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davidhuang
New Participant
April 21, 2021
Solved

Quest App Lab rejected due to lack of hand tracking support

  • April 21, 2021
  • 6 replies
  • 3212 views

Hi,

We have now been rejected twice for the App Lab submission because out app doesn't support hand tracking. First time we got rejected because the tester turned on hand tracking but app didn't show hand mesh. We have applied a simple fix so app will show user's virtual hands when hand tracking is turned on (but not able to do anything because our app is really designed to function with Touch controllers only). Resubmitted and got rejected again citing "VRC.Quest.Functional.3" (details see below). What does it mean? What we don't understand is why hand tracking, being a so new feature just came out of beta, is forced on submitted apps when those apps aren't even designed to work with hands.

 

The App Lab submission automatically fails if uploading an APK without the hand tracking permission in the manifest. So for our submission we had to add the hand tracking manifest and set it to "false".

 

Can we simply do the following? If user enables hand tracking and launch our app, there will be a message and exit button attached to one of the virtual hands, with the message saying "App only supports Touch controllers, please exit and turn off hand tracking". User simply can press the big exit button to exit the app.  Would this work?

 

Thank you!

 

This is from the Quest app publishing guidelines.

VRC.Quest.Functional.3

The app must not leave the user stuck at any point in the experience.

User gets stuck and is unable to progress when hand tracking is enabled.

    Best answer by davidhuang

    Thank you scheichs for chiming in on this topic. I was really hoping that someone from Oculus could clarify this issue but apparently it seems they are not monitoring what's going on around here.

     

    Here's a quick update:

    Our app just got approved on App Lab. We subsequently submitted 3 more times, and hand tracking remained an issue until very last.

     

    TL;DR

    Initial submission failed because we didn't have the hand mesh at all, and the tester turned on hand tracking but saw no hands (altho they weren't supposed to turn on hand tracking in the first place).

     

    Next we added the hand mesh and made sure it matches the physical hands, but hands aren't functioning. Failed again because this would leave the user stuck inside the app without a way to quit.

     

    We then decided to not include hand tracking permission in manifest, hoping the tester would stop holding that against us. Btw to do so you need to use the command line tool to upload. The web portal would check the manifest inside the APK and reject the upload if hand tracking permission is missing.

     

    Yet it failed again. In the end we had to bite the bullet and develop some minimal support for hand tracking, i.e. hand controls a laser and by pinching fingers user can click on certain buttons and at least exit the app. It finally passed.

     

    The overall App Lab submission process is quite frustrating to say the least. Although a list of reasons for the rejection is provided, there's no way to have a Q&A with tester.

     

    Hope our experience is helpful for other developers in the same boat.

    6 replies

    scheichs
    Participant
    April 21, 2021

    Maybe you have accidentally checked hand-tracking or it is set in the manifest? AFAIR the OS forces to use controllers for apps that don't support handtracking, so you don't have to implement that functionality yourself.

    davidhuangAuthorAnswer
    New Participant
    April 28, 2021

    Thank you scheichs for chiming in on this topic. I was really hoping that someone from Oculus could clarify this issue but apparently it seems they are not monitoring what's going on around here.

     

    Here's a quick update:

    Our app just got approved on App Lab. We subsequently submitted 3 more times, and hand tracking remained an issue until very last.

     

    TL;DR

    Initial submission failed because we didn't have the hand mesh at all, and the tester turned on hand tracking but saw no hands (altho they weren't supposed to turn on hand tracking in the first place).

     

    Next we added the hand mesh and made sure it matches the physical hands, but hands aren't functioning. Failed again because this would leave the user stuck inside the app without a way to quit.

     

    We then decided to not include hand tracking permission in manifest, hoping the tester would stop holding that against us. Btw to do so you need to use the command line tool to upload. The web portal would check the manifest inside the APK and reject the upload if hand tracking permission is missing.

     

    Yet it failed again. In the end we had to bite the bullet and develop some minimal support for hand tracking, i.e. hand controls a laser and by pinching fingers user can click on certain buttons and at least exit the app. It finally passed.

     

    The overall App Lab submission process is quite frustrating to say the least. Although a list of reasons for the rejection is provided, there's no way to have a Q&A with tester.

     

    Hope our experience is helpful for other developers in the same boat.

      amidonirrite0c
      New Participant
      July 28, 2022

      hello dear 

      I have the same problem , how did you add "hand controls a laser and by pinching fingers user can click on certain buttons" plz 

      I used unity for development

      thank you 

      scheichs
      Participant
      May 1, 2021

      I'm a little confused. I've uploaded my APK to App Lab without hand-tracking support flagged and web portal didn't complain.

      davidhuangAuthor
      New Participant
      May 3, 2021

      Maybe it's already included automatically, check your manifest. Did they approve your submission for App Lab with no hand tracking support?

      scheichs
      Participant
      May 3, 2021

      No, my app hasn't been approved, but I really think something has gone wrong with your manifest. It just makes not much sense to include hand-tracking automatically. But I understand your frustration. A better communication would have been : "Either support hand-tracking properly without user being stucked or remove hand-tracking support from manifest"

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