Why my app installs on (presumed) not supported versions of Android?

Question

I'm receiving (from bugsense) crash reports from my App on Android versions below 3. But the App has declared in the manifest:

<uses-sdk
    android:minSdkVersion="11"
    android:targetSdkVersion="17" />

So, as soon as the user makes a move, the App crashes.

How is that possible? I knew that install should fail with a "package analysis failed" message. Do I have to implement an in-App Android version check? Or am I missing something in the manifest?

an example:

0java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: xxx.xxx.xxx.MyActivity.getFragmentManager
1at xxx.xxx.xxx.MyActivity.onCreate(MyActivity.java:98)
2at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1047)
3at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:1615)
4at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:1667)
5at android.app.ActivityThread.access$1500(ActivityThread.java:117)
6at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:931)
7at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
8at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123)
9at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:3729)
10at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
11at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:507)
12at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:874)
13at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:632)
14at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

I bet I don't have SuchMethod in Android 2.3.3

Anyway, total errors are only 3, upon about 1k users and 3,5k sessions per day, this week. So think about this Q as an exercise.

Answer 1

If the application is installed on a device that doesn't meet the specified API level, it will crash when executing code specific to a certain unsupported API level. However, specifying the minSdkVersion should prevent it from being installed at all on a device that doesn't meet this level.

However, using your "uses-sdk" definition above, it would also be possible for a device meeting the minimum SDK requirement to launch the app, but crash later on when you would use a method specific to the higher level of the target SDK (i.e. using a API level 17 method on a device which only meets the minimum requirement of level 11). If this were the case, you would have to use in-app checks or annotate methods using @TargetApi or a similar. However, seeing how you mention you receive crashes from Android versions below the minimum SDK level, something else seems to be amiss.

Not trying to be funny: but can you confirm that all versions of this application (that have been made available to the public) included the "uses-sdk"-declaration as described in your post ? It might be the case that an older version of the application has crashed and you're not reading the bug report for the newest available APK but a previous version...

Answer 2

Whenever you are using Android versions below 3. You need to use lower minSdkVersion to 8.

<uses-sdk  android:minSdkVersion="8" 
    android:targetSdkVersion="17" />

Use this, it will work for all Android versions devices.