Deleted APK Expansion file still gives NO_DOWNLOAD_REQUIRED

Question

[UPDATE]

I uninstalled and then installed again the application on the test device, and it started working fine.

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I'm implementing APK Expansion file support (but no XAPK ZIP library support).

The documentation implies that if a required APK Expansion file is missing (e.g. it got deleted from the obb folder), my application will re-download it. This doesn't happen for me; my app keeps saying NO_DOWNLOAD_REQUIRED. It seems that the Google Play Downloader Library gets null for the download info from its SQLite database. Note that I haven't updated the draft APK and Expansion file on Google Play - they are still the first version. Moreover, the versionCode of the APK uploaded to Google Play is also identical with the one on the test device.

In details:

1. There was an APK Expansion file in the correct folder (obb). I used it for testing purposes before I actually started implementing the downloader functionality.
2. When the Downloader implementation (based on Google Play Downloader Library) was finished, I changed the size of the above obb file to make it invalid for my app. Therefore, this makes my app call the startDownloadIfNeeded() method.
3. First, I ran my implementation without any files on Google Play. The response was, as I expected: "Download failed because the resources could not be found"
4. Then I uploaded my 40MB APK and a 4 MB expansion file to Google Play (for testing purposes). Note that this 4 MB expansion file is not the invalid one which was left in the obb folder. When I ran my implementation, the response came after 1.5 seconds: "Download complete".
5. This was strange, because my internet connection is not so fast to download 4 MB. Indeed, the obb folder (the folder for APK Expansion files) still contained the invalid expansion file that I initially put there manually. That is, nothing was downloaded!
6. I deleted the invalid file, i.e. the obb folder is now empty, but still no download starts, and Downloader Library says NO_DOWNLOAD_REQUIRED. (I checked its internal implementation: when it queries an SQLite database for download info, it gets null after the query.)

I just read on SO somewhere that the APK Expansion files uploaded to Google Play require a few hours to take effect. In my case, I tested my implementation immediately after upload. But it must have noticed that there are files on Google Play, because instead of "resources could not be found", it gave a different message ("Download completed"). Too bad that it didn't actually download anything; and since then, it doesn't even try to (it keeps returning NO_DOWNLOAD_REQUIRED).

What am I missing?

Shouldn't the Downloader Library notice if an APK Expansion file gets deleted? Its implementation seems to deal with this, but only if the SQLite database query returns non-null for downloadable files.

The relevant part of internal implementation of Google Play Downloader Library (the last comment is mine):

    int status = NO_DOWNLOAD_REQUIRED;

    // the database automatically reads the metadata for version code
    // and download status when the instance is created
    DownloadsDB db = DownloadsDB.getDB(context);

    // we need to update the LVL check and get a successful status to
    // proceed
    if (isLVLCheckRequired(db, pi)) {
        status = LVL_CHECK_REQUIRED;
    }
    // we don't have to update LVL. do we still have a download to start?
    if (db.mStatus == 0) {
        DownloadInfo[] infos = db.getDownloads();
        if (null != infos) {
            for (DownloadInfo info : infos) {
                if (!Helpers.doesFileExist(context, info.mFileName, info.mTotalBytes, true)) {
                    status = DOWNLOAD_REQUIRED;
                    db.updateStatus(-1);
                    break;
                }
            }
        }            
        /// <----- This is when infos==null, in this case result will be NO_DOWNLOAD_REQUIRED

    } else {
        status = DOWNLOAD_REQUIRED;
    }

Answer 1

If you encounter the same issue, uninstall the application, and then install it again. (Don't let Eclipse reinstall it in the usual way. Uninstall it completely from the device, manually.)