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I have a link to a Play Store app which is published as an "Internal Release." E.g. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.redacted

The desired result of clicking this link is to open the Play Store to this app's details/installation page. This works fine on desktop browsers as well as Android browsers.

If you click this link on an Android device outside a browser, such as from an e-mail app, this link should open the Play Store app and present you with the details page. This was working fine up until a few days/weeks ago. Now, the link opens the Play Store app and shows the home screen.

I used adb logcat while I hit the link from my mail client, and here's the only relevant lines:

05-11 00:20:22.497 19452 19502 E Volley  : [640] e.a: Unexpected response code 500 for https://android.clients.google.com/fdfe/resolveLink?url=https%3A%2F%2Fplay.google.com%2Fstore%2Fapps%2Fdetails%3Fid%3Dcom.redacted&ref=com.google.android.gm
05-11 00:20:22.505   630   630 I android.hardware.wifi@1.0-service: getLinkLayerStats
05-11 00:20:22.508 19452 19452 E Finsky  : [2] com.google.android.finsky.at.a.a(145): Error on resolveLink: DisplayErrorMessage[Error retrieving information from server. DF-DFERH-01]

The same issue (and same log) occurs if you navigate to this details page on Android Chrome, and then hit the "Open in Play Store App" button.

I can't find any details about what this service https://android.clients.google.com/fdfe/resolveLink is or why it would fail. Thanks for your time!

Reed Spool
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/272165/are-developer-centric-questions-about-application-stores-on-topic – Zoe May 11 '18 at 15:41
  • @zoe Thanks for the pointer to the meta. Fair vote. 2 questions: A) Is there another Stack Exchange that would be more appropriate? B) I cannot isolate this issue as a bug with Play Store as the 500 error comes from the URL https://android.clients.google.com/fdfe/resolveLink and I have no evidence to suggest this is related to the app store, and not Android core, so does this change your mind about your vote? Thanks. – Reed Spool May 11 '18 at 15:51
  • @zoe Nevermind, confirmed off-topic – Reed Spool May 15 '18 at 17:35
  • getting the same thing exactly in 2019... any solutions? – Blue Bot Jun 08 '19 at 15:22
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    @BlueBot As you can see from the below answer by Nick Fortescue, the Play Store team addressed this. It was resolved for us. I wonder if the huge Cloud outage a few days ago (https://twitter.com/jessfraz/status/1137423717045342208?s=09) might have caused some issue? Anyway, when I submitted this question, I simultaneously submitted a report to the Play Store team with a link to this question. You might do the same if the problem doesn't resolve itself. – Reed Spool Jun 10 '19 at 16:54

1 Answers1

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This was caused by a bug in the Play Store, and is in the process of being fixed. You should see the fix soon.

Nick Fortescue
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  • Thanks Nick, will test shortly. – Reed Spool May 15 '18 at 16:54
  • I'm still having the same issue (I got a message in another channel that I should have been able to see this fix by now). Since this is definitely off topic I'm going to vote to close my question. – Reed Spool May 15 '18 at 17:35