iOS9 “This game is not recognized by game center.”

Question

I am having trouble getting game center to work with my app.

Whenever I try to authenticate the user it comes back with the following error:

"The requested operation could not be completed because this application is not recognized by Game Center." 

Most of my internet searches have yielded the response "Make sure that Sandbox is enabled" but with the new iOS 9 there is no sandbox anymore. I also have made sure that my Bundle ID and all of my certificates are correct so I don't think that is the problem. Thanks in advance!

Michael

Coagulate

Answer 1

Adding a leaderboard fixed the problem even though I wasn't using the leaderboard.

Coagulate

Also, adding an achievement helped me. Simply saying, Game Center is enabled automatically if you actually use something of it. – Sassan

To be specific, in my case it is adding Leaderboard through appstoreconnect portal, not through the code/app – Nauplius

Answer 2

Did you enable Game Center in the project's capabilities?

Have you added the app in iTunesConnect?

Have you uploaded a build to iTunesConnect? If so, a good check to validate the that your setup is correct is to go to Activity | All Builds | ~your current build~, then scroll down to Required Capabilities. Does it list "gamekit" in that section?

The latest answer to the game is not recognized by game center suggests that if everything else is correct, just adding an achievement (or maybe a leaderboard) cleared the issue.

Edit: since writing this, the problem has appeared a few times for me. Creating a dummy leaderboard solved it the first time. Creating yet another solved it the second time. The third time it happened, just changing which of the dummy leaderboards was the default solved the problem.

Edit 2: Based on How to list all available GKTurnBasedMatches for a player?, it appears that in some cases, at least using Swift, you don't even get the "unrecognized" error. Operations just silently fail until you create a leaderboard.

Technician

Do I need to upload a build to Itunes Connect? In the past I have not and it still worked but did this change with the new iOS 9 setup? – Coagulate

as far as I recall, it's not necessary. But if you do, then you can use my suggestion above to see if iTunesConnect thinks game center is enabled or not. Just another option for determining if you have the config correct or not. – Technician

All I needed to do was add an achievement. I was trying with a blank game center in ITC but would get that error. – Manamanacle

This struck me today, too. Adding a leaderboard in iTunesConnect solved it. Ugh. – Technician

Going into the "Capabilities" tab showed a missing entry in my plist file that probably wasn't helping anything -- thanks for highlighting that as a place to look. – Doctrine

Changing the default leaderboard worked for me too. Thanks for saving me hours of work! – Blah

Answer 3

There is a toggle switch in appstoreconnect.

In your "Prepare for submission" tab, toggle this switch:

Attach

Now it is a checkbox, but still same behaviour. – Ytterbium

Answer 4

I solved this by creating a new leaderboard in iTunes Connect

Transpire

Answer 5

Has happened to me when building from the enterprise target of the app instead of the release. The two bundle IDs are different so Game Center won't work because only the release bundle ID is registered with iTunes Connect (for Game Center).

Zachariah

Answer 6

I just had this problem because we used a different bundle identifier in development than the appstore bundle identifier..

Tamaratamarack