Play Store app details link not working on phone

Question

I have a link to a Play Store app which is published as an "Internal Release." Eg https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.redacted

The desired result of clicking this link is to open the Play Store to this app's details/installation page. This works fine on desktop browsers as well as Android browsers.

If you click this link on an Android device outside a browser, such as from an e-mail app, this link should open the Play Store app and present you with the details page. This was working fine up until a few days/weeks ago. Now, the link opens the Play Store app and shows the home screen.

I used adb logcat while I hit the link from my mail client, and here's the only relevant lines:

05-11 00:20:22.497 19452 19502 E Volley  : [640] e.a: Unexpected response code 500 for https://android.clients.google.com/fdfe/resolveLink?url=https%3A%2F%2Fplay.google.com%2Fstore%2Fapps%2Fdetails%3Fid%3Dcom.redacted&ref=com.google.android.gm
05-11 00:20:22.505   630   630 I android.hardware.wifi@1.0-service: getLinkLayerStats
05-11 00:20:22.508 19452 19452 E Finsky  : [2] com.google.android.finsky.at.a.a(145): Error on resolveLink: DisplayErrorMessage[Error retrieving information from server. DF-DFERH-01]

The same issue (and same log) occurs if you navigate to this details page on Android Chrome, and then hit the "Open in Play Store App" button.

I can't find any details about what this service https://android.clients.google.com/fdfe/resolveLink is or why it would fail. Thanks for your time!

Answer 1

This was caused by a bug in the Play Store, and is in the process of being fixed. You should see the fix soon.