App unable to connect

[Teletask Domotics]

I'm a developer at Teletask Domotics.
We released a mobile app allowing you to control your home remotely.

We were contacted by a chinese distributor (we're a B2B company), that the app stopped working around december.

Some extra facts:
- the app works on iOS
- the app is built using Adobe Air and Flex (same source code for all our variants)
- the app works in all other countries
- the user is able to visit the URLs that the app ought to use to get its data

The flow of traffic is roughly this:
1. user logs in
2. request goes to our LDAP servers (hosted on AWS)
3. the application fetches data (JSON) to decide what locations the user can operate (home, holiday-home, etc)
4. the user selects a location
5. the application fetches binary data (encrypted XML) to figure out which devices are associated with a particular location (kitchen lights, living room tv, etc)
6. the application builds its UI

It seems to go wrong in step 5.
even though the user can visit this URL in a browser (in China) and get the binary data.

 

[mikedt]

If they're in China, it very probably is the Great FireWall Internet censoring causing the problems. AWS can sometimes be blocked here. The usual solution is for the client to use a VPN, to tunnel through the GFW. Or you run your backend services on servers in China, like AliYun, for your mainland Chinese clients. Which companies like Apple and Microsoft do.

Do you have any other clients in China having the same issues?