Google Play - Fully Shadowed apk

android google-play apk

35,790

Solution 1

Update :- Talked to a Googler working with Google Play console team regarding this issue. One misconception I had at the time was that you need to retain an APK if you want to have a staged rollout. I discussed this with him, and he clarified that it is not needed. Even in staged rollout, with no retained APK, Google play will show an install option to users who visit the app's page. Hope this clears doubts for someone facing similar issues.

I was having the same problem and I fixed without clicking "Retain" for previous version and uploaded a new one and then "Start Rolling" button turn into clickable and done!! ^_^

Solution 2

The Play Console has a bug and that's why it doesn't work. This is the work around:

Say, you have two versions:

Beta: 29
Alpha: previously version 29, but now empty: 'Promoted to beta’ it says. You want to upload version 30.

Then do this:

Create a new Alpha release with version 30, and deactivate the previous APK. When you try to roll it out, it errors Fully shadowed APK.
Go back a page and now remove version 30. Version 29 will be selected, click Save and Start roll out to Alpha. This only deactivates 29.
Create a new Alpha release for 30, it should work now.

Solution 3

Note: this solution works for the time it was posted if doesn't work in the future don't consider it wrong because things changes with time.

You have to deactivate previous version while uploading a new APK that works for me. Simply deactivate previous versions and upload a new APK and roll it out for production.

Solution 4

I had exactly the same issue and resolved it by using the following versionCode entry in config.xml:

<widget id="io.cordova.hellocordova"
  version="3.1.1"
  android-versionCode="3001001"

Here android-versionCode is critical. It must be an integer greater than the number associated with last APK that you have uploaded. Due to some reason my previous version had an additional zero in between creating a higher number which went unnoticed. Since I can't change that because its published I added a zero in the new versionCode and made it 3001001 instead of 300101.

Worked perfectly.

Hope that helps.

Solution 5

For me it worked the following way:

First send a rollout only with the version you want to deactivate.
Secondly, send a rollout with the version you want to publish to Beta.

Seems that under certain conditions Google Play cannot handle deactivating and publishing at the same time.

View more solutions

35,790

Rohan Kandwal

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Updated on July 09, 2022

Comments

Rohan Kandwal almost 2 years

I have an existing app on the PlayStore. I am releasing new version of the app as staged rollout. However, I am not able to publish the app due to "Fully Shadowed APK" error.

So far, I haven't found any documentation as to how to resolve this error. Anyone else faced this?
- Hanuman over 7 years
  
  may be version code is old version compare to playstore version code.check both version codes
- Rohan Kandwal over 7 years
  
  @Hanuman I triple checked this. Both version code and version number are greater.
Rohan Kandwal over 7 years

As a last resort I did that and it worked. However, I wanted to have a staged rollout which I couldn't do. Any ideas about this error?
Zubair Akber over 7 years

I think now they are only allowing a single active APK that would be the latest one with the highest version code or may be its a bug on their side but i don't think so its a bug most probably they are just restrict to a single active APK at a time.
Rohan Kandwal over 7 years

I understand but in that case how will staged rollout work? Staged rollout requires an older version of the app to be active on the play store isn't it?
Akshay Shinde about 7 years

Lol, we faced the same issue and did the same.. and Issue resolved. Seems that there is some bug in play store release manager
Someone Somewhere about 7 years

we're having the same problem - but we usually upload to beta then release to production. The promotion to production is now not working and showing the "Fully Shadowed apk" error. I've uploaded to alpha - now waiting 20 minutes to see if I can promote it to production.(This is actually a PITA because our QA are set up on the beta channel and I don't want to spend time setting up the alpha channel now)
Someone Somewhere about 7 years

promoting from Alpha channel to production seems to have worked. Hopefully the beta channel won't remain FUBAR'ed for long
Rohan Kandwal about 7 years

We had been waiting for answer from Google support for weeks now, hopefully you will have a better luck. Do update the answer if you find a permanent solution to this.
Rohan Kandwal about 7 years

This is what has worked for us for now, hopefully there will be a better solution known to someone, this feels like a hack rather than a solution.
user3533716 about 7 years

Worked for me too. One major problem is that the error message is very unhelpful. And I don't see this mentioned in the help sections either. On top of that I had to switch my browser to English, so that the error message was searchable... sigh...
kikoso about 7 years

I actually wrote support, let them know about the bug and they told me it has been sent to the team. Whether that will lead to a fix, can't say it.
Someone Somewhere about 7 years

which channel? Production / beta / alpha ?
Guigui about 7 years

Google support replied to us within a day saying issue is fixed...and issue is indeed fixed. Hope they'll be as reactive for all of you as they were for us! Bon courage :)
sbaar over 6 years

Were you able to upload a universal apk supporting X abis when you also have X split apks supporting one abi each? I had to include the useless armeabi in my universal but not split on it in order to include the universal without the fully shadowed error.
Yuchen over 6 years

@sbaar yes, that's what we are doing for our releases. We include both the universal and the split apks.
Yuchen over 6 years

@sbaar here is a more complete version of our Gradle file not sure if it helps: stackoverflow.com/a/44359115/1035008
Dallas Caley over 6 years

I see this is the accepted answer, but i don't understand what you actually did to make it work. What does it mean to not click 'Retain' for previous version? Where are you seeing this 'Retain' option? I go to my app release, browse for an apk, upload it then review and i see the error. I don't get a retain or do not retain option anywhere.
Gowthaman M over 6 years

@ Dallas Caley I also having same problem how you solved..please help me sir
wander over 6 years

This solved the same issue with my ionic app! Thank you :)
Rohan Kandwal over 6 years

That's not the case, the issue was that we had retained a older version of the apk which was causing issues with newer APK. Asked a Googler working on Google Play team about this, they recommended not to retain older version of SDK unless the older version has some hardware/software difference from current version .i.e. it targets some more/less devices than the newer APK.
Jon over 6 years

your error says other APKs in the release has higher version codes. If that is not the problem there is little point posting your incorrect errors. You had to retain an APK or there would only be one release, therefore 1 version code. The issue the retained apk was causing was that the old APK had a higher version code than the new APK. That is what your error says. The answer from Google Play does not fix the error, just stops it showing as there is only one APK hence no higher version code. Either this is the answer or Google's errors are lying to you
Rohan Kandwal over 6 years

As I said, I talked to a Googler who accepted that the error message was confusing. He told me he'll note down the issue and simply the message, don't know if that is done. As you will see with so many other answers, it's a bug on Play store side, not app version issue, if you see the green part of the message you will see v31 is being uploading but v30 is shadowing it. Let me know if there is still confusion.
Jon over 6 years

your comment to the selected answer was that you wanted a solution not a hack. Is it possible the Googler did not understand the error message. Cristofori did not play piano as well as beethoven.
Rohan Kandwal over 6 years

Don't know, he was from the Play console team, met him in a GDD conference. What he told me, satisfied me, btw, the the version code and number were always higher in the new release, i'm not that stupid. Anyhow, this is feeling more like a fight now so I will stop responding anymore, have a great day and thanks for the answer.
Rohan Kandwal over 6 years

I'm sorry you feel that way, have a great day and thanks for responding.
Rohan Kandwal over 6 years

@DallasCaley @GowthamanM Sorry to not reply earlier, I didn't get notification for some reason. When you start a new release, 'Prepare release' section, you have a section called APKs to retain, you can see the retained APK there.
Rohan Kandwal almost 6 years

For us, target SDK etc were same and Version codes were higher. Then too we got this error.
Rahul Singh almost 6 years

Are you still getting this error, if yes, give me more details- project is in eclipse or studio?
Rohan Kandwal almost 6 years

That was long time ago for a client project, it was fixed as said in checked answer.
Sandeep Yohans over 5 years

I'm facing the same error. Tried but this solution does not work for me.
toto_tata about 4 years

Thanks but the older apk is the production version. If I deactivate it in the alpha or beta tracks, will it remove the production version ? See the question here : stackoverflow.com/questions/61652630/…
toto_tata about 4 years

Thanks but the older apk is the production version. If I deactivate it in the alpha or beta tracks, will it remove the production version ? See the question here : stackoverflow.com/questions/61652630/…
toto_tata about 4 years

Thanks but the older apk is the production version. If I deactivate it in the alpha or beta tracks, will it remove the production version ? See the question here : stackoverflow.com/questions/61652630/…
toto_tata about 4 years

Thanks but the older apk is the production version. If I deactivate it in the alpha or beta tracks, will it remove the production version ? See the question here : stackoverflow.com/questions/61652630/…
Kirtikumar A. about 4 years

@Regis_AG feel free for production release version and live on store already, your any testing environment will not affect intentionally or automatically to your current production release version, production app will remove or update only when you intentionally try to do it
zgr about 4 years

If you're trying to promote your apk from other tracks, don't do it from track management. It'll automatically retain previous version. Just go for new release and "Add From Library".
Evgenii Vorobei about 4 years

@KirtikumarA., how to deactivate apk? I have no buttons for that. For some reason, string that you highlighted is "1 app bundle retained" for me
Eren Utku about 4 years

I still don't understand what you did to solve the issue? I do understand that we don't have to retain any older version but what has to be done to enable Start Rolling button again then? @RohanKandwal @apple appala
Kirtikumar A. about 4 years

@EvgeniiVorobei You should have the option there to deactivate unwanted apk
Evgenii Vorobei about 4 years

@KirtikumarA., I do not have the option. Nobody does, because Console the same for everyone. Even at the screenshot you provided, there is no any buttons.
Rohan Kandwal about 4 years

@Eren Utku For some reason, when we were retaining the old APKs, we were getting the 'Fully Shadowed APK' error and weren't able to proceed further. Once we stopped retaining the old APK, the error went away.
Kirtikumar A. about 4 years

@EvgeniiVorobei It seems you need to check the option there, if you still facing challenges then please contact me back via my email and I will connect with you
DAG almost 3 years

This was a lifesaver, thank you so much. I accidentally uploaded in the "correct" order for a while, then today ran into these bewildering errors. I would have never guessed putting x64 before x32 version would cause those messages (?!?!)