submitting to the appStore
by Eyal Erez · in iTorque 2D · 01/19/2009 (3:12 pm) · 40 replies
I've just submitted my game to the appStore and I have to tell you that it was quite a pain.
I thought it would be a good idea to start a thread for all the problems people are experiencing with iTunesConnect.
I've found most of the help in this post:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1590980
I probably had to fix at least 4 of the stuff suggested there. the errors that you get from iTunesConnect has nothing to do with your problem. unfortunately you have to try it all. Here's what I needed to do.
1. getting rid of the Entitlements.plist
2. change the tgb_components_icon.png to icon.png (works for adHoc, doesn't work for appStore)
3. got rid of any underscores, astrix, etc... on your name appName (no spaces too)
4. change the bundle identifier to eliminate astrix
Off course, it doesn't mean that I did it right, but at least I was able to send the zip file to them. hopefully it'll get approved.
I thought it would be a good idea to start a thread for all the problems people are experiencing with iTunesConnect.
I've found most of the help in this post:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1590980
I probably had to fix at least 4 of the stuff suggested there. the errors that you get from iTunesConnect has nothing to do with your problem. unfortunately you have to try it all. Here's what I needed to do.
1. getting rid of the Entitlements.plist
2. change the tgb_components_icon.png to icon.png (works for adHoc, doesn't work for appStore)
3. got rid of any underscores, astrix, etc... on your name appName (no spaces too)
4. change the bundle identifier to eliminate astrix
Off course, it doesn't mean that I did it right, but at least I was able to send the zip file to them. hopefully it'll get approved.
#2
01/20/2009 (8:04 am)
yeah, it sure is a pain getting to the point of successfully submitting the zip file to the appstore. I am still in the process of getting my game "approved" (which i submitted on january 13th). I recieved an application submission feedback on january 17th saying that the app was crashing on the iPhone and Mac... so i checked why it was doing that and submitted a fresh build (i guess you really ALWAYS have to click "clean targets" before creating a new build). Now i'm waiting for this version to be approved. Apple sure knows how to keep you busy!
#3
01/20/2009 (9:19 am)
Michael, do you know why it was crashing? My game was crashing too but always in a different spot when loading all the .cs scripts and datablocks. it wasn't crashing consistently (only on some iPhones) and sometimes reseting the iPhone would fix it. My guess is that it was the amount of images/sounds I was loading. I ended up resampling my sounds to 8bit 11k and hoping it won't keep crashing. It never crashed on the Mac. How do you check how much ram the game is using?
#4
01/20/2009 (9:20 am)
I forgot to mention. it never ever crashed when running the game on the device through xCode. but right after when I run the game from the device it would .
#5
01/20/2009 (9:40 am)
Unfortunatly I don't know how to check how much ram the game is using. My game runs without crashing on the iphone and in the simulator... just the distribution version seems to be crashing on start (that's the message i got from apple). It probably has to do with this "code signing profile" madness :)
#6
01/20/2009 (11:55 am)
@eyal: come to think of it... in the beginning i also had a problem of the game crashing consistenlly, but i set all my images to preload = "0"; and haven't had any more problems during the game since then. Hope that helps.
#7
01/20/2009 (12:34 pm)
That makes a lot of sense. I bet the game loads much faster too. most of my loading time is spent on the images. However, I don't get any glitches in performance once the game is loaded.
#8
01/20/2009 (12:42 pm)
I just looked at my game using the activity monitor and it's pushing 50Mb of ram. I believe iPhone has 64Mb? if it does, and you I have some other apps or safari open , it explains the crash. I've also lowered my sfx from 14Mb to 1.8Mb so I bet that helped a lot.
#9
01/20/2009 (12:42 pm)
Well, i think itgb loads generally quite slow (at least on game startup). If you have alot of sounds and background music, then you could just set your AudioDescription to "preload 0". Maybe that helps to stop your crashing issues. Although I haven't noticed any major performance glitches using preload = "0"; on the images.
#10
01/20/2009 (12:54 pm)
1.8Mb for sfx isn't much at all... so it's probably your images. 
#11
I really hope that Apple will fix that damned memory leaks in their sandbox with 2.3
01/21/2009 (5:45 pm)
the iphone has around 90mb of theoretically free RAM but its shared, at worst it can drop below 60mb. at the point of 40-50mb commonly games do not run at all anymore and a restart is needed.I really hope that Apple will fix that damned memory leaks in their sandbox with 2.3
#12
Michael, how did you get the application submission feedback? was is email? did you find it on iTuensConncet. It'l be nice to know why it was rejected :)
01/23/2009 (10:14 am)
I've just got a Rejected status from apple , but there is no reason. it sais Replace Binary. nothing else.Michael, how did you get the application submission feedback? was is email? did you find it on iTuensConncet. It'l be nice to know why it was rejected :)
#13
yes... i got the rejections via email. I already got rejected 3 times! Usually they write a few lines why it was rejected. I always get rejected because it crashes after showing the default.png (i'm guessing it's a memory issue). Its probably why your binary got rejected too. GRRR... this problem is driving me nuts!! I can't reproduce what apple is experiencing... everything works fine for me?!! If anyone has had a similar problem with the distribution version.... please help :)
01/23/2009 (11:07 am)
Hi Eyal,yes... i got the rejections via email. I already got rejected 3 times! Usually they write a few lines why it was rejected. I always get rejected because it crashes after showing the default.png (i'm guessing it's a memory issue). Its probably why your binary got rejected too. GRRR... this problem is driving me nuts!! I can't reproduce what apple is experiencing... everything works fine for me?!! If anyone has had a similar problem with the distribution version.... please help :)
#14
01/23/2009 (11:17 am)
My only guess is that your game is crashing exactly like mine. memory. it definitely crash after the Default.png and it's only on some iPhone. it's really hard to reproduce the crash untill it happens. I've been testing my game on about 5 of my friends iPhone/iPod so every now and then one of them would crash and then constantly keep crashing untill a restart or loading different program. funny how sometimes loading other programs will actually help. maybe try to load a bunch of safari web pages. and then try to game to see if it crashes.
#15
At this time, Sushi To Go v1.0.0 cannot be posted to the App Store because it is crashing on iPhone OS 2.2 and Mac OS X 10.5.6. When using a first generation iPod touch and iPhone, the application crashes on launch. A crash log is attached.
unfortunately I don't have the skills to read the crash log.
01/23/2009 (11:23 am)
I just found the email. it went to my junk.At this time, Sushi To Go v1.0.0 cannot be posted to the App Store because it is crashing on iPhone OS 2.2 and Mac OS X 10.5.6. When using a first generation iPod touch and iPhone, the application crashes on launch. A crash log is attached.
unfortunately I don't have the skills to read the crash log.
#16
01/23/2009 (11:29 am)
yeah... that sounds like the emails i am getting... on the last email they wrote something like: "The game crashes after showing the loading screen." They also wrote that it could be crashing because of an active network? I have "UsesNetwork" set to 0 in commonConfig.xml (could that be the caus?)... i just don't know anymore what to try next.... :)
#17
In the meantime I'm trying to crash my game again. it hasn't crashes since I've change the preLoad images to false. but I'm not sure if that's the reason since it was crashing less than once a week.
01/23/2009 (11:42 am)
I've just wrote an email to GG support and added this thread. In the meantime I'm trying to crash my game again. it hasn't crashes since I've change the preLoad images to false. but I'm not sure if that's the reason since it was crashing less than once a week.
#18
I opened 8 safari web-pages. and played a long song while trying to launch the game.
01/23/2009 (11:52 am)
Michael, I got it to crash. I opened 8 safari web-pages. and played a long song while trying to launch the game.
#19
Shout out to the itgb community:
Has anyone successfully submitted a game to the appstore using itgb 1.1??
... and if yes: "Were you having the same problems that we are having?"
... and if yes: "How did you solve them?" :-)
01/23/2009 (11:53 am)
thats a good idea - but, some people have successfully submitted itgb games to the appstore. I just don't know if they were using itgb 1.1 or an earlier version. Shout out to the itgb community:
Has anyone successfully submitted a game to the appstore using itgb 1.1??
... and if yes: "Were you having the same problems that we are having?"
... and if yes: "How did you solve them?" :-)
#20
01/23/2009 (11:57 am)
Eyal, somewhere i read that the iphone sdk 2.2 has memory leaks that cause games to crash... now i don't know if this is true, but maybe it's the sdk?! 
Torque 3D Owner Marc Dreamora Schaerer
Gayasoft
Thank you very much.
4 is pointed out in the Apple docs thought, that deploy builds must have unique identifiers and unique versions (the later will jump in on the update. if the version is not higher than the previous one it will not accept it). Wildcards are for development only.