Crazy Email from Shopify

Dev Platform
1

So to keep an App in the App Store, we have to migrate to expiring tokens. So I did that. It works. The few customers I interacted with proved that that logged into the App, got upgrades, and now they function with the expiring tokens.

Great!

Today I get a letter saying if I want to keep this App going and in App Store, I have too update to expiring tokens. OK. So I ignore that as just being behind the times, because I already migrated the App. Then I look at the stats they sent along too.

You have 141 tokens to migrate. These tokens were used by 388 shops over the past 14 days.

So this is where is goes off the Rails. I just audited the DB of shops holding tokens and first off, it was less then 388. Reality was, just under 80 shops actively pay a subscription and have a working offline token to migrate. Maybe 3 have migrated. About 200 were 401 or uninstalled long ago or were frozen. So with a lot of effort I deleted almost all the crap, leaving just a few stragglers I am sure will never come back. If they do, they simply get the new scopes and tokens if they agree and pay for a subscription. No big deal.

So why are the numbers in this email subversive, silly, wrong, and scary? Are you gonna delist me even though people are happily paying me for the App and using expiring tokens to do so? How did 141 tokens get used on 388 stores? What is a token anyway? What is a shop? Am I in trouble? Who is in charge?

Anyway, spicy take, this email sent out junk, the partner dashboard for Apps reports junk, and it sure would be nice to just see in my face hey, it appears like 80 stores are paying you, and whatever they do, as long as one they ask for an expiring token you’re good to go. I don’t see that. Anywhere.

2

Are you gonna delist me even though people are happily paying me for the App and using expiring tokens to do so?

No, apps will not be de-listed for having old non-expiring tokens. It is the usage of non-expiring offline access tokens that triggers the alert.

We emailed partners who have public apps that have active non-expiring access tokens. Those tokens represent a latent ability to trigger the alert, even if they are never going to be used.

3

Yes, I’m irritated by the lack of acknowledgment that the numbers in the email are completely wrong.

Mine gave a number of old, inactive tokens that might actually be more or less correct. Then it gives a number of shops that doesn’t make any sense no matter how you slice it. And then it says “over the past 14 days”, which simply is not true.

Tomorrow I’ll just purge all the permanent tokens from the dead and dormant stores so I don’t have to worry about it, and accept that I’ll probably receive some crazy emails for a while.