We are implementing Google Billing with server side validation.
One of the features that we have to support is "Free Trial". Single user is able to participate in "free trial" only once.
If he cancels the subscription, and then tries to buy same subscription again, there is a note note "You've already participated in the free trial" (which means that the user will not get his trial period. Instead, he must pay immediately). This scenario is perfect for production/live environment.
However, in testing environment (or development environment, especially development), where we do a lot of try-and-repeat steps (which means that we go through the subscription lifecycle with same google user multiple times), it is real pain in the ass. For every iteration we have to create new google user.
My question is:
1 - is there a way to reenable "free trial" for specific user (or all of them) in testing environment (testing environment = google play testing tracks).
or
2 - is there some other way to make our life easier.
Actually new-google-account approach does not work either.
Have found two possible approaches:
1 - change IMEI number of your phone. NOTE: this might be illegal in some countries, and it might damage your phone. I haven't tried this approach, but it works apparently.
2 - Create multiple subscriptions in your google play store. And use these subscriptions only in test environment. Also in subscription settings, set "Free trial limit: One per subscription". Now you will be able to use free trial once per subscription (10 subscriptions = 10 free trial periods).
Very ugly solutions (if they are solutions).