billing - how to cancel an in-app test purchase on android?

Question

Until june 20th 2016 i was able to cancel test purchases done in my app. Doing multiple in-app purchases (not consumable) from the same test account made it easy to develop and test the code without too much hazzle.

After 20th june 2016, the purchases did not show in my merchant account and i was unable to do more than 1 purchase from my test account. All i got was the: "you already own this item" message.

I logged a request to the google developer support group and the answer was:

Beginning June 20, 2016, we changed test purchases for one-time in-app purchases (IAPs). Previously, test purchases for one-time IAPs generated order IDs. Starting June 20, 2016, one-time IAPs do not generate official order IDs (if at all) and will not appear in the Merchant Center. This behavior already applies to subscription IAPs. You can learn more about testing in-app billing in the Android Developers Help Center: https://developer.android.com/google/play/billing/billing_testing.html#testing-purchases

allright.. so i go to the mentioned link and theres a section there: Canceling completed test purchases which states:

Google Play accumulates completed test purchases for each user but does not pass them on to financial processing. In some cases, you might want to manually cancel a test purchase to continue testing. To do so, open the app page in the Play Store. If the test purchase that you want to cancel is a subscription, you can also use the cancel() method of the Purchases.subscriptions API. Important: The refund() and revoke() methods of the Purchases.subscriptions API don't support test purchases.

So I go to the app page in play store...and do what exactly? the webpage does not state what i am supposed to do there. anyone know?

it does say: you can also use the cancel() method of the Purchases.subscriptions API.

which indicates that using the cancel() method is not the only method.

How to solve this without adding additional code in my app?

Answer 1

I went into the main Google Play Console page and clicked on Order Management. Under that I was able to select all test purchases and Refund them. I'm the primary developer of the app so I have access. If you are a tester you'd probably have to contact the support team and request that they refund your order.