So part of, or most of the problem was that the app’s initial release did not use a sqlite database, it was added as a feature update in the app.
I guess Google Play, when you publish a newer version, uses archived fragments of the app bundle to keep updates small or something like that? So it didn’t know it needed to copy or create a new database on update.
I tried putting an empty copy of the .db in assets/ but that still didn’t do it.
Ultimately changing this:
android:allowBackup=“true”
to this:
android:allowBackup=“false”
Now it requires a clean install of the app from the Play Store and it works as expected.