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I have a fairly specific question, and I couldn't find something that really addresses my scenario.

We have an app in the Play Store. It's been there for years with periodic updates. Most recent update would bomb out on upload, and the Play Store made me update to minSDK (edit for this typo, TARGET not MIN) 29. Did so, and upload proceeded fine, but rolling out is troublesome because that puts a lot of users outside the update path and future updates.

I have personal feelings about Android and what I consider to be an idiotic model of leaving the carriers and MFGs to handle updates resulting in exactly this situation as they are clearly preferential to selling newer phones to customers, but that's a whole other discussion.

I don't really know what to do next; the Play Store doesn't seem at all interested in letting me upload my AAB at anything less than API 29, and a big percentage of my users are on Android 8, with some on lower versions. They can install, but can not run; immediate startup crash, and I can't reproduce it.

Anyone more familiar with Android deployments have some ideas or thoughts that I'm (hopefully very clearly) missing? I can't mandate a bunch of people run out and get new phones, especially those on company-supplied devices, but I also can't believe there's no other recourse for me to get my users updated.

Everything I find in all the google stuff starts with: 1) Make sure you have the android 29 SDK:

(sigh)

Thoughts? Thanks!

Zoe
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ChrisH
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  • I found something that suggested all the dependency libraries should all have min/target set the same. Tried that. I have no idea if it'll work. My min/targets are currently set to 26 & 29 respectively, in my main project and updated (and rebuilt) in all dependency libraries. Store upload when fine, but not triggering the rollout yet until I get feedback from testers. – ChrisH Dec 21 '20 at 15:58

2 Answers2

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Google Play does not require you to have a minSdkVersion of 29 but instead a targetSdkVersion of 29 as of December 2020.

You can change the minSdkVersion to the minimum android version you want to support but you must have a targetSdkVersion of 29 or higher.

user14678216
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  • Yeah, I'm at target 29, min 26. Won't run on Android 8, crashes on startup with no reportable errors (via the app). Runs fine in debug on my two local android devices (both running Android 8). Looking for logs from field devices now, see if there's any indication what's up. And yes, sorry, meant target earlier, not min. Thanks. – ChrisH Dec 21 '20 at 19:35
  • Edited to clarify the prior min/target confusion – ChrisH Dec 21 '20 at 19:37
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Ultimately, the issue was an unlogged error that I couldn't reproduce in debug/dev/testing, and only appeared in Release level builds, per this:

https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/58479

I hate this platform.

Thanks, all.

ChrisH
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