In-app purchase receipt validation fails: pre-release and first 30 minutes checklists

Store receipts are rejected after a validation or sandbox endpoint change.

The pre-release checklist maps each item to a test class from the incident page. The first-30-minutes checklist covers detection, containment, the rollback decision and customer communication.

7 pre-release items · 7 first-30-minutes items · verified 2026-10-21

Pre-release checklist

PR-01After any in-app purchase plugin upgrade, make a sandbox purchase on a supported iOS device and confirm the server validates the serverVerificationData it receives. integration
PR-02Pin the plugin's platform packages to exact versions and run the purchase integration suite whenever the lockfile changes any of them, including in a patch upgrade. integration
PR-03Feed the server validator both a base64 receipt and a JWT transaction payload, and confirm it verifies each one or rejects it with a logged reason instead of throwing a TypeError. integration
PR-04Stub the store endpoint that tells subscriptions from other purchases to return an unexpected error, and confirm the consumable purchase is queued for retry and not dropped. integration
PR-05Add a contract test on serverVerificationData that fails when the value no longer starts with the MI prefix of a base64 receipt. contract
PR-06Keep a contract for the store's purchase-type endpoint that covers the response for a consumable purchase token, and run it on a daily schedule against the store's test environment. contract
PR-07Schedule a test consumable purchase on the Android store's test track and alert if it does not appear in the test user's entitlements within the expected processing time. synthetic

First 30 minutes

FM-01Compare processed purchases per platform and product type with the previous days to find the gap, such as Android consumables.
FM-02Check whether the failures began after an in-app purchase plugin upgrade or with no deploy, which points to a store-side change.
FM-03Search server logs for parse errors on serverVerificationData, such as a TypeError when extracting the transaction id.
FM-04Decide between downgrading the plugin, turning on its option to keep the older store framework, or shipping server-side JWT verification.
FM-05Store every failed receipt and purchase token so the purchases can be replayed once handling is fixed.
FM-06Tell affected users that restoring purchases in the app makes missing consumable items appear.
FM-07Post a status update that names the affected platform and purchase type, and state that missed purchases will be replayed.

Download the checklist

Pre-release checklist (Markdown)1.7 KB · v1.0.0
First 30 minutes checklist (Markdown)1.2 KB · v1.0.0

Only in this checklist

Every test class in this checklist also appears in at least one sibling checklist in the group; the item texts differ: After any in-app purchase plugin upgrade, make a sandbox purchase on a supported iOS device and confirm the server validates the serverVerificationData it receives.

Questions

What should be checked before a release to prevent In-app purchase receipt validation fails?

7 pre-release items, PR-01 to PR-07. PR-01: After any in-app purchase plugin upgrade, make a sandbox purchase on a supported iOS device and confirm the server validates the serverVerificationData it receives.

Is there a rollback plan for In-app purchase receipt validation fails?

The first-30-minutes checklist has 7 items. FM-01: Compare processed purchases per platform and product type with the previous days to find the gap, such as Android consumables.

What should a team do in the first 30 minutes after In-app purchase receipt validation fails is detected?

The first-30-minutes checklist has 7 items. FM-01: Compare processed purchases per platform and product type with the previous days to find the gap, such as Android consumables.

Is a In-app purchase receipt validation fails checklist still needed if deployment is automated?

Yes. Automation runs the steps; the checklist names what the tests must cover: integration tests, contract tests and synthetic monitoring.

Which pipeline stages does the In-app purchase receipt validation fails checklist cover?

The pre-release items map to the pre-deploy, pre-merge and post-deploy stages.

In what formats can the In-app purchase receipt validation fails checklist be downloaded?

Both checklists download as Markdown files: /downloads/in-app-purchase-receipt-validation-fails-pre-release.md and /downloads/in-app-purchase-receipt-validation-fails-first-30-minutes.md, licensed CC BY 4.0.