Like all of you, I once came infront of a situation where PlayStore was not working on my Hauwei Ascend G700. I want to give a complete overview of what I did before going to the solution (want to know solution?Scroll to bottom of post). As the most common problem solving algorithm defines that to solve the problem you need to first find the problem. Laying on my bed with my mobile connected to my PTCL wifi, installed couple of apps from PlayStore and all of sudden PlayStore stopped working. Happens to you as well? Here are some of the common hacks I tried to fix it :
Clear Cache of PlayStore App
How? Go to your phone’s settings -> Apps -> Google Play Services -> Clear Cache.
Tried to login PlayStore again after rebooting my mobile, but unfortunately it didn’t help at all. So I thought that re-installing PlayStore might help. But na, no progress at all.
After reading couple of blogs, I stumbled that fixing your mobile time will get PlayStore working. Tried doing it, but didn’t work at all. Oh, and I did analyzed that only PlayStore was not working while Chrome, Google Inbox, Google Maps and other Google services were working.
Digging into couple of forum talks, stumbled to factory reset cell phone might get PlayStore working. Which is not a really good idea ( don’t do it, unless you take complete backup of your phone ).
Thanks to Powercut, I switched my connection from wifi to mobile 3G and all of sudden again, PlayStore started working. So finally analyzed that there is something wrong with the wifi connection.
Since, I have changed my DNS on my desktop and notebook to OpenDNS (GoogleDNS). It took me no time to configure that it’s a DNS problem. Ever encountered images and some data not loading when your ISP is PTCL? If yes, then you have to change your DNS configuration like I did.
What’s the Problem, Anyway?
Since, PTA has blocked YouTube for almost 2 years now. PTCL and other internet service providers are directed to block YouTube by default. PTCL has made some changes to there DNS which conflict with PlayStore and doesn’t provide you with a liberty to access PlayStore with ease. I was hoping that there must be a way to change DNS settings from wifi backend but after talking to PTCL customer care person at 4am, I was disappointed.
Again reading some blog posts, I stumbled that I have to root my phone in order to configure custom DNS settings. I was curious about it and you guessed it right, I rooted my lovely phone ( you shouldn’t be doing this ). Tried to find free apps to change DNS but there were none and yes I bought $4 worth app without thinking from PlayStore (pity me). It didn’t work at all again.
How to Fix PlayStore
After spending like 4 hours detecting the problem, I finally stumbled to install a VPN which masks PTCL DNS so I can access PlayStore and even YouTube.
I went to FrootVPN, sign up for a Free Account. After successfully signing up. I went to VPN settings in my cell phone and added the credentials provided by the VPN. After struggling with all this, I’m able to access PlayStore just by connecting my device with VPN when it’s not working.
But here’s a better solution to fix PlayStore Problem :
Go to Your Phone’s Settings
Go to Wifi settings and make sure your Wifi is connected
Hold tap on the connected network and click on modify network
Scroll down and go check “show advance options”
Scroll to bottom of options and change your DNS to Google Public DNS
Restart your cellphone and enjoy using Google PlayStore Services.
If you read this complete blog post and did what I have suggested in the end then you must thank me for saving you pain and time. Spread the words, save other people time. Cheers.
Ahmed Kamal says
Helpful Article!
Junaid Ali says
Great Article! I always wondered why it worked at times and why it didn’t at others.
What I’m still curious about however is why does YouTube work on my mobile phone but not on my laptop. Got any answers to this one?
Usama Arshad says
I’m not really aware of that but I will definitely try to find it out and post another blogpost about it. Cheers.
Harris says
Didnt work man
Usama Arshad says
Hey Harris,
This come as a surprise to me. Have you tried the VPN method? It should definitely work with that.
Riaz ahmad says
im trying on this several time from my Samsung gts7582 but my play store not working please help me in this regards by email [email protected]
Usama Arshad says
Have you tested out changing DNS to OpenDNS. That did worked for me.