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I recently submitted an Android app to Google Play Store and got a message that my app has rejected. I am not sure what the problem is and couldn't find an exact solution.

REASON FOR REJECTION:Violation of the Prohibited Actions provision of the Content Policy.

After a regular review, we have determined that your app enables background playing of YouTube videos, which is a violation of the YouTube API Terms of Service:

"Your API Client will not, and You will not encourage or create functionality for Your users or other third parties to: (8) separate, isolate, or modify the audio or video components of any YouTube audiovisual content made available through the YouTube API;"

All submission rejections are tracked. Repeated rejections due to policy violations will result in app suspension, at which point this app will count as a strike against the good standing of your developer account and no longer be available on Google Play.

Actually,the app logic is very simple. The app has the only one WebView and it just loads a url with embedded youtube videos.

Here is a link that the webview shows. http://www.x17online.com/2015/08/benji_madden_cameron_diaz_are_at_lax_photos_083115#kWESwFbZwGicf9PV.99

So I guess there is a problem when playing this youtube videos, so I tried to use several methods to solve it but it isn't fixed.

Please help me out!!! Thanks

nine9stars
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  • I have not tried submitting apps with Youtube content, but I have dealt with google and their app submission guidelines. If you think Youtube videos can be displayed the way you are doing with their policy, I suggest contacting their developer support through the web panel. – edencorbin Sep 23 '15 at 04:03
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    do you stop the playback when your app is in the background? (easy to test, just start the video in your webview, press home, if the video is still heard, that's it.) – njzk2 Sep 23 '15 at 04:06
  • I can still hear when the app is in the background. Was this a problem? If I fix it, the app won't be rejected again? – nine9stars Sep 23 '15 at 04:18
  • I have currently the very same problem, but my app DOES stop in the onPause event and never plays in background. Still it was rejected. Can you post an update on your case how it all went out? – Grisgram Jan 25 '17 at 16:11
  • I had the same problem for many days, and [this](http://stackoverflow.com/a/43566373/5806885) solve my issue. – Daniel Beltrami Apr 23 '17 at 01:16

2 Answers2

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I have encountered the same issue in my app once.It got rejected because of YouTube policy violation issue.In my app,i had an HTML page which plays embedded YouTube videos.Finally i found that the video plays in background even though screen is locked.I missed onPause() method to handle it.That was the reason why my app got rejected.So in order to fix this,

  1. Check whether the video plays in background even though screen is locked.If so try adding onPause() method to stop the video from playing.
  2. If the above part is fine,check if you are using YouTube API for integrating this.

Either one of these two should work.All the best.

Jas
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  • Thanks for your posting. So, if I just stop the video playing when the app is in the background, the app won't be rejected? And is there a way that I can play youtube video with Youtube player app, not in the webview? – nine9stars Sep 23 '15 at 04:28
  • I hope it will work if you handle background playing.If you want to play video via YouTube app,then it might require registration and all.You can refer http://www.androidhive.info/2014/12/how-to-play-youtube-video-in-android-app/ .But again,i think fixing the background playing issue might fix your problem.Just go for it – Jas Sep 23 '15 at 04:35
  • thanks, it works now. btw, in order to use YouTube API, I think I need to detect the Youtube video link first from the webview. what do you say? – nine9stars Sep 23 '15 at 04:39
  • See the tutorial.API provides a view YouTubePlayerView which u can use instead of WebView. – Jas Sep 23 '15 at 04:42
  • Did you fix the isse?Do upvote if my answer helped you. – Jas Sep 23 '15 at 08:39
  • sorry, I still need to check if your answer is correct. I will get you back to you after submitting the app again and do definitely upvote if it works. Don't worry :) – nine9stars Sep 23 '15 at 09:18
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Seems that your implementation of the WebView makes the video continue playing while the app is closed, this is what they mean by background playing.

Try to use videoview instead of playing videos in webview.

KishuDroid
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