Return to the old APK in the Android Play Developer Console

Question

I posted several versions of my application on Google Play, and I noticed an error in the latest version. However, all previous versions still appear and are marked Unpublished in the APK section. I am trying to publish version 2.1 and use version 2.0 .

Here are the steps I took:

• I went to the APK section
• I switched to advanced mode
• Then in version 2.0 I clicked Move to Prod
• Then in version 2.1 I clicked Deactivate

Then I get this error message: (version 7 is 2.1, and version 6 is 2.0)

 This configuration cannot be published for the following reason(s): It is forbidden to downgrade devices which previously matched version 7 to version 6, which would occur when API levels in range 16+ and Screen layouts containing any of [small, normal, large, xlarge] and Features containing all of [android.hardware.screen.PORTRAIT, android.hardware.TOUCHSCREEN]. 

When comparing the APK for both versions, the configuration is exactly the same:

 ------------------------------------------------------- Details | Version 2.0 | Version 2.1 | ------------------------------------------------------- API levels | 16+ | 16+ | ------------------------------------------------------- Screen lay. | 4 screen (s/n/l/xl)| 4 screen (s/n/l/xl)| ------------------------------------------------------- Features | same for both | same | ------------------------------------------------------- 

therefore, the error message is not very informative in this case. Is this the right way to go back and activate an older version of the APK? if yes, what is the problem?

Answer 1

The message simply means that the downgrade is not available for published applications. Additional information about your configuration simply shows that all configured devices will be affected.

Android OS checks the version code and does not allow version code less than 8 after installing the application with version 7 code. You can try this with the adb install command.

Reference documentation

• You cannot activate a new APK that has a lower version code than the APK that it replaces. For example, say that you have an active APK for a small screen size - normal with version 0400 code, then try replacing its APK with the same screen sizes with version 0300 code. This causes an error because it means that users of the previous APK will not be able to update the application.

you have 2 ways

• solve the problem and publish a new version.
• take the code from the previous version and change its version code to 8 and republish.