[urgent] prod fix stuck in "pending review" status

[BugHerd Devs]

Hi,

We have an issue with our extension that is effecting all our BugHerd customers. We rolled back but that didn't resolve the issue & need to deploy this latest version asap to resolve the issue. It is causing a production outage for our customers.

However we seem to be getting stuck in `pending review` status where normally our reviews get approved within hours.

Is there any way we can have the review of our app fast-tracked (id: popigpemobhbfkhnnkllkjgkaabedgpb) so we can resolve this issue for our users?

Many thanks.

Richard.

Head of Product @ BugHerd

[Oliver Dunk]

Hi Richard,

I've taken a look at your item and I can see that it is progressing normally through review. We can't expedite reviews but I'm hopeful that this will be live in the next day or so for you.

I appreciate that the sooner the better in this case, but this is moving as quickly as it can.

If your item isn't live by Friday, please let me know and I'd be happy to take another look. In general, review should never take more than a few days.

Thanks,

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

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[BugHerd Devs]

Hi Oliver,

Thanks for the prompt reply, I really appreciate it. Generally speaking (especially more recently), our extension takes no more than ~4hrs to review. This one has been sitting in the review state for ~8hrs. I appreciate that it's not a long time in the grand scheme of everything - but it's actively affecting our users, is there any reason why it's taking longer to review?

When we switched to MV3 it meant we needed to re-architect the app - eliminating RCE is a good thing for security (i personally and professionally like it!), but it forces us to have our hands tied while we wait for a review.

I've tried rolling back - but we can't roll back more than one version (we rolled back to the previous version, and now if I click roll back again, it tries to roll back to the one i rolled back from!), which is very frustrating. 

You can see we're a featured extension, have the blue tick for no violations, fully converted to MV3, have over 70k active users and release updates regularly. I don't expect to be able to 'jump the queue' but I just want to make sure we're doing everything in our power to help our own users out.

Thanks,

James

[Oliver Dunk]

I completely understand - in this case, I compared the state you're in currently to previous reviews and everything looks consistent. I think things are just taking longer because there is some expected variance in review times and not because there is anything specific which is different or that you could address to have things move faster.

Version rollback is implemented in the way you describe - I can see how rolling back more times would be useful in this case, and it's definitely feedback I'll pass on.

Apologies that I can't be of more help here but I'm really hoping your update will be published soon and the issue will be resolved.

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

[BugHerd Devs]

Hi Oliver,

Can you please take another look at this for us? It has been another day of being stuck in "pending review" status and this has a real consequence for our business with over 70,000 users actively relying on our extension in their business.

We can't sit around for another day just hoping it will be approved.

Really appreciate your assistance on this mate.

Cheers,

James.

[Oliver Dunk]

Hi James,

Your latest submission is still in the queue to be reviewed, and given that it has only been about 24 hours since your submission it doesn't seem out of the ordinary.

The vast majority (90%+) of reviews take less than three days so I'm still hopeful this will be live soon for you. Unfortunately, I'm not able to expedite this in any way. I appreciate the impact this is having for you and I'm definitely watching closely so I can flag if anything looks stuck.

Thanks,

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

[GroupTrack Support]

Oliver, 

Is something going on with delayed reviews in general right now? We submitted a fairly small update on 10/30 and it is still in "pending review" status 5 days later. We're in a similar position to BugHerd, and this is killing our production app.

We already have the next version ready in dev with more bug fixes, but can't even get it submitted to review until the last version we pushed goes live.

I'm considering rolling back a couple of times (to the previous version, then back to what is actually currently live) just to get out of this review status so I can submit the latest version that we actually want to be live right now, but I'm nervous because the warning on the roll back confirmation states that the next submission could take even longer to review!! Should I do this?

I'm also super confused because this extension is a complete rewrite of our MV2 extension that we've been running for 4 years. Approvals on that MV2 extension ranged from a couple of days down to literally 15 minutes. My understanding was that migrating to MV3 would lead to shorter and more consistent approval times, but since releasing this new extension we have been majorly hamstrung by extremely long approvals at every update.

Our extension ID is "lkmdjjpmadinjmmadmdhdgpnjdbndbaa". Do you have any insight?

Thanks,

~Nathan

[Oliver Dunk]

Hi all,

To loop back to the item that this thread was initially about, it looks like the latest update has been approved. Richard, let me know if you still have any concerns.

Nathan, thanks for sharing your extension as well. I took a look and it seems like your update has also been approved. I see that you submitted another today and hopefully that will be approved soon.

I'm nervous because the warning on the roll back confirmation states that the next submission could take even longer to review!! Should I do this?

I'd definitely encourage waiting for the first review if at all possible. We're looking into adding a true cancel review feature, but we don't have that today and using the rollback feature for this has drawbacks as the note mentions. If you really need to do this my suggestion would be to reach out to One Stop Support - they can usually reject a pending submission for you.

I'm also super confused because this extension is a complete rewrite of our MV2 extension that we've been running for 4 years. Approvals on that MV2 extension ranged from a couple of days down to literally 15 minutes. My understanding was that migrating to MV3 would lead to shorter and more consistent approval times, but since releasing this new extension we have been majorly hamstrung by extremely long approvals at every update.

Am I understanding correctly that this is the first submission of your Manifest V3 build? If so, I expect that is a larger code change than usual, and so I wouldn't be surprised if the review is taking longer. Hopefully for future submissions you will see faster review times again.

Is something going on with delayed reviews in general right now?

I'm not aware of anything and I haven't seen an increase in feedback other than the couple of threads here. That said, I'll check with the team regardless and post an update here if I learn of any issues. I definitely appreciate the concern.

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

[Preston Pham]

Hi Oliver,

We are also seeing a prolonged review time and simply want to add another data point. We submitted an update for our extension id `iohjgamcilhbgmhbnllfolmkmmekfmci` on 10/31 and it is still pending review today. Our observed turnaround time is usually under ~24hrs, so this is much longer than we anticipate. We migrated to MV3 a few months ago and this last change was a relatively small incremental change.

Best

Preston

[Oliver Dunk]

Thanks Preston, much appreciated. I spoke briefly to the team yesterday and it sounds like things are taking a little longer at the moment. We're taking a look to see if there's anything we need to do on our end but I don't think you need to be concerned.

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

[Brian Zindler]

Just to add to the thread we have seen our reviews take much longer than usual recently (days instead of hours). This does seem like a widespread issue fwiw.