Play store changes => StateError: Bad state: No element

[peterhijma]

Google Play store looks very different since yesterday or today?

I've got some error messages popping up now.

StateError: Bad state: No element
  File "list.dart", line 167, in ListMixin.firstWhere
  File "new_version.dart", line 157, in NewVersion._getAndroidStoreVersion
  File "<asynchronous suspension>"
  File "new_version.dart", line 94, in NewVersion.showAlertIfNecessary

So I think changes are necessary. You can find the version of the app in a modal @ "About this app ->"

[timtraversy]

Yes looks like it, thanks for reporting. This will probably break the plugin until I determine the new HTML elements.

[peterhijma]

Looks like they are rolling it out gradually? Right now I see the old play store in my browser again.

[peterhijma]

@timtraversy So apparently the store changed for more users. Any idea how to proceed?

I looked a bit into it myself, but getting the version from the HTML page itself seems more difficult because it doesn't appear in the source code on a page load anymore. It's all javascript-driven it seems.

Also: what if they decide to change a class name anytime soon again? Is there is more robust option to get the latest version of an app?

[SamarthSerpentCS]

@peterhijma
From now on, remote configuration needs to be added.
But when app is uploaded to Android, you have to do it in Firebase. so this is not proper solution.
please find what class is used by javascript? so this is easily to find this. whats version is used in latest playstore.

final additionalInfoElements = document.getElementsByClassName('hAyfc');

This class is not found. beacuse google has changed design of play store.

[timtraversy]

Unfortunately, there is not an easy fix for this. The new Play Store listing design does not include the app version number. For example:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.cloudconsole

There may be some other site where the version is listed, but someone will have to find it.

[sbergmair]

In section „about this app“ is the version. Does this help?

[timtraversy]

Good catch. That's closer, but that HTML element is only shown after a Javascript function is triggered, so we wouldn't be able to scrape it with a simple HTTP request as we do now.

It looks like the version info is pre-fetched though, and hidden in a huge block of in-line JS. So there might be a way to scrape out of there. But who knows if the format they return it in will be consistent.

[timtraversy]

https://pub.dev/packages/webdriver is a possibility.

Right now, I'm leaning towards turning off Android support and releasing a version without it. But I'll give it another day to see if anything comes up.

[timtraversy]

If anyone is up for a challenge:

1. Go to random app with no reviews - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aakenya.testapp
2. Look at page source - view-source:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aakenya.testapp
3. CTRL-F for the version number - currently 1.0.14
4. See if there's any possible way to extract that value from that blob of js/json

That's probably the only way.

[prakasharyaman]

JavaScript Code

import { JSOM } from 'jsdom'; 
  import axios from 'axios';

  const res = await axios('https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yourapp');
  const dom = new JSDOM(res.data);
  const scripts = Array.from(dom.window.document.querySelectorAll('script'));
  const script = scripts.find(s => s.textContent && s.textContent.includes('/store/apps/developer'));
  const matches = script.textContent.match(versionStringRegex);
  const match = matches[0];
  const version = match.replace(/"/g, '');

  console.log(version); // '1.2.345'

@timtraversy can u check it out ?..

Java code

  class AppVersionParser {


  suspend fun versionForIdentifier(bundleID: String): String? {
   val userAgent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 12_3_1) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) " +
    "Version/15.3 Safari/605.1.15"

  val document: Document

      try {
             document = Jsoup.connect("https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=$bundleID&hl=en")
        .timeout(5000)
        .userAgent(userAgent)
        .referrer("https://www.google.com")
        .get()
         } catch (e: Exception) {
    logger.error("Failed to get Google Play info for $bundleID\n\t${e.toStandardString()}")
    return null
         }

         return parseDocument(document)
     }

     fun parseDocument(document: Document): String? {
         val HTML = document.toString()
         val policyMarker = "" // INSERT YOUR PRIVACY POLICY URL
         val policyUrlIndex = HTML.lastIndexOf(policyMarker)
         val versionStart = HTML.indexOf("\"", startIndex = policyUrlIndex + policyMarker.length + 1) + 1 // "
         val versionEnd = HTML.indexOf("\"", startIndex = versionStart + 1)
         return HTML.substring(startIndex = versionStart, endIndex = versionEnd)
     }
     }`

[annkitpanwar]

For me, some changes in _getAndroidStoreVersion worked.

Future<VersionStatus?> _getAndroidStoreVersion(
      PackageInfo packageInfo) async {
    final id = androidId ?? packageInfo.packageName;
    final uri =
        Uri.https("play.google.com", "/store/apps/details", {"id": "$id"});
    final response = await http.get(uri);
    if (response.statusCode != 200) {
      debugPrint('Can\'t find an app in the Play Store with the id: $id');
      return null;
    }
    final document = parse(response.body);

    String storeVersion = '0.0.0';
    String? releaseNotes;

    final additionalInfoElements = document.getElementsByClassName('hAyfc');
    if (additionalInfoElements.isNotEmpty) {
      final versionElement = additionalInfoElements.firstWhere(
            (elm) => elm.querySelector('.BgcNfc')!.text == 'Current Version',
      );
      storeVersion = versionElement.querySelector('.htlgb')!.text;

      final sectionElements = document.getElementsByClassName('W4P4ne');
      final releaseNotesElement = sectionElements.firstWhereOrNull(
            (elm) => elm.querySelector('.wSaTQd')!.text == 'What\'s New',
      );
      releaseNotes = releaseNotesElement
          ?.querySelector('.PHBdkd')
          ?.querySelector('.DWPxHb')
          ?.text;
    } else {
      final scriptElements = document.getElementsByTagName('script');
      final infoScriptElement = scriptElements.firstWhere(
            (elm) => elm.text.contains('key: \'ds:4\''),
      );

      final param = infoScriptElement.text.substring(20, infoScriptElement.text.length - 2)
          .replaceAll('key:', '"key":')
          .replaceAll('hash:', '"hash":')
          .replaceAll('data:', '"data":')
          .replaceAll('sideChannel:', '"sideChannel":')
          .replaceAll('\'', '"')
          .replaceAll('owners\"', 'owners');
      final parsed = json.decode(param);
      final data =  parsed['data'];

      storeVersion = data[1][2][140][0][0][0];
      releaseNotes = data[1][2][144][1][1];
    }

    return VersionStatus._(
      localVersion: _getCleanVersion(packageInfo.version),
      storeVersion: _getCleanVersion(forceAppVersion ?? storeVersion),
      appStoreLink: uri.toString(),
      releaseNotes: releaseNotes,
    );
  }

Still not sure if play store HTML will be consistent or not but it worked for now.

[timtraversy]

To those this is breaking: you will have to release a new version of your apps to fix this issue. I would recommend just doing that now, and removing the calls to this plugin. This was an unforseen change in the Play Console, we're working on a fix.

[timtraversy]

Nice concepts above, thank you!

@prakasharyaman - This is a clever idea, but people format there versions different ways. Also, the HTML contains multiple version strings from past versions, so we would have to add some logic to fix that as well.

@ankitpanwar8979 - This is my preferred solution. The nested array doesn't seem like it will remain stable as the Play site changes, but best we can do for now.

[glngrizkyy]

3 days ago •

can u explain code _getCleanVersion is what for?

[prakasharyaman]

Try This

Works for now

   public function getAndroidVersion(string $storeUrl): string
   {
   $html = file_get_contents($storeUrl);
       $matches = [];
       preg_match('/\[\[\[\"\d+\.\d+\.\d+/', $html, $matches);
       if (empty($matches) || count($matches) > 1) {
           throw new Exception('Could not fetch Android app version info!');
       }
       return substr(current($matches), 4);
   }

[annkitpanwar]

3 days ago •

can u explain code _getCleanVersion is what for?

Check this function

new_version/lib/new_version.dart

Line 117 in a71a9b8

String _getCleanVersion(String version) =>

[X-SLAYER]

I have a similar package and am using regex to get the version from the play store you can check it here
flutter_app_version_checker

newVersion = RegExp(r',\[\[\["([0-9,\.]*)"]],')

[appstute-sachin]

Facing same issue since few days and this has broken our force update functionality on android. Can we expect this issue to be resolved in upcoming plugin version?

[ghost]

I have a similar package and am using regex to get the version from the play store you can check it here flutter_app_version_checker

newVersion = RegExp(r',\[\[\["([0-9,\.]*)"]],')

But I am using the same package in my app which is already in playstore. If we are using any other package then we loose the old users.
Need a permanent solution !

[X-SLAYER]

But I am using the same package in my app which is already in playstore. If we are using any other package then we loose the old users. Need a permanent solution !

in both ways, you will update your app because even if they fixed this problem the package will not be fixed automatically on the app on play store you will need to update it

[utarn]

This is my code.

  Future<VersionStatus?> _getAndroidStoreVersion(PackageInfo packageInfo) async {
    final id = androidId ?? packageInfo.packageName;
    final uri = Uri.https("play.google.com", "/store/apps/details", {"id": id});
    final response = await http.get(uri);
    if (response.statusCode != 200) {
      debugPrint('Can\'t find an app in the Play Store with the id: $id');
      return null;
    }

    final document = parse(response.body);
    var releaseNotes = document.querySelector('div[itemprop="description"]')!.innerHtml;
    final storeVersion = RegExp(r',\[\[\["([0-9,\.]*)"]],').firstMatch(response.body)!.group(1);

    return VersionStatus._(
      localVersion: _getCleanVersion(packageInfo.version),
      storeVersion: _getCleanVersion(storeVersion ?? '0.0.0'),
      appStoreLink: uri.toString(),
      releaseNotes: releaseNotes,
    );
  }

[timtraversy]

I don't have the environment set up to test it, but 0.3.1 should be live with a fix.