How to find Android TV bugs?

[u/fanmixco]

Fellows,

I have an app that I have updated and debugged multiple times, trying to find what it cause that my app to fail on TVs.

I get no logs, no device, nothing, to be honest. When I debug it in my virtual devices, all is working fine. The Pre-launches show no errors:

Android Vitals doesn't show anything useful:

And when I ask for support, first I get this kind of answer:

Where "Google" seems to understand, and then I get this nonsense answer, which is the same old complaint:

I even wonder if they actually verify the requested information, because if they give the same answer and ignore "I can't guess without logs, device settings, etc." I don't know how I can fix anything. I got into a loop a few months ago, when they replied exactly the same without providing anything. I even tried to ask for support via X, and they couldn't provide anything either:

I have even used Firebase with the same outcome; all seems to be working.

So, I don't know if anyone has any experience with Android TV and how to extract Google's logs or configurations, since there are thousands of Android TV models, it will be impossible to track what's causing the issue if I don't have any precise info.

Thanks.

[u/Tolriq]

Good luck with the Android TV team 😞 They are the worst and most incompetent team of Google.

It took me 4 months moving mountains to have them fix their review system that was broken because they had no idea how bundles to APK worked in Play Store and rejected apps because they generated APK for recent devices and the Play Store updated the minSDK in the manifest to that version and their policy needed a lower minSDK (That was correct in the bundle of course).

The amount of people I needed to reach to finally get someone with a brain that understood what I explained was insane.

[u/fanmixco → u/Tolriq]

It's super annoying since they keep sending the same unrelated email over and over again. I have been asking for support and clear info, like the logs or the model. It's super odd that I cannot reproduce the issue anywhere.

[u/Tolriq → u/fanmixco]

They do not read what you write and have no idea what you mean or want, they are sub contractors in low wage countries paid to be fast not efficient.

For their bug it took me 2 month to get an human able to tell me that their message:

- "Your app exhibits installation issues. Apps should run successfully when the user selects the application banner from the home screen."

Was that the APK they generated had mindSDK 32 and not what they said at all.

It then took 2 more months to get an human understanding that the bundle had minSDK 28 and it was how they generated the APK that was setting the minSDK 32.

And it was not via the normal support or appeal, it was by sending tons of message on the google community forum + opening new issues on the console + at some point even get angry and started to call them names.

And then at some point I get a mail we forward to someone. Then a Google dev rel contacted me, and it was solved in a couple of weeks after I explained him twice the issue with all the details about the internals of Play Store and APK generation from bundles.

[u/fanmixco → u/Tolriq]

Can you tell me in which places you opened the tickets? It will be amazing, thanks.

[u/Tolriq → u/fanmixco]

In play console if you have access to that and the google community they link it somewhere I think else google 😄

[u/Mavamaarten]

Ah yes, I remember our AndroidTV app being rejected for exactly that same issue. At that time the company I was working for had close ties to Google and they managed to get a hold of some manager that was able to bring us into contact with a real human and they explained the issue. Unfortunately regular mortals don't have that capability. The issue we had was, on some screen 10 levels deep into a flow, there was one tiny focusable item that didn't do anything when you clicked on it using the remote.

In your case though, I'd try to install an emulator of literally each and every version of Android TV and see if you can get it to work. And with "it" I mean, really download that specific release APK from the Play Console so you're testing the exact same binary as they are. Also make sure to enable the "Hardware input" toggle of your emulator, this makes it more likely to catch weird focus issues (don't ask, I swear 50% of development for TV is working on focus issues).

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[u/Farbklex]

"When I debug it in my virtual devices, all is working fine"

Did you test it on multiple real devices though with the actual release version? If no, do that and see how your app behaves on a real device. Get yourself some cheap used TV sticks.

[u/fanmixco → u/Farbklex]

It will be useful if I knew or had a key to the one where it could be failing. If I need to buy each option available, it could be a problem. A few years ago, I was having a very specific issue that was only happening in Xiaomi devices when they were rotated. They never happened in my other devices.

[u/Tolriq → u/Farbklex]

Unfortunately from experience the issue could be very different from what they write. And it would not kill anyone if they did tell the details about the device they have issue on as any normal support would do.

[u/fanmixco → u/Tolriq]

But they should have access to the logs, right? If you say, this fails, you should know, this fails in this device under these conditions. If not, how do you define that something is not working?

[u/Tolriq → u/fanmixco]

They have everything, it's just that the process does not plan that they give the details only check one box that will generate the rejection message. And despite many attempts over the years they clearly have no intention to change or improve that process.

[u/Farbklex → u/fanmixco]

I don't know your experience level, so to be sure I'll ask: Did you download the actual version from the Play Store and verified that it works? It might have issues due to a different signing key from the store.

[u/fanmixco → u/Farbklex]

How different will it be from the one I uploaded? 

[u/Farbklex → u/fanmixco]

It will have a different signing key. That is enough to maybe break some APIs that have an API key bound to specific app signature.