Auto-update of an Android app never happens

Question

I have a somewhat unusual Android app in the Play Store that\'s running on dedicated devices 24/7 (it collects sensor data, it\'s not meant to run on phones used for anythin

Answer 1

Make sure the port 5228, TCP and UDP, is not blocked by a firewall per https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/2651367?hl=en

We've had a similar problem for years. Our apps run on school deployed devices. Whenever we push an update, it reaches may be 10% of devices within 24 hours, the rest seem to "hang". It takes about a week for another 30% of devices to get the update, while the remaining %60 never get it. There is no difference in settings across devices. All set to auto-update of course.

The way we "solved it" is our app is checking if the market has a newer version (there are libraries for doing it, but we have own server responding yes/no). If there is a newer version of the app, we invoke the intent to open Google Play with the app's page. The user has to manually click "Update" at that point.

If there was a native or cleaner way to push the updates we'd love to hear, even at this point in the game. Bothering users to update is not ideal.