plugin.reviewPopUp - screen lockup!

Solar2D iOS
#1

I use plugin.reviewPopUp (publisherId = “tech.scotth”)

I have discovered that it can sometimes lock the screen for 5 to 10 seconds after a call to: reviewPopUp.show()

The review popup sometimes appears 5-10 seconds or so after requesting it. Once I dismiss the popup, user interface interaction is possible. While waiting for the popup, no user interface interaction is possible.

I suspect it is due to some latency issue when my WiFi is slow. Does anyone else experience this?

I will have to remove it for now until another solution presents. What are you using to get reviews on iOS?

#2

Well, I may have figured out the problem. If I’m downloading a large file over WiFi then a call to reviewPopUp.show() blocks user interaction from when the call is made until the popup shows. This can take 5 to 10 seconds. Once the popup shows I can dismiss it and carry on interacting with the UI.

If I am not downloading a large file over WiFi then a call to reviewPopUp.show() shows the popup almost instantaneously and there is no problem.

If you are using this then you may find your users are blocked from interacting with the UI if they are downloading/streaming over WiFi.

Meantime I’ll sadly have to remove reviewPopUp.show().

I’m interested to to read your comments on this. Thank you! :slight_smile:

#3

Thanks for the details. I was also just curious if the show calls are working for you in the review popup plugin for Android?

We had last implemented this some months back and it worked then but lately we can’t get popups on Android at all. Cheers

#4

Alas, I’m not on the Android store.

It’s easy enough, of course, to roll your own review popup. But Apple have mandated for some time that developers use their method (and the rating is done without leaving the app, of course). It seems to me that the standard Apple review popup is questionable over a WiFi depending on WiFi performance…

#5

Yes… we always did our own UI but after Apple’s requirement came along, we had hoped to just use the plugin for both platforms. Thanks for the response, though!

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#6

This performance latency/lag issue is surely an issue outside Solar2D? I’ll see of there’s any online chatter about it when I get chance. I suspect it’s not a fault of the plugin itself.

#7

I recall a time when lots of apps used to reward users for a rating - even when it was against the rules. I know of quite a few devs even now that disable all sorts of things on review and reinstate once the review has passed! Risky, but they’ve been doing it for ages and profiting generously by it.

#8

haha yeah rewards in return for FB likes were a thing too! While we don’t ever reward users for reviewing the app, I’ll be honest and say that we do add in a popup requesting users to leave a rating for our Steam apps. I find it a little unreasonable that Steam has a problem with this though they have let it slide for at least one of our apps even at the time of the initial review.

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#9

I don’t believe I can add too much to this conversation other than the fact to say the apple does not give me developers a lot of control over showing the review pop up then calling the function. There are no caching or callbacks. You might try calling it when your app is not downloading any big files.

#10

We have managed to work around the recent issues we faced on android with your review popup plugin

It seems that the only reliable way to call show() for the popup is inside the success callback of the init’s listener for this plugin. Initialising it and then calling show separately seems to work for iOS but not on Android.

This isn’t much of an issue really but I thought I’d just post it here in case some other users face issues.

#11

@Scott_Harrison

I can completely appreciate that. I didn’t think the latency/lag was with your plugin. It’s entirely at Apple’s end. The fundamental problem with it is for those on poor performing WiFi connections. Even if the app is not downloading big files, a user may have other householders using the WiFi and that can cause the interface to stop responding for up to 10 seconds or so between the request and the presentation of the rating popup. I appreciate, of course, it’s out of your hands.

@famousdoggstudios

Hmm … I wonder if I’m missing something here? All I do is:

local reviewPopUp = require “plugin.reviewPopUp”

Then sometime later I call: reviewPopUp.show()

I am on iOS only. Can you post your code for the review popup? Thanks! :grinning:

#12

hmm… maybe the init is not necessary on iOS but we do it a little differently and the attached version is what is working for us now quite consistently on both mobile platforms. Hope this helps :slight_smile:

mobileRatingPopup.lua (1.2 KB)

#13

Thanks for the code @famousdoggstudios. I’ll give it a go and see what happens. I still need to Google and check if others are experiencing problems with the rate popup on iOS outside of the Solar2D framework. Thanks again and best wishes. :slight_smile:

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