I lost the keystore of my Android app. The app was only published in the Alpha Track for a limited list of testers. No Production Track yet.
I contacted Google about it and they told me to
unpublish the app, which I did
change the package name, which I did in the Android manifest
In the Alpha track I still see the previous release with the status of fully implemented
After that I did the following
Clicked on Make Release
Clicked on Upload APK
Uploaded the new APK
RESULT: I get the error that I uploaded an APK that has been signed with another certificate than previous APKs.
What am I missing here? Do I need to change the package name somewhere else as well? Or do I also have to change the android:versionCode and android:versionName?
Thanks!
Ok, I found the way to solve this. For anyone who has the same question, here are the steps that you should follow:
Unpublish the app in the Google Play Console
In the store listing tab, change the name of your app
Create a new app
Re-use the same name for that new app by putting it in the store listing form
That's it. Hopefully you don't have too many (or none) users who already downloaded your app. Otherwise you'll have to let them know about the change.
Related
I'm attempting to upload a build of an Android app to Google Play. I created a new keystore and signed it, but I get this error "You need to use a different package name" when I try to upload it.
I suspect that what happened is that another member of my team did this already but failed to commit their keystore file to version control. The app has never been published before, it is a new app.
I need a quick fix for this -- I won't be able to reach the team member who may have done this for several days. I tried removing the build that had been uploaded, but that didn't help.
Can I delete the entire app from Google Play and start over?
Can I change the package name? I've heard that this will work, but I'm not really sure what it entails. Do I have to actually change the package name of every class in my source code?
Thanks,
Frank
You can delete the application in the following cases
- Published apps or games that haven't been installed on any devices
- Published apps or games that no users are entitled to re-install
from here
also google does not allow uploading an app with a different signature and the same package name. What you can do now is to change the entire package name and this can be done easily in Android studio
More details
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9023647
There is an app created and was published on Google Play store. Then it was not getting updated because of missing keystore. So the exiting app was unpublished and a new apk was created with new package name and version number.
Then, even if the new signed apk was created with newer version code and package name, still an error is appearing "you should either add a new apk or deactivate an existing apk to create a new release".
Can someone help out ? Is anything missed in the process ?
You can only update the existing Apk of an unpublished app with the new version code, in google play console you cannot add an Apk with a different package name.
You can add Apk having the same package name and keystore as previously. you can also see this document for further details.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/7159011?hl=en
From my point of knowledge I think google play store doesn't support changing the apk for the same project .You should create another app project in play console for the new apk and add it to release.
I'am sure that you have uploaded the app and filled the content rating. Then you should have to go to edit release and create your release. Re uploading was your problem.Or post the error image to help you more
As many others have answered I will repeat, but try to repeat more clearly.
Every app has a package name sometimes called an application id. It's the string like com.google.android.gm. As far as Google Play is concerned, it doesn't care what you do in your project in Android Studio, or Unity or any other development platform. If the app has the same package name, it is the same app. If it has a different package name, it is a different app.
You say you are trying to create a new release with a different package name. This can't be done. As far as Google is concerned, you are creating a brand new app.
Have you uploaded your APK with your new package name? If you have, can you provide a screenshot? Then people might be able to more clearly see what the problem is.
In my case, I also changed the name of the package via Refractor in Android Studio. I wanted to upload the same app with a new package. And it was still giving me the error that the package already exists, so I had to change the applicationId in build.grade App:module.
After this, it does not replace the old app on phone. Instead, it creates a new one, also Playstore uploaded the app.
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 opened a Google Play developer account 4 days ago and submitted my first app. It has passed over 60 hours since submission; yet the app is nowhere to be found in Google Play. Neither in the search results; nor at the direct link. (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=lostaliens.crocusgames.lostaliens)
I have opened a ticket to the support and in the mean time resubmitted my APK. (Uploaded to the production, not beta or alpha)
Now I wonder if it is OK to submit the same APK with different package name and display name to Google Play. I just want to see if it will get through. I will unpublish the other one, once one of them actually goes in the market. However, I have no idea if this is against the TOS or something. Obviously, I don't want to be blocked/banned from the market.
I know this is complicated; but as an inexperienced developer; I need all the help I can get.
Thanks in advance.
As per GooglePlay guidelines, you can't upload the same .apk twice without changing either the package name or Version Code.
When you upload a .apk to GooglePlay, it checks whether the corresponding package name already exists in the market or not. If doesn't exist, you can upload it else you can't.If you want to upload a update of the same app, then you have to increment the Version Code in the manifest file and create a signed apk and then upload it.
If you change the package name as you have mentioned, GooglePlay will treat it as a totally different application.So you can upload it without any problem.
for reference
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/113476?hl=en&ref_topic=3450986
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