We already have a Xamarin app in production and we wanted to replace it with its MAUI equivalent in the next month. To verify if the user can smoothly upgrade from Xamarin apk to MAUI apk, we have uploaded the app (to playstore) for Open testing.
After submitting for review, the playstore has approved it and the testing links were also available to join as a tester and check the app for upgrade testing.
Here, after joining through invite, the testers are not able to find the app update in playstore. They are still seeing the previous production build always.
Different things we tried
We cross-verified the app identifier and the keystore file we used for signing the maui apk and found that it is same as we used for Xamarin app. (Reference : Can we Replace MAUI Application on Existing Android Play Store Application which built on Xamarin.Forms?)
Cleared the playstore app's cache in the mobiles and reopened it to find the update, but of no luck.
Tried reaching out to google developer support as well. As there are no call (or) scheduled meetings options with playstore support and chat option always shows "our technicians are busy", the discussion went in emails, but it still didn't help in figuring out the root cause of the problem.
We tried releasing the app in other testing tracks like Internal testing, Closed testing etc., but still the tester is not able to see the maui app update.
Expected :
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9845334?hl=en
As per the above docs, the app update should be visible in playstore when tester joined the invite through opt-in link. But playstore is still showing the previous release always.
We are looking out for solution from last one month and since the deadline for release is approaching, I am posting this question so that if someone already faced this issue can guide me in fixing this.
Thanks in advance.
After many attempts, we are able to find out the root cause finally. Sharing this so that it will be helpful to consider, if anyone else also faces the issue in future.
Root cause :
The MAUI aab that we have uploaded for open testing is having build number less than that of the existing playstore Xamarin aab.
(Though, I feel strange that playstore didn't reject it or warn us when we uploaded it for open testing).
More details about how we found it:
We use github workflows to generate alpha, beta and playstore apks. There is one step in the workflow, as shown below, where we invoke a github action to generate a build number for aab.
- name: Generate playstore build number
uses: einaregilsson/build-number@v3
with:
token: {secret-token}
prefix: playstore-android
The above action is helpful to generate aab with sequential build numbers (Example : if current production aab build number is 25, the above action generates the build 26)
Also in the above github action, the "prefix" is something that differs between alpha, beta and playstore aab.
So please note that, you should be using same prefix that you used for Xamarin Playstore aab generation to avoid upgrade testing issues
As we changed it unknowingly for MAUI, we faced issues untill now.