App not updating for alpha testers on google play
My app is being tested using Google Play. I am one of my alpha testers, naturally. I released a new alpha version of the app. I was expecting it to update automatically on my device. But it's not updating. Am I missing a step? According to Google
Once they install the app and opt in, they'll automatically be updated to the new test version.
Nothing with Google Play is automatic. They have a caching system much like Apple App Store among others. From my experience, once or twice a day the cache system gets flushed and the market gets updated.
At some point after that, the updates get pushed. This can be a multi-day process unfortunately.
Just had the same problem. My update wasn't available after 48 hours. Tried closing the app store and restarting the phone, which didn't work. Then I went into the phones settings and cleared the play stores cache, which worked immediately, and I could download the latest alpha version.
In addition to the time it takes for app updates to fully process, the Google Play app itself also caches app information, so your users (and you) may be seeing a cached version of your Google Play list.
Here's a trick to force Google Play to fetch the latest version of your app. This works every time for me.
How to reset the Google Play app's cache:
- Force close the Google Play app
- Open the Settings app
- Go to Applications > Application Manager > Google Play Store > Storage
- Click Clear Cache
The Google Play app's cache should now be reset. Try finding your app again and see if it shows the latest version.
Google announced on March 2018 the availability of an internal test track.
According to documentation:
You should create an internal test if you want to quickly distribute your app for internal testing and quality assurance checks.
[…]
An internal test can have up to 100 testers per app.
I had a similar issue where my tester was able to see the production version of my app in Play Store but not the new Beta version update even though it was uploaded many hours before and available to other Beta testers as an update.
I had added him as a Beta tester to my Google Group, also added as a test user in my Google Play Store account. The solution was to force stop Play Store then restart it again.
The Beta Update was available as soon as he went back into the play store and searched for the app.