[Solved] Signed apk doesn't install under android >= 7.0, Check your signing process!

Hi,
just wanted to tell you about an important apk signing change that broke install of my app on all android >= 7.0.

Since I published my app a few years ago I was using apksigner to sign the apk and then zipalign on the already signed apk.

Somehow android >= 7.0 throws the following error if you modify the apk with zipalign once it’s signed :


INSTALL_PARSE_FAILED_NO_CERTIFICATES: Failed to collect certificates from /data/app/vmdl24783944.tmp/base.apk: META-INF/CERT.SF indicates /data/app/vmdl24783944.tmp/base.apk is signed using APK Signature Scheme v2, but no such signature was found. Signature stripped?

Maybe you don’t even know your apk has this problem so I hope this helps, because I had quite some users from the play store writing me emails that they can’t install the app. In the end I realized they all had android >= 7.0 and could reproduce the problem with an emulator.

I am having the same issue. What will be the correct way to sign the ionic app apk. ??

@antojodickson Hi, for the the correct way seems to do the zipalign and as a final step use the apksigner

My new apk is on the pmay store and the issue with install problems has been resolved.

Ready my tutorial to sign apks smarter with the Ionic CLI: How to automatically sign android applications with the Ionic CLI