Trapped in a "Black Box": Almost 3 weeks of App Review silence and ignored support tickets. Is this normal?

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Created 2d

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Hi everyone,

I am writing this out of pure desperation because I honestly don't know what else to do or where to turn. My app has been stuck in the review process since February 9th (almost 3 weeks now), and I feel like I am completely trapped in a black box.

I have tried every official channel available to get at least some information:

I submitted requests for an expedited review.

I opened 3 separate tickets with Developer Support, but received absolutely zero response. Just complete, deafening silence.

I finally called the developer hotline. The representative was polite but completely unhelpful. I was basically told that "everything is fine, this timeline is normal, we can't do anything to help you, just keep waiting."

Just to put this wait time into perspective, while sitting in this Apple "black box" waiting for a single message, I have managed to do the following:

Registered a Google Play Developer account and fully verified my identity.

Almost completely rewrote my entire app from scratch, translating it from Swift to Kotlin.

Uploaded the Android version, got it approved, and I am already on Day 8 of closed testing in Google Play!

Meanwhile, in App Store Connect, absolutely nothing has changed. No status updates, no rejections, no questions from the reviewers, no replies to my tickets. Just an absolute void.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of extreme delay and complete lack of communication recently?

For context, here are my details:

Submission ID: db1ffb72-8f0f-49bc-b215-179e1e179b7d

Apple ID: 6756239914

Any advice or shared experiences would be deeply appreciated.

Thank you.

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Answer 1

VulcanCCIT OP

1d

I uploaded 2 builds of the same app, a Mac build and an iOS build. ios went from waiting to "In Review" at about 30 hours... and accepted about 36 hours. However the Mac side it has been in Review for 5 days... I have 1 Case opened on it ...im trying to be patient as it seems others are in teh same boat. I know on the TestFlght side, the Mac took a bit longer to approve for testing than the IOS version... I think 24 hours for iOS and 2-3 days for the Mac version. So I think the Mac side of the house has less resources. I hope that helps.

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Answer 2

Anastasia_Gaan OP

1d

Hi there @VulcanCCIT , thanks for sharing your timeline.

Honestly, you should celebrate that 36-hour turnaround for your iOS build! That is incredibly fast and exactly how the process should work.

Unfortunately, my massive delay is specifically for an iOS build, and as of today, I am officially starting my fourth week of waiting. What makes this even more frustrating is that this isn't a new app submission. I have successfully submitted and released over 25 versions of this exact app in the past.

Historically, my absolute longest wait was 6 days during the New Year holidays, but it normally takes just 1-2 days. To suddenly hit a 3+ week wall is clearly abnormal. What's worse is Apple's complete silence — ignoring all my tickets, expedited requests, and calls. It is absolutely irresponsible on their end to leave developers completely in the dark for nearly a month with zero communication.

I hope your Mac version gets sorted out soon, but definitely consider yourself very lucky on the iOS side!

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