[Jon-Paul]

Hi.

A very long time ago I had an unpublished app on my Google Play store dev account and recently received warnings about it potentially being removed as it doesn’t target the latest Android version etc. Then I had errors with the app signing and thought it’s best to let that app get deleted and start again.

So I created a new Felgo project, made my old one consistent with the new project and pushed my changes. When I try to build it using the Felgo Cloud Builds I get this error:

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* Where:
Build file '~/project/repo/memory_boss/build-android/android-build/build.gradle' line: 20

* What went wrong:
A problem occurred evaluating root project 'android-build'.
⋗ Failed to apply plugin 'com.android.internal.application'.
   ⋗ The option 'android.bundle.enableUncompressedNativeLibs' is deprecated.
     The current default is 'true'.
     It was removed in version 8.1 of the Android Gradle plugin.

I can’t see that property in my build.gradle settings so assuming this is from the cloud builds.

Any ideas how to fix this?

BTW it’s been such a long time doing any of this with the Google Play console I’ve forgotten everything so am an absolute beginner.

Thanks in advance

[BenceFelgo Team]

Hi Jon-Paul,

 

Is your project built with Felgo 3 or Felgo 4?

• In case it’s Felgo 3, you might need to set Cloud Builds -> Project Settings -> Qt version back to Qt 5.
• In case it’s Felgo 4, have you followed all the instructions to migrate the build.gradle file to be in line with the latest releases? You can find the steps to migrate for all Felgo releases here: https://felgo.com/doc/felgo-updates/

Best,

Bence

[Jon-Paul]

Sorry, been away for a bit.

It’s a Felgo 4 project. I’ll have a look at the updates link, cheers

[Jon-Paul]

Following the build.gradle updates in the link worked and it built fine. Let’s see if I can upload it to the Android store now…

[Jon-Paul]

Android dev console is saying the app needs to be signed. In Felgo Cloud Builds there are only two options: development and distribution. Do I have to use distribution now? It’s my understanding the development one will use it’s own signing.

The ‘how do I get these information’ link in Felgo Cloud Builds says you can use Android Studio to generate keys but the options isn’t there for me. Do I have to create an Android Project or can I import something from my Felgo project android folder?

[Jon-Paul]

I followed some steps to create a keystore which I’ve then uploaded to the Felgo Cloud Builds but when I add the app bundle to the Google Play Console it moans about the keys not matching. This was expected since the keystore I generated has not been set in the Google Play Console since that is set to manage the app signing for me.

Stuck now

[BenceFelgo Team]

Hi Jon-Paul,

In case you already had a keystore previously, you should use that one on Cloud Builds as well to upload builds. Alternatively, if that original key was set up using Play App Signing, you can change the key to a new one by clicking on “Create new release”, then under “App Integrity” clicking on “Change signing key”.

Best,

Bence

[Jon-Paul]

Thanks but that doesn’t provide any information to help.

Previously, I just used the development option in the cloud builds which doesn’t require signing and that’s what I used when I uploaded it to the Google dev console and it was fine.

Now they require apps to be signed which means anything I generate from Felgo Cloud Builds using the Development option doesn’t work and anything using Deployment means I need to get a keystore from somewhere that matches what’s in the Google Play Console. And I need the other parameters (key pass, store pass etc) to match something that doesn’t exist.

The Google stuff just says ‘use this tool’ with no instructions on how to do it. Felgo Cloud Store just links to that. Plus there are 4 options in the Google Play Store: let Google manage it (recommended), use Java keystore, use non-Java keystore and something else which I forget. No documentation explaining the difference or best practice in generating this stuff, in fact, anything useful.

Google Play Store provides some hash strings but nothing explaining what to do with that.

[Jon-Paul]

https://developer.android.com/studio/publish/app-signing#generate-key

Says you can create the keystore using Android Studio but the option isn’t there for me, presumably because I didn’t create an Android Studio project.

Anyway, ChatGPT suggested this, which is very similar to what I’d tried previously:

keytool -genkey -v -keystore myappid.keystore -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 10000 -alias myappid

So I’ve kept the Google Play Store to control app signing and am using the deployment option of the Felgo Cloud Builds with the details entered when running that command.

The app bundle uploaded and apart from a warning about a deobfuscation file being missing it seems to be OK.

Could you please let me know whether we can still use the development build option in Felgo Cloud Builds and could we please update the Felgo docs with info on how to create the keystore stuff? Linking to Android Studio docs isn’t useful unless there’s a simple way to open your Felgo app in Android Studio.

[BenceFelgo Team]

Hi Jon-Paul,

If needed, you can switch back to the “Development build” option on Cloud Builds, the system will store the information for the deploy key for future use.

You can open your project in Android Studio by first creating an Android build from Qt Creator. This will then create the build folder, which contains the Android Studio project files. You can then open this folder from Android Studio to help with creating the keystore.

Best,

Bence

[Jon-Paul]

I tried opening the Android folder in Android Studio but it threw a load of errors at me.

When I get time I’ll switch back to the dev version on Cloud Builds and see if that works.