I'm working on a react native project and I generated a keystore and released the signed apk to play store few days ago.
While working I mistakenly copied another keystore into the android/app directory in the project and since then could not return to the older version anymore. Checking version history of the keystore also states it was created today rather than modified today.
How can I get the keystore back when I don't have a Time Machine setup?
If you've lost your keystore, there is no way you can update that application on Google Play. If the app is significant (millions of installs), you might get help from Google Play support.
You can't. Your only option is using software that analyses your hard drive for files that were not overwritten physically yet.
Update: the play store support might be able to help you if you used the key only for uploading with Google Play App Signing
I know it is heartbreaking, but there is no way out!
You will have to unpublish the app and try again with different package name,
If you wish that doesn't happen again you should enable google play app signin, with this you can upload the same app again with a different keystore(the process requires some good work though). But if you haven't done that already there is no help.
The same thing has happened to me, luckily my app was in alpha at that time so there were no inconveniences to my users.
Related
The problem is the following:
I have been developing my game on my laptop until now without a keystore set in Unity editor but I was able to upload my apk file to the Play Store. Now I bought another computer and wanted to upload an update but it gets rejected because it is signed differently.
I tried copying my debug.keystore file from my old computer to my new one, but it also gets rejected because it's for debug.
So my question is: Does Unity or Google Dev Console use a default keystore which the Developer Console accepts? And if so, then where can I find it? Would it be better to publish my application again with a new keystore created by me? (It's only in closed beta, so it's not that big of a deal, but I want to know why this is happening.)
There's no way to recover your key.
I once faced a similar situation, since then,
I've made several copies of my key. Once again,
there is no way to recover this.
You need to create new a keystore and make a backup to prevent any issues in the future
I'm burning my eyelash with this issue.
As everybody know (and I learned it for sure) Android doesn't allow to recover the keystore. So the only option that we have is to generate a new one, as Scoober answer here.
So far so good, but the problem is that we can't replace the actual app inside the play store, for the new one, because this doesn't have the keystore as we know.
So the question is: is it possible to unpublish/remove the app from play store, and upload the new one with the same name and package?
In other words: is it posible, after all the necessary steps, put the app with the same name or package or both?
I know that 3 year ago, it wasn't possible, but now? google and the developers console changed a lot. so maybe it's.
Hope anyone helps.
Thanks in advance.
From this answer:
You can create a new keystore, but the Android Market wont allow you
to upload the apk as an update - worse still, if you try uploading the
apk as a new app it will not allow it either as it knows there is a
'different' version of the same apk already in the market even if you
delete your previous version from the market
Do your absolute best to find that keystore!!
When you find it, email it to yourself so you have a copy on your
gmail that you can go and get in the case you loose it from your hard
drive!
No you will not be able to upload an app to the Play store with the same package, and signed by a different keystore.
You CAN use the same name, for sure not same package.
Same package must always be signed with the same keystore.
I have already published an app to version 2, and have uploaded an app with version 3 to to Google Play as a beta testing version, and then discovered with errors, so I have modified the codes is now ready for publish.
I tried to upload the correct apk with version 3 to Google Play, but it says I have already uploaded a version 3 apk already.
Question:
How to remove the wrong apk from the Google Play? Or what should I do? Or I can only modify and upload the app as version 4?
Thanks!!
You can not remove the apk from google play. You just have now update your application version and upload the new apk on google play that is the only way.
Please note that package names for app files are unique and permanent, so please choose wisely. Package names cannot be deleted or re-used in the future. Keep in mind that if you've lost your keystore, you'll have to publish the app with a new package name and a new key. You should also update the description of the original app and unpublish it.
If the app was ever published, this will not work. You can unpublish an app, but you cannot delete any .apk files that were ever active while the app was published. (This behavior is undocumented as far as I can find.) This is unfortunate; it would be nice to be able to completely remove all traces of an app that was never downloaded by anyone. Even better would be a sandbox area that emulated all aspects of Google Play, including buying your own app (and would support doing it through the emulator).
Check out HERE
I am developing an Android application and in this application, I am using "In app billing" features.
I uploaded apk on the google console account and set the product id, price and other required things and saved all the data in the draft.(Application is still in draft mode).
I did not publish my app yet.
After a few minutes, I realized that I uploaded old signed apk file and keystore of this apk has already lost.
Now I want to remove this old apk file and want to upload a new one in draft mode.
My problems are :
How to remove the old apk file from the google console account.(In Draft Mode)
How to upload the new signed apk file with new key store (As I have
lost my old key store)
EDIT:
I want to publish the app with the same name and with same package name. I do not want to change my app name atleast.
This can now be done by going to Release management > Artifact library and deleting the APK.
You cannot delete the artifacts anymore.
Here's a part of my chat with Pete through the built-in help & support.
Pete:
Thanks for waiting. You can't remove an apk that you've already
served. Your next Production apk has to be version code 3 or higher.
Me:
So I can't just delete the artifact of that build?
Pete:
That's correct.
(P.S. He mentioned version code 3 because of my specific issue)
You can try KOTIOS's answer.
Delete the aab / apk file from the Google Play Console on the App Bundle Explorer under Release Tab
Then select the apk/aab file you want to delete from the List
Quoting Can we still remove never-published apps from Google Play?:
Well, the answer is that the strategy still works. If you've never
published the app, you can remove all traces of it from Google Play
and another publisher account can then upload an app with the same
package name. All you need to do is deactivate (if necessary) and then
delete all .apk files and the app will disappear from your developer
console.
If the app was ever published, this will not work. You can unpublish
an app, but you cannot delete any .apk files that were ever active
while the app was published. (This behavior is undocumented as far as
I can find.) This is unfortunate; it would be nice to be able to
completely remove all traces of an app that was never downloaded by
anyone. Even better would be a sandbox area that emulated all aspects
of Google Play, including buying your own app (and would support doing
it through the emulator).
I also discovered that the delays involved in propagating changes to
all Google Play servers seems worse than it did a year ago with
Android Market. In one case, when testing license responses I had to
wait two hours after uploading (but not publishing) an app before the
response came back as anything from "NOT_MARKET_MANAGED".
You can do this by upload new apk with upper version
and the old Apk will deactivated automaticly
Turns out I don't have Proguard activated on a live app that I have published to the Google Play store. It's not the end of the world since I don't have anything sensitive in the app (and I've found that I can decompile apps pretty well even when Proguard is applied).
My question is: If I apply Proguard and then upload a new .apk to Google Play, when my users update are they going to run into a problem?
One reason I ask is because I learned the hard way that changing the LAUNCHER activity in an app can make user-created shortcuts void in an updated version, so I'm trying to prevent causing any more inconvenience to my users.
If I apply Proguard and then upload a new .apk to Google Play, when my users update are they going to run into a problem?
No. You users are getting a compiled version of your application, not the raw sources.
As long as the package name remains the same and you sign the package using the same keystore you won't have any problems.