iOS in-app purchases sandbox environment - verification required [duplicate]

Question

I cant test my in-app purchases because I am always getting this error message: Verification Required: before you can make purchases, you must verify your payment info [Environment: Sandbox]. Two buttons are presented in UIAlertView: cancel and continue. If I tap continue I am redirected to Safari and I follow verification steps, but in my app in this case I always get "Cancelled transaction" event.

I am using the test accounts created in iTunes Connect. I tried creating several accounts but always the same message occurs. What to do?

Any hints?

Answer 1

From my experience I see two possibilities:

1. you didn't sign-out from the App Store in settings, so the system thinks you're trying to access using your "real" iTunes credentials

2. or you by mistake the test user for a real purchase (no sandbox or directly in the app store); in such case this user has been messed up and the only option for you is to create a new test user.

Both are quite common situations when the same device is used for development and private use.

You can also try to check-out the link listed in this famous page here:

http://troybrant.net/blog/2010/01/invalid-product-ids/

Answer 2

This problem was driving me crazy and took me half a day and quite a bit of research to solve it (thanks a lot Apple!), but I finally solved it and here is what worked for me:

1) Uninstall your app from the device.

2) Create a new test account on iTunes Connect and verify its email address. Never add any payment information for this test account, not online, not on iTunes, not on your device. Doing so might invalidate your test account (and trigger the "verify payment info" vicious cycle.) Also never use this test account out of the Sandbox.

3) Log-out from the App Store on your device. DO NOT log back in the App Store via Settings > iTunes & App Stores on your device. You will be asked your login credentials from your app later (see points 5-6)

4) Re-install your app.

5) Attempt an in-app purchase. You should now be prompted to enter both your username and password (as you logged out from the App Store)

6) Type in your username and password: you should not see the dreadful "Verification Required: before you can make purchases, you must verify your payment info" message and the purchase should be successful.

N.B. One user on the Apple Developers Forums who also managed to solve this issue claims you have to create at least 3 test accounts, as the first 2 won't work (https://devforums.apple.com/message/699718#699718). I can't confirm that is true, but the test account with which I managed to successfully finish a transaction was indeed my third test account.

Hope this helps.