I'm working on an app which is in Beta (no released version in production yet).
I've uploaded a new APK yesterday. When doing that I got a warning as I changed the minSdkVersion from 16 to 19. I made this change on purpose so it was expected.
On the Google Play Console, it now shows that a new APK has been added and the old one has be deactivated, which is what I want.
However, the Play Store now display 'Varies with device' under the 'Requires Android' section of the app information.
So it seems the Store has kept the old version for the people having Android between API 16 and 19, like if I wanted Multiple APK.
How to solve this issue?
EDIT
I've released a new Alpha version to get rid of the old one which was still there and 'shadowed' by the Beta (this Alpha supported Android from API 16), and then promoted it to Beta. So now I have no Alpha, still no app in production, and only one Beta APK with minSdkVersion set to 19.
This Beta is now displayed on the Store page, however both 'Requires Android' and Current version still display 'Varies with device'.
After contacting Google support, here is their answer:
I looked into your matter further and the reason why you can see the
'Varies with device' under 'Requires Android' is because the app is
unreleased.
Please note that if the app is published then the section for
'Requires Android' will be updated with the relevant information.
So I'll see if the values are correctly updated when I'll release the app.
Related
My company has an Android app published on the Play Store since 2018. We never had any problem with the app's distribution, however since July 2020 new versions submitted and released with full rollout do not appear on the Play Store's web page or Android app - they only show an older version, published on June 2020.
We are sure that this is not a matter of caching on our end, as it is consistent across devices and platforms.
Initially, we noted that the Pre-launch report page of the Developer Console showed a few errors for these newer builds and thought that because of them the system would not release the updates, so we fixed the errors. It didn't work.
We also used to use fastlane for preparing the app's APK and uploading it, so we tried preparing the APK using Android Studio's Generate Signed APK option and uploading it manually. It also didn't work.
Our app deals with mature themes (partner swapping), but we take very good care for it to be as safe as possible. The Google Play's Developer Console shows no warning or error message for the app, so we doubt this could be the reason.
New beta and internal versions appear to beta and internal testers, but when upgraded to production, they go back to the old version from June.
No changes were made to minSdkVersion or targetSdkVersion.
I need help for removing the beta app submitted in google play store, Recently I have submitted my app with Targeted SDK version 23 for beta testing but now I want to submit the app with targeted SDK version 15 for production.
I have tried by submitting the App to Production with targeted SDK version 15 but it showed me an error saying:
Permission model downgrade PROBLEM: Users that have the APK version
code XXXX1, which targets SDK 23 or higher, will receive an error when
they attempt to upgrade to this apk XXXX2 because it targets SDK 15.
Is there any way to delete the existing beta app or to submit the production app with SDK15 other than un-publishing the app? Un-publishing the app will cause the inconvenience to existing users.
There is no way to delete a build from the Alpha or Beta channels. What you have to do is, deploy an artifact with a higher build code to the channel, then promote the channel to production. The APK that you want to remove will not show up, only the build with the highest build code, so there is no risk to doing this.
(source - just worked with Google Play support on a similar issue.)
I'm trying to publish a new version of my application in Google Play. When I upload new APK file (app version 22) I can't see the option to publish it in production. I can save it only as a draft. There's a red message (see the screenshot below) saying:
Version 20 is not served to any device configuration: all devices that
might receive version 20 would receive version 22
Situation doesn't get any better when I deactivate APK 20 (2.0).
What am I doing wrong? I can't figure it out.
The problem was very silly. I just didn't save my changes in the dashboard using the Publish now button. So in the end I just didn't deactivate the old version which prevented me from publishing the updated one.
Just publish your changes and you're good to go.
I already had a version (versioncode=2) in Google Store. Yesterday after doing some changes, when I tried publishing the app, i am getting below error message and not able to publish the updates. Any idea how can I fix it?
This configuration cannot be published for the following reason(s):
Version 2 is not served to any device configuration: all devices that might receive version 2 would receive version 3.
Some devices are eligible to run multiple APKs. In such a scenario, the device will receive the APK with the higher version code.
FYI, the new version is versioncode=3
You need to "Deactivate" the current apk in order to actually publish the new apk.
Deactivate the 2 version on the Google Play.
All this says is that version 3 is applicable for all devices that version 2 is applicable for. This means version 2 is obsolete.
If you check closely, when you upload your APK there is no option to Publish to production, only Save as Draft. This happened to me last night and drove me crazy. Now, in the morning I uploaded the new APK again and the Publish to production button was there! I don't what caused this issue but now it's fine.
I have uploaded two APK files into the Google Play store. One is a newer version and one is an older version. The newer version is the active one since it has a higher versionName and Code. Now I found some bugs in the newer version and I want to delete it from the Play Store and activate the older version. Google Play won't let me deactivate the newer one and activate the older one again, since it has a lower versionName and code.
The problem is that I'm am not the developer and did not build the app. The developer is in another country and it is difficult to get hold of them.
What can I do to reactivate the older version again? I know one solution would be to change the versionName and Code. I only have the apk file, can I change those details in Eclipse with only the apk file and very little experience in eclipse or developing android apps?
Thank You
You can't rebuild a new version of an apk from the apk itself.
Have the app developer do the following:
Rebuild project in its previous state with higher version number (must be higher than all previously submitted versions)
Resubmit
From Google's Android "Developer Console" page:
Note that rollbacks aren’t supported due to the app versioning
requirements of the Android platform. If you need to rollback,
consider launching a previous APK with a new version number. However,
this practice should be used only as a last resort, as users will lose
access to new features and your old app may not be forward-compatible
with your server changes or data formats, so be sure to run alpha and
beta tests of your updates.
A good strategy is, when creating a build, modify the manifest to build say a version 2.0 = 39 AND again 2.05 = 45 and generate these two apks which will obviously do the same thing.
Later, when build 2.01 = 40 is in production and you find an error, you can jump back to the old version by uploading the 2.05 = 45 you created earlier.
You have 5 opportunities to back track while releasing 40, 41, 42, 43 and 44 to go back to earlier functionality!
Do this for each build and you can always go back to an earlier version which has been pre compiled and built but with a higher version number than currently in production.
You will not be able to change the APK file without having the signing certificate.
You should be able to revert to an older version, assuming you didn't change the level of API support.
Presumably, go to the Dev console, select the APK tab, hit the "Advanced Mode" option, deactivate the current version and hit "Reactivate" for the version you want.