Android alpha testing "Item not found"

I have published my app for alpha testing, but not able to download it from play store.

I have opened the url "https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.***" and accepted to be a tester and now it shows me "you are a tester". But when I click on the link "download it from the Play Store", it shows me "Item not found" in my test device play store and "requested URL was not found" in desktop browser.

1. App is in published state for more than 48 hours.
2. App is published in all countries.
3. google groups for testers are added, I can see the group in manage testers tab. Tester account is added to the group ( triple checked it)
4. test device has only one tester account.
5. I can access the in-app purchases, which means the app is published properly. Google doesn't support draft mode anymore.

I went through some similar posts in stackoverflow, but there is no definite answer. Looks like for some people it resolved automatically and some people are not lucky enough.

If the app is "Published", but when you click in "View in play store" the site (example: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.companyname.appname) show the error:

"We're sorry, the requested URL was not found on this server",

try this:

• In "Google Play Console" (https://play.google.com/apps/publish), select your app
• goto menu: Release management / App releases
• In Aplha, click in the button "Manage Alpha"
• Click in "Manage testers" and copy the link "Opt-in URL" (example: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.companyname.appname)
• Send this link to your alpha users, you and the users need to click in "Became a tester" before access the app in PlayStore.

After this, open the link of app in play store again (View in play store) logged with a user from the testers list.

If the url still don't open, try close your browser, or clear the browser cache and try again. The browser store a cache of redirects.

If you are using Chrome, then it caches redirects. To fix it, clear browsing data. More details on this

In my case, the issue was that I wasn't logged to Google with the proper account in Chrome.

I cleared all browsing data, but un-logging from Gmail/Google and re-logging with the proper @gmail.com account would probably have done the trick.

Another thing to check is whether or not Pricing & Distribution -> Only make this application available to my organization is checked. It seems that this doesn't interact well with Alpha- or Beta-only tests, even if your test account is in the given domain. Once I turned this flag off, my beta-only app became visible via the Play Store link from the testing signup page.

allow access to Settings -> internal access -> Manage users with download rights later Settings -> Internal Access -> Testers and the app link will work

Where you add groups for test - there have a link for tester (something like terms) you need to click this link on each testing device and say "Yes"

After that link apear in market. I wait 3 days before found it : )

For my part it was due to the fact that I sent the link through SMS. It worked when I sent it by email. This link has the form https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.*. This is this link that you have to share by email.

This can be due to a silly mistake where you aren't signed in with the appropriate Google Play account in your device's Google Play Store.

Sign in with the testing gmail account into Google Play and then click on the test-link

For more detail check Item not found

In addition to all the great answers here, I just found out that if you did an internal test before the closed (alpha) test, the Play Store may want you to use the internal test URL instead.

So say you have your great app and you released it to the internal test track. You created a list called "Internal Testers" for that track and it all went swimmingly. When you did this, Google Play gives you a URL for those testers of the form https://play.google.com/apps/internaltest/{id}. Your internal testers joined the program using that URL, downloaded the app no problem and the test went through.

You now upgrade to the closed track (alpha testing). You create a new list called "Alpha Testers" with new people in it and you enable your release both for "Internal Testers" and "Alpha Testers" thinking that you should carry over your internal testers to alpha. When you do this, Google Play gives you a URL of the form https://play.google.com/apps/testing/{package}. Your alpha testers can now join the program using that URL and download the app. But your internal testers have to keep using the internal test URL to join the program.

From testing a variety of scenarios, it looks like moving a tester from on list to another doesn't fix the problem.

As far as I can tell the Google Play documentation doesn't mention any of this.

I had this similar issue.In my case, I had multiple testers as CSV and there was an space between multiple users tester.Space was the issue in email address.Bad email address may cause this problem.

Also, make sure the device you are using is among the supported devices for your app. For this, check Release management -> Device catalog on play console.

If this is the problem, expect to see a warning similar to the app is not compatible with your device when you visit play store page via a web browser and Item not found error via play store app.

In my case, I had to make some changes in the Manifest to correct the list of supported devices. So, I replaced below line causing the number of supported devices to be 0:

    <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera2.full" />

with:

    <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera2.full" android:required="false" />

In your case, Manifest may need a different change of course.

In case someone has tried the several suggestions and has not worked, I want to share another situation I haven't seen listed anywhere else.

Make sure the latest build uploaded is not deactivated. The Play Store console doesn't warn you if, for any reason, the release is made unavailable to your testers. It'll show with a greyed out row, like this:

Check on App releases > Manage, in you track dashboard, that the latest build is Added, not Deactivated.

Simple way is to use incognito mode. Thats it.

In Setup -> Internal app sharing, Manage testers -> then select who can download and install shared app.

In my case is Android Studio emulator, I relaunch play store after few minutes googling, then no more such error "Item not found".

In my case the emulator had been started a couple of months ago and perhaps cached something wrong. I kept receiving BillingClient.BillingResponse.ERROR resulting in this message.

After restarting the emulator it started working again.