I also submitted an appeal but haven't heard anything yet. After I implemented some more logging today, I saw that the first error code 3 appears when GKLocalPlayer.Authenticate() throws an exception. The second error code 37 occurred whenever the Authenticate() was successful but the GKLocalPlayer.Local.FetchItems() failed. I think I will implement a simple retry mechanism wrapping those two methods, just to try out if this is a transient error.

I added the hard coded retry mechanism yesterday and also did the „fake leaderboard and achievement“ trick in app store connect. However, the review team did not test it again but just approved my app for beta testing. Have you got any new updates or findings?

I see. I think I will run into the same issues again, once I want to release an update. I think the root cause might be the migration of the historical GameCenter sandbox. From all the threads I read related to GameCenter bugs etc. it sounded like adding a leaderboard and achievement on the “prepare for release“ page, could wake up the „production instance of the GameCenter server“ which hosts your game data. Or are you already trying to release version 1.0?

I’ve checked my logs yesterday and noticed that someone has rechecked the issue which still exists in the current (approved) beta version. After I implemented the brute force retry, I saw that the first authentication call failed with error code 3. The second one was successful. Unfortunately, FetchItems then failed 10x in a row with error code 6 „Player is not authenticated“ I‘m checking the flag IsAuthenticated and would only call FetchItems if the player IS authenticated, so yeah…

Right now I have already added some closed beta users from Germany and the Philippines and they can all sign in and play as expected. This seems to be an issue on the reviewers devices only.

I haven‘t set any restrictions on the availability, i.e. the app will be available globally.

As previously assumed, another build where I made some (unrelated) changes, now was again rejected because they aren’t able to sign in using their gamecenter account. I now received another error code 101 (GKInternalErrorDomain; The operation couldn‘t be completed). My research showed that this might be related to a faulty gamecenter account token which could be solved if the reviewer would sign out and sign in again in the gamecenter settings on the device itself. This is getting frustrating.

I‘m still successfully able to sign in on my iPhone where I downloaded the exact same version from TestFlight. Did you open up a code-level support request (incl. focused test project) or how were you able to get your issue escalated? I really find it ridiculous how Apple is not able or willing to help at all.

Well, i received a response last Tuesday where they claimed that they don‘t support third party resources. So they misread everything I wrote and focused on my last message where I told them that an asset which I’ve bought produces the same but more detailed error message. Since then I haven’t heard anything. I also noticed that once in a while I still get those exceptions logged, so I guess they’re still testing…

Yeah, I’m also completely disappointed but I still have hope that it will get sorted out somehow. I really don’t want to implement social logins like Facebook or Apple ID for several reasons…

I wrote a pretty long response to this and now I guess I’ll have to wait another two weeks 😣 But yeah, worst case is to implement some other type of login just for the sake of the review and then publish a version with gamecenter. This is ridiculous.

So they basically sent you the exact same response I‘ve received first. I really don’t understand how Apple became this successful when I see how they treat their „content creators“. I think I will implement a device based login and release in some tiny country only, so that my app can be listed.

My game was now approved. This journey has now finally come to an end. 😌