Google Play console reporting crashes from unreleased applications

Question

I would like to share a situation I am facing analysing the new features at Google Play console and try to find a solution for it.

As many of you may already know, Google has released updates at Google Play console and introduced Android vitals. One of the good particularities is that now the session ANRs & Crashes shows all ANRs & crashes collected from Android devices whose users have opted in to automatically share usage and diagnostics data (during phone first setup).

However, I am seeing crash reports from unreleased applications. I mean, from a developer version that hasn't been published yet. Moreover, this crash report came from an application signed with an android-debug key, not my production key. I have looked into the available documentation but I couldn't found details on the filtering for these reports.

It seems harmful and wrong to me using any income data without validating signing as anyone can simply write a short peace of code and start flooding a specific application package name with tons of dummy stacktraces.

Do you know if this is the normal behavior for this new tool ?

Aboutface

I also experienced this today.Seeing all the crash reports from the debug version of the app which I had used on my device.I think Google should add some kind of filtering to show crash reports from only properly signed apps. – Eridanus

I encountered the same issue. I created an issue in Google's issue tracker: issuetracker.google.com/issues/64929012 You can star the issue if you want it to get more attention from Google. – Filia

Thanks for sharing @ipanag. – Aboutface

Answer 1

As we are interested in publishing only release applications, we may adopt following strategy to get rid of messing up crash reports :

./build.gradle :

android {
    ...
    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "my.app.package"
        ...
    }
    ...
    buildTypes {
        release {
            ...
        }
        debug {
            ...
            applicationIdSuffix ".dev"
        }
    }
...
}

Aboutface

Hi, Can you please help me, i am also getting the crash reports in console. When i add applicationIdSuffix ".dev", it is saying "No matching client found for package name 'my.app.package.dev'" – Roquelaure

Hi @DemoMail , sorry for the late response. Where and when are you seen that message ? Are you trying to get an app with this applicationIdSuffix ".dev" published in the same space you have published the one without it ? – Aboutface

@Aboutface this is a nice solution but it can break things up when using library that are configured with applicationId for example i use this approach i am no longer able to test in app billing in my app – Dayle

This just started happening to me today after I updated to API 26. All of my emulator crashes appearing and making it impossible to see actual crashes. Come on google! – Embow

I see @AkashKumar. That really can mess things out. If it is possible changing library code, I would suggest you to edit applicationId as the same way to work-around it till Google provide a long-term fix for this situation. See above comment from ipanag. – Aboutface

Has anyone find a better fix? – Bestialize

Answer 2

The Developer Console only reports crashes from published version numbers (either in alpha, beta or production).

So my solution is very simple:

1. After publishing a new version, the first thing I do is increase the versionCode in the manifest. And I only use this version number while developing. This way, no crash is sent to the console.
2. Then, when I'm ready to publish again, I increase the versionCode once more. This way I make sure new crashes will only come from the published version.

EDIT:

Crashes from unpublished versions will still appear on the console under the 'All versions' option. So take this answer as a way to identify and filter those crashes, not to prevent them from being logged.

Byplay

I do this same thing for now, but I add a bunch of zeros too. So 34 released I promptly change it to 3500 that way there's no way google should find that. It'll be under all versions, but clearly since my next version is 35 and much less than 3500 it should be clear. – Barrada

Answer 3

I also faced the same issue.
It shows Crash reports when I go to All applications -> -> Dashboard -> Crashes

But if I go directly to Android Vitals -> ANRs & crashes it doesnt show anything.

Anyway for the first case you can click on 'View details' and select 'Hide' from dropdown menu for each crash type reported.

This is just a temporary fix , but I think Google has to provide proper fix for it.

Eridanus

Any news on this behavior? – Nambypamby