Play Store won't allow my app update

Ionic Framework ionic-v3
1

Hi! When I upload my app update to the play store, it gives me this warning:

Permission model downgrade

PROBLEM
Users that have the APK with version code 1201, which targets SDK 23 or higher, will receive an error when they attempt to upgrade to this APK because it targets SDK 22.

RESOLUTION
Ensure that your release includes APKs targeting SDK 23 or higher to which all users that have the APK with version code 1201 can upgrade.

My old version has a target SDK of 24.

I’ve set the android-targetSdkVersion to 26 in config.xml and ionic cordova build android --release is successful but somewhere along the build process, Gradle overwrites the target SDK value in the Android Manifest and sets it to 22.

What do I need to do to have gradle set the target SDK value to 24 or higher?

Below is my ionic info result:

cli packages: (/usr/local/lib/node_modules)

@ionic/cli-utils  : 1.19.1
ionic (Ionic CLI) : 3.19.1

global packages:

cordova (Cordova CLI) : 8.0.0

local packages:

@ionic/app-scripts : 3.1.8
Cordova Platforms  : android 7.0.0 ios 4.5.4
Ionic Framework    : ionic-angular 3.9.2

System:

Android SDK Tools : 26.1.1
ios-deploy        : 1.9.2 
Node              : v6.9.2
npm               : 4.0.5 
OS                : macOS High Sierra
Xcode             : Xcode 9.2 Build version 9C40b

Environment Variables:

ANDROID_HOME : /Users/esthonwood/Library/Android/sdk

Misc:

backend : pro
2

UPDATE: Play Store has accepted my app update. As it turns out, the culprit is the cordova-plugin-googlemaps plugin that I use. They have a build-extras.gradle file that sets the targetSdkVersion to 22. I reinstalled the plugin and everything works fine now.