RetroArch Play Store Build never got "automatic weekly updates" for almost a year now

[porg]

Problem

• I had installed "RetroArch" from the Google Play Store ca in 2022-12.
  • Note: I refer to this as "variant 2b" among the 3 possible Android built variants, see below.
• Til this very day 2022-10-18
  • I never received any automatic updates,
  • nor got a manual update choice when opening "RetroArch" under "My apps" in the Google Play Store app.
• Also the info in the Play Store app still shows "Latest version: 1.9.12 (2021-11-03)".
• Were there simply no "weekly updates" for such a long time?
• Or is something wrong with my installation?
• If so, how do I troubleshoot this?

Environment

• Acer Chromebook 315, Intel Celeron N4120, 4GB RAM, 64GB internal storage (eMMC)
• ChromeOS, version 105.0.5195.134 (Official build, 64bit)
• Android 11, build R105-14989.107.0 release-keys
• RetroArch 1.9.12 (2021-11-03), installed ca 2022-12

RetroArch for Android is offered in 3 basic build variants

1) APK Download from Website

https://www.retroarch.com/?page=platforms APK as 32bit or 64bit

2a) RetroArch Plus (Google Play Store)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.retroarch.aarch64 Latest version: 1.9.12 (2021-11-03)

• Includes no cores
• Cores can be downloaded with the Online Updater
• Supports up to 128 cores

2b) RetroArch (Google Play Store)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.retroarch Latest version: 1.9.12 (2021-11-03)

• Pros of the Play Store version vs. the website APK: Automatic weekly updates of both cores and RetroArch.
• Only 50 cores supported max

My initial considerations for choosing my preferred build variant on that device were

• As ChromeOS is pretty locked down, it was clear for me to go with the Google Play Store builds rather than the direct APK installation, which would require a device reset, not worth the hassle for me.
• The limitation of 50 cores was way enough for me.
• Among the two offered Google Play Store variants, I choose the "normal" one to benefit from the advertised "Automatic weekly updates of both cores and RetroArch" through the Google Play Store update mechanism, so no need to run manual online updates from within RetroArch.
• Only problem: I never got those "automatic weekly updates".

[porg]

Suspicion

• For some reason RetroArch maybe does not have proper write permissions to its own sandbox/directories?
• I got this suspicion due to this observation:
  • Main Menu > Configuration File > Save Current Configuration:
  • When I trigger this it always fails with:

    Failed saving to
    /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.retroarch.aarch64/files/retroarch.cfg

• Therefore I cannot persist any customizations
• And when I checked "Info" I realized that I have the same version as when I installed almost 1 year ago.
• Hence I got the suspicion that something with this setup is not right.

[hizzlekizzle]

the problem is that google doesn't allow updating any apps that have not implemented their "scoped storage" requirements, so unless/until we can implement that, we can't update.

[porg]

Thanks for the info!

Currently the app info for "RetroArch" on the Play Store reads:

Pros of the Play Store version vs. the website APK: Automatic weekly updates of both cores and RetroArch.

Which is plain wrong as you now confirmed.

So with the available info I now assume that if I'm on a restricted device such as a Chromebook (no manual APK download) and want to get RetroArch frontend and Libretro core updates it's best to choose "RetroArch Plus" and then use its internal online updater mechanisms. Correct?

Followup

Could someone please get the documentation materials & publication policies in order? Because as it currently is, the info sources are easily contradicting:

1. Official User Docs IMHO would be best suited as the primary information resource regarding which Android build versions there are and their pros and cons.
   • The CMS for the docs is https://github.com/libretro/docs which every Github user can contribute to via pull request.
   • That's quite an "open access".
   • High probability that this receives frequent and peer reviewed updates.
   • Warning: Currently offers no infos on the different Google Play Store variants and their pros / cons among themselves and compared to the direct APK download!
2. Respective Google Play Store app infos:
   • I assume much more restricted access to maybe only a handful core devs.
   • High risk that outdated info remains there for long, and confuses users such as me.
   • Convenient plus for users to have infos there too (if guaranteed by a proper workflow which pulls from the official docs, and adds some marketing lingo on top maybe).
   • But in doubt it's better that it's very minimal and ends in a paragraph like: "Most recent info available on our website: XYZ."
   • And that guarantees a single point of truth.

[LibretroAdmin]

Take it up with Google who makes it a huge drag to get anything uploaded on there. We did not decide to stop uploading there - they are rejecting packages because of it failing to meet some arbitrary standards set by them.

Meanwhile, Samsung store, Huawei and Amazon have no such issues with our APKs.

PRs welcome.

[porg]

PRs welcome

I'm willing to update the documentation in that regard. But I can only speculate from the fragmented info I got.

Please answer my questions which I placed in my initial posts and comments, then I will be able to write a rough guideline.

RetroArch Plus: Its internal update mechanism can update the fronend (RetroArch) and the various Libretro cores (up to 50 max). Correct? Or is this now also suppressed by Google/Android ?

[porg]

I detected many more issues which I wanted to report, but without getting most recent versions via updates, reporting them wouldn't make too much sense.

One issue which I nevertheless mentioned in conjunction with the failing updates was the one with the main config failing to get written out, maybe just another aspect of the supposed issue of insufficient write access within the app's directories:

Main Menu > Configuration File > Save Current Configuration: When I trigger this it always fails with: "Failed saving to /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.retroarch.aarch64/files/retroarch.cfg"

Would appreciate a reaction on this too. Thanks.

[hizzlekizzle]

Thanks for offering to update the docs. It would be great if that got frequent contributions (which is why we made it relatively open, via github), but it ends up mostly being internal folks updating things, which is tough to stay on top of.

None of the Google Play Store bundles can update anything at the moment, since everything comes from Google's servers (i.e., instead of ours; this was a previous requirement they forced on us, along with limiting the number of cores available) and we're not allowed to update any of it.

And yeah, I would suspect that failing to write the config file is related to the restrictive permissions.