due to security warnings from Google relating to my current Prod version.

BUT: if I load the release version of the app directly (instead of downloading from the Play Store) I can see that it is seeing this account as a "test account" because when I test the inapp billing I get the correct message telling me that the subscription will renew every day but I won't be charged. However the Beta version of the app never appears in the "BETA" tab in the Play Store.

I have noticed something "strange" (possibly) in the developer console though: When I click on the "Beta Testing" tab it shows 10399 supported devices and 0 excluded devices for the Beta app. However if I click on the line of the Beta app where you can promote the app etc, the details that are then displayed indicate 0 supported Android devices. Why would this be? This seems to be conflicting information on the console.

Note: The current Prod version of my app was developed using Eclipse. I have recently converted to Android Studio and this is my first upload using Android Studio.

Where else should I be looking to get my app to appear in the Play Store

Thanks

Answer 1

I was just setting up the Beta testing release for the first time and couldn't make the app visible in Play Store. Found the reason in Play Console Help:

After publishing an alpha/beta app for the first time, it may take a few hours for your test link to be available to testers. If you publish additional changes, they may take several hours to be available for testers.

After about 35 minutes the app was published.

As this might not be the issue mentioned in original question, it might help someone.