Unable to upload new APK file to Android Play store

Question

I'm getting below error while trying to upload new APK file.

Upload failed

You uploaded a debuggable APK. For security reasons you need to disable debugging before it can be published in Google Play.

Jillian

Did you post a debuggable build? – Tyrr

This should probably help you sreedevr.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/… – Poetics

Android Studio, menu "View", "Tool Windows", "Build Variants". – Burgrave

Answer 1

In my case I had to add android:debuggable="false" into manifest.. Worked even without few days ago.

Bipack

It looks like Google is FINALLY blocking apps that have the debuggable flag set to TRUE on release builds. About bloody time. – Apogeotropism

Be sure to add the android:debuggable="false" in the application tag of the manifest file. If you add in the manifest tag it will not work. – Quadruplex

Interesting. This implies that the docs for this may be incorrect. – Advection

Avoid to hardcoding debug mode warning. Something about it? – Bossy

Lint will warn you. You have to export signed / un-signed apk from Android tools in project properties in eclipse. Never use a build generated in project/bin directory for production. This answer is no correct at all. – Libreville

Answer 2

If you're using Android Studio, the simplest way is to open the "Build Variant" toolbar on the left bottom and change it from "Debug" to "Release" then "Build" -> "Generated Signed APK".

Impeach

Mine was at the left bottom. It tooks me a while to find it :) – Disembark

So was mine, not sure why I originally wrote "Right". Fixed now, thanks :-) – Impeach

That should be the right answer. Putting android:debuggable to false gives a warning. – Depose

This is the correct way if you are using Android Studio! – Jerrold

Works perfectly for Android Studio. – Safir

It's worth noting that if you have a sub module that declares android:debuggable="true" in it's manifest application tag, the apk will be debugable even when using this method. And the play store will reject it. – Traverse

Answer 3

If you using maven and android-maven-plugin, add this to plugin configuration

 <configuration>
   <release>true</release>
</configuration>

Haiku

Do you know if all new Android Studio projects by default are created with maven and maven-plugin or does a dev always add those into a project? And where would I find the plugin configuration in Android Studio, in the build gradle section? – Doering

Answer 4

Please note, even if you have a release entry in your gradle build with debuggable false, if debuggable is set to true in the AndroidManifest.xml, it will still fail to upload. Found a random subproject in mine that had it set to true even though the gradle build file was false for all sub projects.

Merrile

Answer 5

In case someone still looking the answer. I had similar problem. In my case Google Api error was: Google Api Error: apkNotificationMessageKeyDebuggable: APK is marked as debuggable. - APK is marked as debuggable. During investigation I've found that inside BuildConfig.java file DEBUG constant equals true even though BUILD_TYPE == release. After several hours I've found this thread. So in my case the problem was in jacoco. After removing testCoverageEnabled = true for release build, DEBUG became false again.

Liberec