I am getting an ‘App Status: Rejected’ for one of my watch faces:
• Your watch face app must have more than one of the available permutations Wear screenshots if it is customizable.
The watch face in question does not have any customization functions and for the Wear OS screenshots I posted the active watch face state (watch on) and a dimmed AOD (always-on-display) one.
I tried to add Wear OS screenshots that had some system icons turned on (top center, ‘Do Not Disturb’, ‘Battery Saver’, ‘Airplane Mode’) but this also did not solve the issue.
If anyone has any insights on this issue and/or how to remedy it that would be greatly appreciated!
I had this issue with a digital clock style watch face I had uploaded. From my own experience and what I’ve read when other people say they have gotten this message, they never seem to be specific with what permutations they are wanting. The face I had trouble with could support both 12h format and 24h format, and I had only uploaded screenshots showing 12h format. Uploading screenshots showing the 24 format seems to have satisfied the issue, so far.
Given that supporting 12/24 hour format is such a “normal” thing for digital style time pieces, I never thought twice about that being considered a customization. I guess they are just looking for any possible changes to a watch face. Probably the safest bet would be to show all possible changes of any kind in the screenshots.
use 4 screen shot in wear os field based on all black background and reapply. hope you will get approval.
Hello - thanks so much for the hints, @BloodDragon and @nobel.mixed. Let me submit Wear OS screenshots for the 24H format and see how things go. Will report back…
Just going through the same thing now with the same rejection. The rejection popped up after in production and I had tried to update the health policy issue. So weird how these things go where you get a rejection in review from something that has nothing to do with what you submitted for review.
These days, I have zero confidence in my ability to get things passed whereas before I did.
1 Like
Yes, @MergeLabs - the strange thing is that the watch face app had passed the review. Once I submitted the companion app (just updated to SDK 34) for review 3 days later I got the: “Your watch face app must have more than one of the available permutations Wear screenshots if it is customizable.” and I hadn’t even touched the watch face app after it passed its own review.
This somehow does not make any sense but let’s see how things go… the worst part is that the whole process from Google’s side lacks transparency and clear communication which makes things more cumbersome for everyone involved …
At least this rejection is something that can be dealt with. Lately I have been getting rejections on my faces (very small, simple, only WFS/no companion app) that simply say “Your app does not install or launch without crashing” , yet the apps run perfectly on my device and my tester’s devices, as well as customers who have bought and paid for them. This has occurred on 3 of my faces so far when they go in for review. I have appealed, no begged, for any supplementary information regarding what this looks like and gotten nothing from Google (and nothing from here either)? Is the app not opening? are there some elements missing? Google gives me nothing! I have solved it by simply making some miniscule change and re-upping which has gotten it passed. Needless to say I am always closing my eyes and hoping for the best whenever I am uploading a new app, or simply an update. It SUCKS! It’s honestly 2 steps forward and 10 steps back in Google Play all the time.
1 Like
If you’re ever able to figure out what they are talking about with the “Your app does not install or launch without crashing” message, I am very interested to hear what happened. The way I understand it so far, Watch Face Studio doesn’t allow us to code anything outside of some basic equations using their tags. I would expect that to mean that there is no way for us to write anything that could crash an app, but maybe I’m wrong.
This is actually exactly how I got that message too. It was almost as if they decided to look closer at the watch face app during that second review and decided I didn’t have everything they wanted to see.
EXACTLY1 I am using for the most part WFS internal features. I do have some code for km/miles, calories, heart rate progress bar. I use my own custom bitmap fonts with WFS 1.6.10 digital text/variables. I have even released a “test file” where I have incrementally added the usual features I use on all my faces for review. So far everything that I have used on past faces has been passed into production. Pretty simple stuff! Absolutely infuriating and I don’t expect a solution. I even questioned that perhaps it was whoever is testing my faces doesn’t know how to load a face without a companion app? I seem to be getting the same tester each time based on the name from my appeals. If that’s even how the tester thing works. No one knows really do they?
1 Like
I got this a few times myself also - the only way to get this passed was to restrict the device catalogue…
How do you do that in WFS? Or in Play Store Console? Device catalogue? What would I restrict to I don’t even know. It says I got 48 supported devices/models…seems like enough?
1 Like
It is in Google Play Console - you can manually exclude specific watches there - if you can’t pass the “Your app does not install or launch without crashing” for example but you know your watch face works on all Samsung watches you could manually exclude all other watches in the device catalogue…
Ok, but as I said earlier. I have gotten the rejections but then I just do a minor adjustment and re-up and each time it then passes. So it’s almost as if that really isn’t the problem yeah? If it was a device catalogue issue and it legit crashes, then in theory it would not pass again. Also, as I said earlier, these are relatively simple faces all completely authored in WFS with very small .PNG elements created in adobe Illustrator/Photoshop with .AAB generated from WFS. I would assume others would be having this same issue if just working in WFS and not Android Studio to make their apps? Much appreciated but I don’t think I should have to exclude all other watches aside from Samsung’s just to get my faces passed? It’s good to know about the device catalogue though. Thanks.
If only Google could be just a little helpful and more specific.
2 Likes
Quick update - it turned out a ‘24hr state’ Wear OS screenshot of the watch face seems to have solved the issue and the watch face was approved.
1 Like