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I have a Bike computer app that logs data while the user is riding. I have had a user report an issue I had not considered. He was out for a long ride (100+ miles) but while out and logging data the app got updated via Google plays auto-update. This unfortunately killed off the app mid recording and the user lost data till they spotted what had happened and restarted the app.

Ideally I would like to be able to programmatic stop the auto-update happening while the app is data logging. All my research indicates that this is not possible possible but I may of missed something so dose anyone know of a way of doing this?

Given no solution the best I can do is advice the users to enable the update only over wifi option in the Play app which in this instance would of helped. Unfortunately one of the key points about my app is that it will log indoor sessions using ANT+ sensors so I have a good number of people using it with wifi active.

Edit

I managed to do the experiment to see what happens myself last night. I had an app going in the background data logging then pushed a new version to Google Play. Unfortunatly it was not picked up totaly automaticaly when I had to leave 10 hours latter but I opened up the play store app and it found the update it did not start updating automaticaly but I forced it. The act of downloading and installing the new version killed off what was in progress. It was already dead before I used the notification to go to the new version.

Cœur
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Ifor
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1 Answers1

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As you say yourself, you can't do that what you are asking for. You could hack your way around it by changing the permissions each time you update. The users will then be prompted about it in the regular way.

I'm not sure about the "life-cycle" for automatic updated apps that are running. But I read somewhere that is wasn't the re-install but the reopen of the app that crashed it. If that is the case you could set a flag indicating that the user is currently logging and then on restart just resume the logging. But again we need to know more about the inner workings of activities/apps which are running and get an automatic update (actually didn't think it could happen).

Edit

Based on your findings I'd say you have to handle the app is shut down in onDestroy etc. or/and make sure you save everything persistently. Then you might need to have 2 apps where 1 listens to the other being re installed and when that happens it starts it up again (there is an interesting discussion here). If you are targeting api >= 12 then the broadcast action ACTION_MY_PACKAGE_REPLACED might also have interest.

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Warpzit
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  • I will try and investigate the update and subsequent click on the notification for restart an see which dose the damage. I was originaly detecting a restart when logging and trying to continue. It has proved problematic to do this cleanly in random reboot senarios my inital attempt sometimes looked like it had started logging again but in fact had failed in an obscure way so I went back to just try and tidy up and let the user start again. I have an option to merge the rides so starting a new one can be worked around afterwards. I may try again on the trying to continue. – Ifor Nov 07 '12 at 12:41
  • Well that would be the solution the user would appreciate most :) please write back when you figured out what happens. – Warpzit Nov 07 '12 at 12:45
  • Yes I will report my findings. I think I will have to test for real probobly with one of my other apps which have not been updated for a while. It may be a few days. – Ifor Nov 07 '12 at 14:53
  • OK I managed to do the experiment. I have added a new section to the question explaining what happened. – Ifor Nov 23 '12 at 10:26