Summary
The issue at hand involves fetching obfuscated account IDs using the Google Play Android Developer API with a service account. Despite having a working setup in the past and granting Financial data permissions and Owner roles in both Google Play Console and Google Cloud Console, the system still returns a 401 error with an insufficient permissions message.
Root Cause
The root cause of this issue lies in the misconfiguration of permissions and roles for the service account used in the Google Play Console and Google Cloud Console. The key factors contributing to this issue include:
- Insufficient permissions for the service account to access financial data
- Incorrect roles assigned to the service account in Google Cloud Console
- Potential misalignment between Google Play Console and Google Cloud Console configurations
Why This Happens in Real Systems
This issue occurs in real systems due to:
- Complexity of permission management across multiple platforms (Google Play Console and Google Cloud Console)
- Lack of clear documentation on the required permissions and roles for service accounts
- Changes in API permissions and roles over time, which can break existing configurations
Real-World Impact
The real-world impact of this issue includes:
- Inability to fetch purchase data, leading to revenue tracking issues
- Delayed or lost revenue due to the inability to process transactions
- Increased support requests from customers experiencing issues with in-app purchases
Example or Code (if necessary and relevant)
// Example of a failed API request
HttpGet request = new HttpGet("https://www.googleapis.com/androidpublisher/v3/applications/" + packageName + "/purchases/products/" + productId);
request.setHeader("Authorization", "Bearer " + accessToken);
HttpResponse response = client.execute(request);
int statusCode = response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode();
if (statusCode == 401) {
// Handle insufficient permissions error
}How Senior Engineers Fix It
Senior engineers fix this issue by:
- Verifying the service account permissions and roles in both Google Play Console and Google Cloud Console
- Checking the API documentation for any changes in required permissions or roles
- Testing the API requests with different permission combinations to identify the root cause
- Using the Google Cloud Console’s IAM & Admin panel to manage service account permissions and roles
Why Juniors Miss It
Junior engineers may miss this issue due to:
- Lack of experience with Google Play Console and Google Cloud Console configurations
- Insufficient understanding of permission management and role assignments
- Overlooking the complexity of API permission changes and their impact on existing systems
- Inadequate testing of API requests with different permission combinations