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So I updated my app recently. It wasn't a huge update, some bug fixes, removed some ad networks and their respective Activity and Service entries from the manifest. Linked Fabric with Firebase which involved a few more changes. I'll detail those changed below. I updated to Android Studio 3.1, which I understand involves a change to the D8 compiler.

On my test phones, it installs fine. I had the update with my beta users for several weeks, no issue reports, I have about 25k beta users but obviously not all of them are active or use it every day. I started a staged roll out and judging from the Play Store statistics it got to about 50k install so far.

I've had 3 users report an issue. They say the Play Store says the install failed but the app installs anyways. The install takes 10 to 20 minutes. If they go back to my old version, the install works just as fast as it usually did. They go back to the new version and it again says it fails and takes 10 to 20 minutes to install. The install is successful though, they've sent me screenshots showing it is the new version.

Changes made (from diff against my last release tag):

 <meta-data
        android:name="com.crashlytics.ApiKey"
        android:value="mykey"/>

to 

 <meta-data
        android:name="io.fabric.ApiKey"
        android:value="mykey" />

Removed activities and services like (doubt this is an issue):

 <activity
        android:name="com.someadnetwork.activity"
        android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation|screenSize"/>

Added:

compile('com.crashlytics.sdk.android:crashlytics:2.9.1@aar') {
    transitive = true
}

Went from gradle 3.0.1 to 3.1.0

Went from classpath 'com.google.gms:google-services:3.0.0' to 'com.google.gms:google-services:3.2.0', it was the only way to get the Fabric stuff to work after linking to Firebase.

I tried a release without the D8 compiler and the one user that tried it of 3 that reported the issue said that install went down from 16 minutes to 10 minutes but that it still gave the failed error. Looks like D8 was the culprit. I had a different user try it and disabling D8 fixed it.

This is the error:

enter image description here

So what could the issue be? what else could I try? I'm suspending the update for now just in case it is affecting more people.

Thanks.

Edit: the one user who is actively helping me test this just tried my old apk and my new apk manually and he doesn't get any errors on install but the new apk takes 10 minutes to install and the old one installs quickly.

Edit: someone I know has the issue with my app so I'm sending them apks with small changes to see if I can isolate the issue. The last one I sent them was my previous version of the code, the one that doesn't have the issue, but compiled with Android Studio 3.1.1, which involved making some changes to gradle but not many. The issue is happening with that apk as well.

Edit: Looks like D8 is the culprit. I'm doing a few more tests before filing as bug report.

casolorz
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  • Is that 3 in total out of 50k users, or 3 known cases? Any similarities between users i.e. make of device, api version - anything common between these users? This only affects updates not new installs? – Mark Apr 08 '18 at 10:54
  • 3 known cases out of the 50k users. With Fabric I can see that version has a lot of active users, for example today it has 6k users. So it could be affecting a lot more than just those 3. I've only had one of the users actively reply to my emails so I don't know if there are similarities between the devices. – casolorz Apr 08 '18 at 10:56
  • Sounds like it could be a Google Play Services version problem - maybe out of date. – Mark Apr 08 '18 at 11:12
  • I am on `11.4.2` due to a `Firebase` bug on `11.8`. I'm trying to remember what the crash was but it was something deep within the `Firebase` authentication code. – casolorz Apr 08 '18 at 11:20
  • I now know two of the phones. One is a Samsung A5 with 6.0.1 and one is a LG G4 with 6.0. I've tried my Nexus 5 with 6.0.1 and can't reproduce it. – casolorz Apr 09 '18 at 22:41
  • Looks like the issue is the D8 compiler. – casolorz Apr 10 '18 at 16:32
  • That doesn't sound promising for the new compiler! – Mark Apr 10 '18 at 16:48
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    We'll see after I file the report. I released another app update with D8 and no one had issues with it so maybe it is something I am doing. I will be doing a few more tests and then filing the bug report. – casolorz Apr 10 '18 at 16:51
  • I've filed a bug report, we'll see what happens https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/77842465 – casolorz Apr 10 '18 at 17:21

0 Answers0