Google Play Release With Force Update - google-play

We're releasing our app to google play store quite often and sometimes it's inevitable that users must update the app to the latest version. After we release it via google console we make sure we present a modal for older versions that force the user to go and update via the playstore, however, the google playstore shows to users an 'Open' button instead of 'Update' probably cause of some cache mechanism.
Is there a way to avoid this cache? If not, how is it possible to create force updates while users might not be able to download the latest version..?
Thanks.

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In-App Review doesn't show up in Internal Test Track

I can only get the review prompt to show up once, even when in internal test track, in order for it to show up again I need to clear data and cache of the Google Play Store.
I meet all of the testing requirements since I have another game which I'm using In-App Review and everything works correctly on that one.
No errors show up when logging.
I'm using the unity version of the plugin, here are some of the things I've tried and their results:
Popup works every time in the Internal App Sharing, submit button is greyed out since it wasn't downloaded from the store.
Clearing storage and cache from Google Play makes the review appear once, but it doesn't have the correct settings, even though it was downloaded though the internal test track, the comment is tagged as optional, and when trying to publish said review, either including the comment or not, it always gives the following error: DF-DFERH-01 Server Error
I've also tried multiple versions of the plugin, mainly 1.6.1, 1.7.0, and 1.8.0, without success on any of them (I did update proguard every time).
I also tried resolving dependencies with other versions of the External Dependencies Manager, .172 and .174, both without success.
I've tried another account also included in the internal test track, didn't work
On another game I published, the In-App Review works as intended, I'm using the exact same code.
What's weird to me is that it works correctly on the Internal App Sharing, the app is currently on Open Beta, while the other game which In-App Reviews work correctly is on production, but I doubt that's related.
I was able to confirm that this is an issue on Google's side, after releasing the game to production, the popup started showing up on the Internal Test Track every time while using the same version as before.
To anyone that is also having this issue, if the In-App Review works on Internal App Sharing, you should be safe to release it to production and the issue will fix itself.
I can't say for sure this will work for everyone, but it did for me.

How can I test an older version of my app in Google Play Store?

I'm using Google Play Store to distribute an app.
For a certain issue, I would like to install an OLDER version of my app to one of the client's device.
I'm struggling to do so, is there any way to do that?
No matter how and which "testing" method I apply, Google Play automatically shows the HIGHEST version of the app which is the "release" version ignoring the old test versions.
Creating an APK would be NO way because I need Google Play's own signature in the apk to make things work (to test the things we would like to)
Is there any way at all to distribute my OLDER app version from Google Play store?
(By the way Google's testing methods are inexpressibly unusable even apart from this problem. You never see what really happens, you cannot really manage the testing channels the GUI is miserable the notification email is late the testing is slow and painful you don't see the version number in the Google Play Store, there are like 3 methods to do so and the difference between them is not self explaining, I give 1 start to the developers who made these parts of Google Play I hope they read this.)
Thanks in advance.
From Google Play Console go to App bundle explorer
Then choose the version you want to install
Go to Downloads tab
click on Copy sharable link
install it from you device using this link
Note: the device's Google Play account should be an internal tester and enable internal testing from Google Play on this device.

ionic app flow release ended up with draft mode in Google play console

We have configured Ionic App flow for streamline our development process. But I have come across some issue with internal testing flow in google play store.
Every time we push the commit , it triggers the build , package and Upload in to play store
But this flow ended up with Draft mode in Release dashboard.
In order to roll out the update we need to logging to Play console and do it by manually.
Is there any way to automate this through app flow?
Looks like the best thing to do for now is to just setup Appflow Live Updates that bypass Google play console and App Store completely, updating the app's JS layer instantly. Which you should be using most of the time anyway.
Then, when it comes to updating the native Android Layer, looks like for now you just have to go in and manually hit the rollout button. At least until Google adds a setting for us.
Here's a thread on Ionic's forum talking about this.

Is it possible to publish game update to AppStore and Google Play simulanously exactly at the same time?

When developing online game I would really like to avoid supporting different protocol versions. The server can check the version of a client and deny login until the client gets updated. But the problem here is that I need the app update to become available simultanously at the same time on AppStore and Google Play.
Is it possible to do? How do you solve such versioning problems?
Well, I am not sure how it works for the GooglePlayStore but if you choose Developer Release instead of automatic then you could just release it in the moment it approves on the GooglePlayStore and about 30mins. later your iOS app will be online and available as well. That's what I'd do.

Programmatically trigger CalendarStore sync with iCloud?

I'm using the CalendarStore API to create tasks (CalTask items). My assumption is that by doing so these items would be automatically synced to iCloud (assuming the user has this setup in System Preferences). In fact, the CalendarStore docs say:
The Calendar Store database stores the local copies of records
belonging to the Calendars schema. If MobileMe system preferences are
configured to sync the Calendars schema, then your changes to these
records, using the Calendar Store programming interface, are also
synced.
But it seems that simply creating items in the CalendarStore doesn't trigger iCloud sync of them. I know my items are properly going into the CalendarStore, because I see the changes coming back (I observe CalTasksChangedNotification and CalTasksChangedExternallyNotification, and my changes are coming through there). But until I run iCal, no iCloud syncing occurs.
I don't think there's anything I'm doing wrong in my code. In fact, you can reproduce this with Apple's CalendarItems sample code. Creating tasks and events will not trigger CalendarStore sync until you run iCal.
Pre-iCloud, you used SyncServices to do this (nice article here on that), but I kinda thought this wasn't used with Lion and iCloud. In fact, I can't even find Apple's SyncServices docs.
I know it's possible to programmatically trigger CalendarStore syncing to iCloud, because other apps do this (I'm looking at you, Fantastical). Can anyone give me any pointers?
There are a couple similar questions, but they are pre-iCloud, and appear not to have been resolved.
Update: Though it appears to still work, I see Sync Services is officially deprecated in Lion. Is there really no replacement for it?

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