Google Play Console error - Non-upgradable to installed app

Question

I developed an instant app apk basing on google tutorials and samples. When I'm trying to start rollout to production, I see one error: Non-upgradable to installed app

PROBLEM

Some users of this Instant App APKs will not be eligible for any of the APKs in your installed app.

RESOLUTION

Ensure that the targeting of your Instant App APKs matches the targeting of your APKs.

Project structure: There are two scenarios, 1st:

base - baseFeature, minSdk 18, targetSdk 26

application project(':apk')
feature project(':item-details')

item-details feature - minSdk 18, targetSdk 26

api project(':base')

ui - feature not included in instant module, minSdk 18, targetSdk 26, module contains all views

implementation project(':base')
other modules like customcomponents, shared etc

instant - instant app module minSdk 18 or 23, targetSdk 26

implementation project(':base')
implementation project(':item-details')

apk - apk module, minSdk 18, targetSdk 26

implementation project(':ui')
implementation project(':shared')

Second scenario has item-details code in baseFeature.

Instant app is running from Android Studio and from Google Play development and pre-release. Also when I'm trying to upgrade to installed app, everything works fine. In my opinion, targeting is correct but Google Play Console thinks differently.

Do you know any ideas about how to rollout instant apps? Please help :( I've been working on this release for 3 days and I can not rollout app.

UPDATE 10.09.2017 APK Details:

Supported Android devices 8448 devices 
API levels 18+ 
Target SDK 26 
Screen layouts 4 screen layouts 
Localizations default + 113 languages 
Features 2 features 
Required permissions 12 permissions 
OpenGL ES versions 1.0+ 
OpenGL textures all textures 
Uploaded Sep 9, 2017, 7:57:11 AM PDT 

Answer 1

According to the Android documentation:

You can use the aapt tool, included in the Android SDK, to determine how Google Play will filter your application, based on its declared features and permissions. To do so, run aapt with the dump badging command. This causes aapt to parse your application's manifest and apply the same rules as used by Google Play to determine the features that your application requires.

By running that command on your installable and instant app apks the following info is printed.

Installable app (version 551):

package: name='skyesoftware.blogspace' versionCode='551' versionName='0.3.1.551' platformBuildVersionName=''
sdkVersion:'18'
targetSdkVersion:'26'
uses-permission: name='android.permission.INTERNET'
uses-permission: name='android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE'
uses-permission: name='android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE'
uses-permission: name='android.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE'
uses-permission: name='android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE'
uses-permission: name='android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED'
uses-permission: name='android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION'
uses-permission: name='android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION'
uses-permission: name='android.permission.WAKE_LOCK'
uses-permission: name='com.google.android.providers.gsf.permission.READ_GSERVICES'
uses-permission: name='com.google.android.c2dm.permission.RECEIVE'
uses-permission: name='skyesoftware.blogspace.permission.C2D_MESSAGE'
…
feature-group: label=''
  uses-feature: name='android.hardware.faketouch'
  uses-implied-feature: name='android.hardware.faketouch' reason='default feature for all apps'
  uses-feature: name='android.hardware.location'
  uses-implied-feature: name='android.hardware.location' reason='requested android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION permission, and requested android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION permission'
  uses-feature: name='android.hardware.screen.portrait'
  uses-implied-feature: name='android.hardware.screen.portrait' reason='one or more activities have specified a portrait orientation'
  uses-feature: name='android.hardware.wifi'
  uses-implied-feature: name='android.hardware.wifi' reason='requested android.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE permission'
…
supports-screens: 'small' 'normal' 'large' 'xlarge'
supports-any-density: 'true'
locales: '--_--' 'af' 'am' 'ar' 'az' 'az-AZ' 'be' 'be-BY' 'bg' 'bn' 'bn-BD' 'bs' 'bs-BA' 'ca' 'cs' 'da' 'de' 'el' 'en-AU' 'en-GB' 'en-IN' 'es' 'es-ES' 'es-US' 'et' 'et-EE' 'eu' 'eu-ES' 'fa' 'fi' 'fr' 'fr-CA' 'gl' 'gl-ES' 'gu' 'gu-IN' 'hi' 'hr' 'hu' 'hy' 'hy-AM' 'id' 'in' 'is' 'is-IS' 'it' 'iw' 'ja' 'ka' 'ka-GE' 'kk' 'kk-KZ' 'km' 'km-KH' 'kn' 'kn-IN' 'ko' 'ky' 'ky-KG' 'lo' 'lo-LA' 'lt' 'lv' 'mk' 'mk-MK' 'ml' 'ml-IN' 'mn' 'mn-MN' 'mr' 'mr-IN' 'ms' 'ms-MY' 'my' 'my-MM' 'nb' 'ne' 'ne-NP' 'nl' 'pa' 'pa-IN' 'pl' 'pt' 'pt-BR' 'pt-PT' 'ro' 'ru' 'si' 'si-LK' 'sk' 'sl' 'sq' 'sq-AL' 'sr' 'sr-Latn' 'sv' 'sw' 'ta' 'ta-IN' 'te' 'te-IN' 'th' 'tl' 'tr' 'uk' 'ur' 'ur-PK' 'uz' 'uz-UZ' 'vi' 'zh-CN' 'zh-HK' 'zh-TW' 'zu'
densities: '120' '160' '240' '320' '480' '640' '65534'

Instant App base feature:

package: name='skyesoftware.blogspace' versionCode='1' versionName='1.0.0' platformBuildVersionName=''
sdkVersion:'18'
targetSdkVersion:'26'
uses-permission: name='android.permission.INTERNET'
uses-permission: name='android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE'
uses-permission: name='android.permission.WAKE_LOCK'
uses-permission: name='com.google.android.c2dm.permission.RECEIVE'
uses-permission: name='skyesoftware.blogspace.permission.C2D_MESSAGE'
application: label='' icon=''
feature-group: label=''
  uses-feature: name='android.hardware.faketouch'
  uses-implied-feature: name='android.hardware.faketouch' reason='default feature for all apps'
other-activities
other-receivers
other-services
supports-screens: 'small' 'normal' 'large' 'xlarge'
supports-any-density: 'true'
locales: '--_--' 'af' 'am' 'ar' 'az' 'az-AZ' 'be' 'be-BY' 'bg' 'bn' 'bn-BD' 'bs' 'bs-BA' 'ca' 'cs' 'da' 'de' 'el' 'en-AU' 'en-GB' 'en-IN' 'es' 'es-US' 'et' 'et-EE' 'eu' 'eu-ES' 'fa' 'fi' 'fr' 'fr-CA' 'gl' 'gl-ES' 'gu' 'gu-IN' 'hi' 'hr' 'hu' 'hy' 'hy-AM' 'in' 'is' 'is-IS' 'it' 'iw' 'ja' 'ka' 'ka-GE' 'kk' 'kk-KZ' 'km' 'km-KH' 'kn' 'kn-IN' 'ko' 'ky' 'ky-KG' 'lo' 'lo-LA' 'lt' 'lv' 'mk' 'mk-MK' 'ml' 'ml-IN' 'mn' 'mn-MN' 'mr' 'mr-IN' 'ms' 'ms-MY' 'my' 'my-MM' 'nb' 'ne' 'ne-NP' 'nl' 'pa' 'pa-IN' 'pl' 'pt' 'pt-BR' 'pt-PT' 'ro' 'ru' 'si' 'si-LK' 'sk' 'sl' 'sq' 'sq-AL' 'sr' 'sr-Latn' 'sv' 'sw' 'ta' 'ta-IN' 'te' 'te-IN' 'th' 'tl' 'tr' 'uk' 'ur' 'ur-PK' 'uz' 'uz-UZ' 'vi' 'zh-CN' 'zh-HK' 'zh-TW' 'zu'
densities: '120' '160' '240' '320' '480' '640' '65534'

Instant App feature APK:

package: name='skyesoftware.blogspace' versionCode='1' versionName='1.0.0' split='blogspace_item_details' platformBuildVersionName=''
sdkVersion:'18'
targetSdkVersion:'26'
uses-permission: name='android.permission.INTERNET'
uses-permission: name='android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE'
application: label='' icon=''
feature-group: label=''
  uses-feature: name='android.hardware.faketouch'
  uses-implied-feature: name='android.hardware.faketouch' reason='default feature for all apps'
other-activities
supports-screens: 'small' 'normal' 'large' 'xlarge'
supports-any-density: 'true'
locales: '--_--'
densities: '160'

As you can see your installable app requests the ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION and ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION permissions which implicitly add a requirement of the android.hardware.location feature. In the same way the ACCESS_WIFI_STATE permission implied the android.hardware.wifi feature. A user who don't have either GPS or WiFi on their device (that sounds odd but such devices exist in the wild) will not be able to upgrade your instant app to the installable one.

One more thing that limits your installable app availability is the android.hardware.screen.portrait feature, which was implied because:

one or more activities have specified a portrait orientation

To fix all those issues and make you installable app available to the all users of the instant app, add the following block to the manifest of your installable app (on the level below the <manifest> tag):

<uses-feature
    android:name="android.hardware.location"
    android:required="false" />

<uses-feature
    android:name="android.hardware.location.network"
    android:required="false" />

<uses-feature
    android:name="android.hardware.location.gps"
    android:required="false" />

<uses-feature
    android:name="android.hardware.wifi"
    android:required="false" />

<uses-feature
    android:name="android.hardware.screen.portrait"
    android:required="false" />

The android.hardware.location.network and android.hardware.location.gps features are there to comply with the following requirement:

If your app targets Android 5.0 (API level 21) or higher and uses the ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION or ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION permission in order to receive location updates from the network or a GPS, respectively, you must also explicitly declare that your app uses the android.hardware.location.network or android.hardware.location.gps hardware features.

 
Btw, the other way to figure out what features are required by the installable app is the APK details info screen on the App releases section of the Google Play Console.

Answer 2

This message makes a perfect sense. Just look at the features required by your installed app(you can use classyshark for that). If it requires phone, because you ask for dialer permissions or you just manually required it, or you ask for GSL version 2 as minimum for your installed versions, then it makes sense that part of the users who doesn't meet those criteria but have android 6+ will not be able to use your installed version but only the instant one.

Answer 3

Looking at your installed app's manifest, and your instant app via the gist in your comment above, you do have an issue with your minSdk. Your installed app has minSdk 18, and your instant app doesn't set a minSdk. Set minSdk 18 on instant app base manifest and see if that takes care of it.

Intuitively, this validator is protecting against a scenario that can't happen: a pre-JB user getting your instant app, and being unable to upgrade to the installed app. Because the instant apps runtime itself doesn't go that far back. The validator is indeed dumb. It's just looking at those minSdk values. But that's probably how we want it to be, since that runtime compatibility is moving steadily back to older devices, and that happens without you republishing. (It's extremely unlikely that we'll ever get as far back as sdk 17. Just preemptively justifying why we wouldn't want to make this validator "smarter".)

Answer 4

Simple answer: It happens if you haven't incremented your version number correctly.

Only those with a "lower" version number can upgrade - those with a higher version number can't upgrade.

Answer 5

I followed Idolon's advice (running aapt dump badging MyApp.apk on both apks and comparing) and added several permissions I was missing.

However, I still couldn't get it fully working until I added an OpenGLES feature to match my installed app. In my case:

<uses-feature android:glEsVersion="0x00020000" android:required="true" />