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google suspended app due to "Hockey SDK" which was used long time ago in the code, but doesn't exist there anymore

Your app contains content that doesn't comply with the Device and Network Abuse policy. We found youur app is using a non-compliant version of Hockey SDK which contains code to download or install applications from unknown sources outside of Google Play

I keep searching through the source codes of android app, but can't find anything related to Hockey SDK. It was removed long time ago.

Any ideas how to debug this issue? Am I missing something?

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  • Did you migrate to AppCenter? Maybe Google interpretes this still as "Hockey App" Commented Jun 22, 2021 at 9:06
  • 1
    Hi, even my app is suspended which no longer uses the hockey app. Do you got the solution for this? Commented Jul 1, 2021 at 10:45
  • Same here, Google banned an app that is on version 7 because I was used Hockey SDK in version 3, also I never used the distribute (update) module, only the crash and analytics tool. Commented Jul 7, 2021 at 22:22
  • Same has happend to me today. Google suspended my app months ago due to hockey sdk which was being used then i removed the sdk file an appeal so i was update the app now google have again suspended the same app with version code 7 and due to the affected version 2. Commented Oct 4, 2021 at 14:05

3 Answers 3

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AppCenter is aware of the issue, so take a look here:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/appcenter/sdk/distribute/android#prepare-your-google-play-build

HTH

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Update:

After send an appeal from Google Play console, telling to Google that my actual version do not use Hockey App SDK, one editor from Google lift the ban and changed state to "Removed", so now I can edit the app, unpublish the old version with Hockey and send again for review to get published again.

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In a specific case I'm aware of, this has probably been caused by Facebook SDK 5.0.3 which contains

<receiver
        android:name="com.facebook.CampaignTrackingReceiver"
        android:exported="true"
        android:permission="android.permission.INSTALL_PACKAGES" >
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="com.android.vending.INSTALL_REFERRER" />
        </intent-filter>
</receiver>

android.permission.INSTALL_PACKAGES is forbidden on Google Play. Not 100% sure it's that (we're yet to upload to Play) and not sure why it reports Hockey SDK, which has never been introduced to the app (dependency reports and even app decompilation don't show any Hockey packages at all).

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2 Comments

No, in this case is because Hockey SDK can auto update an app externally from Google Play.
No it's not. The app we helped with never had hockeysdk. Google play mistakenly reported it as hockey sdk, even though it indeed was old Facebook sdk. Which had the problematic permission (like hockey sdk has, btw).

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