My Pro Subscription is lost every day

Hello,

I’m a Gold subscriber.

This issue started at the same time that purchasing Pro subscriptions was temporarily disabled.

When I open FlowX every morning, it has reverted back to the non-subscription version.
I have to uninstall and then use the Google Play Store on my phone to reinstall. Then my Pro subscription is back.

What’s going on here?

The only details I can suggest are:

  • I have multiple Google Accounts on my phone, and only 1 has the FlowX subscription. But this has been stable for ages, so I don’t know what changed.
  • I did buy the early one-time paid FlowX, before subscriptions became a thing.
1 Like

I haven’t changed any of the code that loads existing purchases. All I changed what the dialog showing the pro purchases. I replaced the content with just a message. So this is extremely unlikely to be the cause.

I’m not sure what’s going on at Google. I’ve seen some weird things since, like no installation or updates for a 1-2 hour blocks. I really don’t know what’s going on. They emailed us again last night with vague message about an issue but we couldn’t find the issue. It does make me wonder if it’s AI doing this.

For example, your app doesn’t provide a valid source of government information links or links that does not have access, it leads to a blank page in the description.

Regarding, your subscription, can you email me the email you used to buy the subscription, then I can check the status of the subscription. Google cancelled some subscriptions during the period we were removed from Google Play.

Having multiple accounts on the phone can cause issues too. The account you bought Flowx with has to be the primary account.

I really don’t know. Google is:

  • being very aggressive with following policy such that minor infringement that warrant a warning leads to removal
  • being very vague in what the exact infringement is
  • and it’s extremely difficult to get support or talk to someone

We’ve been removed three times pretty much 7 days between each. Tomorrow night/Wednesday morning is the anniversary so we’ll see if we get removed again. Probably for using the Helvetica font instead of Comic Sans.

Cheers, Duane.

3 Likes

Thank you for the detailed response.
I logged in via browser and my google account still shows the subscription.

The same symptom happened on another tablet that’s normally turned on, all the time.

Next, I turned on 2 other phones, which are normally turned off.
The Pro subscription is present.
I’ll check in the morning to see if Pro was lost overnight.

Regardless, an uninstall / reinstall brings back Pro for the day.

2 Likes

Do all those devices have both accounts on them in the same order?

Also we have alpha version close to beta, if you want to try that on one phone? It’ll give valuable info, i.e., does my new code work better.

The alpha/beta version is only missing sun/moon data and share image/movie.

If you want to try it, email me your email address and I can add it to the list of testers.

2 Likes

How can I discern the ‘order’ of the accounts?
Is this just the descending sequence in Settings > Accounts > Manage Accounts?

If this correct, then what I can say is:

  • All devices have multiple Google accounts.
  • My Google Account with the FlowX subscription is the top Google account on all devices.
  • The other Google accounts are heterogeneous. Different sequences and some different accounts.
1 Like

Update:

Phones #2 and #3 lost the Pro subscription overnight.
After uninstalling / reinstalling, the Pro subscription was restored.

Could this have something to do with CMC RDPS?

Here’s what I noticed. This applies to all 3 affected phones:

  1. Open FlowX in the morning. Pro is gone.
  2. Uninstall.
  3. Reinstall using Google Play on the phone itself, with the correct account selected.
  4. Open FlowX. Pro subscription is restored.
  5. Switch source from GFS to CMC RDPS.
  6. Change all my other settings (e.g. dark mode) in the app back to my desired settings.
  7. Close Flowx.
  8. Re-open again (with dark mode enabled).
  9. FlowX momentarily pops up: CMC RDPS is not available for your pro level. Falling back to GFS.
  10. The app is still Pro, so I switch from GFS to CMC RDPS again.
  11. Close and re-open FlowX.
  12. It’s on CMC RDPS. No error pop-up.

So why would it simultaneously have Pro/Gold enabled, but complain that CMC RDPS is not available?

Could this problem have something to do with having CMC RDPS selected?

2 Likes

What version of the app do you have? And what type of subscription do you have?

I don’t think it is something to do with CMC RDPS, rather, you’d get the same issue with switching to and from any pro data.

It seems the app is finding and then losing the pro subscription. I’ve had two other reports so far.

I don’t think it has anything to do with the update because one user is on the old version.

Regarding the order of multiple accounts, check this help page out:
Why is my pro subscription not working? - Flowx

I’ve never had this problem because I’ve only have one account setup on the phone.

1 Like

The FlowX on all 3 phones is 3.424.
The subscription is “Gold 50% off Intro”.

Edit:
Here’s what I’m setting up, as a debugging measure:
Phone #2 is GrapheneOS, so I’ll create a fresh Profile with only the 1 Google Account.
Let’s see what happens to Flowx overnight in this profile…

2 Likes

Today, Flowx on both of my daily driver phone and the dedicated GrapheneOS profile retained the Pro version.

Both v3.426.

I am confusion. :face_with_spiral_eyes:

2 Likes

Great. Good to hear.

Thanks.

2 Likes

Some of my devices got the 4.066 beta and the Pro subscription is still retained! :open_mouth:

Duane, I don’t know if you actually did anything to fix this, but thank you nonetheless.

2 Likes

I did not. It seems to have fixed itself without me doing anything. A few other users are having the same problem and so I’m waiting to see if the problem fixes itself.

I think all have multiple accounts on the phone.

I’ve had two case that was fixed by updating to 4.066. 4.066 have very different code to Flowx 3 and a newer Google billing library - so maybe this is the reason???

Thanks for the update.

2 Likes

Maybe. The problem went away for me at the same time I upgraded from v3.424 → v3.426.

2 Likes

3.424 has been out for a while (~month). For it to suddenly stop working, given the code didn’t change, is weird. This suggests it is the Google Play billing service with users with multiple accounts setup on the phone.

2 Likes