If you bought time on Android but the desktop client shows zero balance, that's a bug — not how the system is supposed to work. This article explains how the balance is supposed to behave across platforms, and what to do when it doesn't.
How it should work
You have one account. Time you buy on it should be spendable from any device you sign in on.
- Buy hour packages on Desktop → balance available on Desktop and on Android (read-only on Android in some flows).
- Buy a Google Play subscription on Android → the included hours should also be available when you sign in on Desktop.
- The Desktop app shows a combined balance (Desktop hours + Android subscription hours).
The combined view exists specifically so you can buy on one platform and play on another.
How time is spent (deduction order)
Your balance can come from multiple sources at once: a recent Desktop purchase, an older PayPal-purchased balance, a promo bonus, a Google Play subscription. When you play, the system picks where to deduct from in this order:
Desktop session:
- Newest Desktop purchase (your most recent hour package)
- Older Desktop purchases (older buckets first by purchase date among the rest)
- Legacy PayPal-purchased balance, if you have any
- Promo bonus hours ("hot hours")
- Other credits
- Google Play subscription hours
Android session:
- Google Play subscription hours
- Google Play credits
The point: hours from your newest purchase are spent first. This avoids waste — older balances often have closer expiry dates, but the system picks the bucket the user expects to see ticking down.
If a balance source disappeared from your view, it's most likely because the system spent through it during a session. Check your session history and the time stamps on each balance source.
Per-purchase expiry
Each Desktop purchase becomes its own bucket of hours with a 30-day expiry counted from the purchase date. Buckets stack — they don't merge.
Example: you buy 10 hours on March 1st, then 20 hours on March 20th. You now have two buckets:
- 10 hours, expires March 31st
- 20 hours, expires April 19th
If you play 8 hours during March, the system spends from the newest bucket first under the deduction order — the older 10-hour bucket can still expire on March 31st with hours unused. Plan large purchases so you can use them within 30 days.
The 30-day countdown does not pause if you don't play. Bought time you don't use within 30 days is gone.
Two things that don't work
- Transferring balance from Desktop to Android. Hours bought as Desktop packages can't be moved into the Android subscription bucket. Use them on Desktop.
- Buying Android promo offers from Desktop. Subscription discounts and trials shown in the Android app are tied to Google Play and don't appear on Desktop.
What does work: buying on Android and using those hours on Desktop. Many users buy on Android because the subscription model is cheaper per hour, then play on a Windows PC.
When the balance looks wrong
If you topped up and the balance still shows zero (or a wrong amount) on either platform after 10 minutes:
-
Force a refresh. On Desktop press F5 in the launcher. On Android pull down to refresh. The display can lag behind the server.
-
Sign out and back in. This clears any cached balance and forces a fresh fetch.
-
Confirm you're on the same account on both devices. Multi-account confusion is the most common cause of "my balance is missing". Check the email address shown in account settings on both devices.
-
Check the purchase actually went through.
- Android: Google Play → Payments & subscriptions → Order history. The Loudplay charge should be listed and successful.
- Desktop: the receipt email from PayLink (or, for old purchases, from PayPal).
-
If everything above checks out and the balance is still wrong → contact support.
How support handles it
This is treated as a bug, not "how things work". When you contact us:
- We verify your account through email OTP (we won't discuss balance details without verifying it's you).
- We pull both your Android and Desktop balance records and compare them against your purchase history.
- If there's a real mismatch, we open a ticket for engineering. The fix path depends on what we find — sometimes it's a sync issue we can resolve immediately, sometimes the bucket the time landed in needs to be moved.
- We close the loop with you once the balance is corrected.
What the bot or first-line support should not tell you: that "Android time only works on Android" or that you need to buy again on Desktop. That's incorrect — it's the bug we're trying to catch.
What to have ready when contacting support
- The email address on the account
- Approximately when you bought the time (date and time zone)
- The purchase channel (Google Play subscription, Desktop PayLink, legacy PayPal, etc.)
- A screenshot of the Desktop balance and a screenshot of the Android balance, if you can — side-by-side evidence makes the diagnosis fast
A note on Huawei AppGallery
If your purchase was through Huawei AppGallery rather than Google Play, the balance should still appear on Desktop the same way. If it doesn't, the diagnosis path is the same as above. Refunds for AppGallery purchases work differently — see "Refunds — when we issue them and how to request one" — but the balance sync itself is supposed to be uniform.