Testing in-app billing: "The publisher cannot purchase this item"

richey picture richey · Jan 3, 2013 · Viewed 28.8k times · Source

My app seems ready to get a 'real life' test for an in-app purchase procedure on my device. However, I receive an "The publisher cannot purchase this item" error message in Play Store. Now, how am I supposed to test this? I don't want to lose my phone's configuration by reinstalling it with a dummy account just for testing. In the Developer Console under "Settings"-"License testing", I have added my email address under "GMail accounts with testing access", but this doesn't change anything... maybe I missed some simple way, but right now it feels very confusing!

Answer

don smolen picture don smolen · Jan 17, 2013

A developer cannot purchase anything from herself. To fully test, you will need to create a test account in the Developer Console and then install your app on a device where that is the primary account. There is no other way. See http://developer.android.com/google/play/billing/billing_testing.html