Unable to deactivate APK accidentally uploaded to Prod

Question

My application is currently in alpha. On the google play developer console, I accidentally uploaded a new APK as production rather than alpha.

In advanced mode, there is a deactivate button. But if I deactivate and try to save I get the generic message "The application could not be saved. Please check the form for errors." I don't see any errors on the form. How do I deactivate?

I tried uploading a later version to alpha - that seems to work - but I don't want ANY version in Prod, as my app is not yet ready for prime time.

Solution 1

According to a Google customer service rep I contacted:

The Deactivate button is provided in your advanced mode when you want to support multiple APKs but when your new update supports the same number of devices as your previous APKs, the system won't allow such update. So it is required for you to deactivate the older version in order to upload your new APK.

The Deactivate button is only useful for situations where you have multiple active APKs.

Furthermore, discussing with them, there is apparently no functionality at this time that allows for you to remove APKs from the Production tab once they've been uploaded to that tab, AND there's apparently no way to enable Beta testing if your app is unpublished, so at this point it seems there's no way to undo what you've done if you accidentally upload an APK to the Production tab by mistake. The workaround proposed by the representative was to change the package name of the app, change the keystore used to sign, and create an entirely new application.

Further discussion with the representative indicated that the "error" is that you can't have a Production tab without an APK if there was one there already, but it sounds like there's a bug in that it doesn't actually report that that's the cause.

Solution 2

In latest play console you can goto Publishing Overview->managed publishing status-> press manage button on right then turn on managed publishing