Restoring apps - install never ends

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freitasm

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#196220 23-May-2016 17:29

Got a new Android phone and decided to use the restore function. It correctly got a list of apps installed in my old phone and started downloading those.

Unfortunately it appears there's one app that doesn't correctly signal the end of installation - Vodafone NZ app - and it stays in Installing forever.

Is there any way to tell Google Play to move on without a reset - which probably would cancel all the other app downloads in the queue?

PS. Crap app development.

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freitasm

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#1558102 23-May-2016 17:30

Update: thought "what the hell" and terminated Google Play. It started again from the top so I managed to cancel the Vodafone download before it starts.

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#1558115 23-May-2016 17:41

I find it best to set up the phone without adding a Google account, then once it's running I add the Google account and add the apps I want from the play store one by one, from my list of existing applications.

freitasm

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#1558134 23-May-2016 18:14

I usually do that but wanted to see how easy is to actually go the "automatic" way...

It is easy. Except when there's a rogue app like this one.

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#1558136 23-May-2016 18:22

when i moved over to CM13, i allowed it to automatically adopt all the apps from my 4.4 installation of stock andriod sense.

Went through without a hitch, only a few HTC apps were issues (mainly being HTC Service pack) never had an issue with the Vodafone NZ app.

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d3Xt3r

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#1558461 24-May-2016 09:33

If you do get stuck in the future, you can just open up the Play Store, click on the app in question and press the X or Cancel button - it'll stop trying to download it and the rest of the apps should install. A better option though might be to reboot. I believe the issue is due to Google Play Services getting updated in the middle of the downloads, and the Play Store needs to be restarted so that it can hook into the new version, but it can't restart because it's in the middle of a download or for whatever reason, and it hangs. I usually reboot my phone if this happens and the rest of the installs go thru just fine.

freitasm

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#1558513 24-May-2016 10:51

That doesn't work once the status changes from "Downloading" to "Installing". When in "Installing" there's no [X] to interrupt it.

Also I have just tried to install the app now and again it won't finish the install.I guess there must be a registration problem with Vodafone app and Huawei's version of Android 6.0.

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#1558566 24-May-2016 11:54

I've found the auto restore almost always gets stuck on at least one app. Now that I haven't rooted and used titanium backup in a while I usually resort to remembering all my apps and installing them one by one as I need them

kiwiandy

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#1558570 24-May-2016 12:08

This is still one area where Android is way behind iOS.

You should just be able to backup your phone to your computer, and then restore to your new one (without having to root and use TiB etc)

Phone history
Now:
iPhone4 (XT)
HTC Desire HD (Softbank)
Google (HTC) Nexus One (XT)
iPhone3 (spare)
Chinese Kamakuza iPhone4 with Dual Sims & android ( for travelling)

before:
Google (Samsung) Nexus S
HTC Desire (XT)
Google (HTC) Nexus One (VF)
Blackberry's, Palm Treo 750, several WinMO smartphones from

freitasm

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#1558572 24-May-2016 12:13

Got a directly link to an older version of the Vodafone APK and it fails to install as well.

All point to this app not being very friendly with this OS version.

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kiwiandy

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#1558638 24-May-2016 13:38

freitasm:

Got a directly link to an older version of the Vodafone APK and it fails to install as well.

All point to this app not being very friendly with this OS version.

The vodafone app (presumably latest version) installed ok onto my HTC 10.

It did take 2-3 attempts for it to login to my account, but got there in the end

d3Xt3r

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#1558936 24-May-2016 20:41

kiwiandy:

This is still one area where Android is way behind iOS.

You should just be able to backup your phone to your computer, and then restore to your new one (without having to root and use TiB etc)

Actually, you can backup and restore from your computer using adb, and it doesn't require root. Yes it's not very user friendly, but there are third-party GUI tools to make it easier.

The reason I'm guessing Google didn't make any official GUI tool for this is because most OEMs already include some sort of backup-restore/PC Suite type program, so having one from Google would just seem superfluous or cause confusion for end users. Also, Google will not be able to guarantee that it's tool will backup/restore any of the OEM-related app data, especially considering OEMs like Samsung change so much in the OS. For instance, Samsung enables you to move your app data to the SD Card - and this feature is not available in Android (ie not without enabling portable storage anyways) - so making assumptions where an app's data lives can cause the backup/restore to fail.

Anyways, it's not like Google hasn't been doing anything about the backup situation. Since Android 6.0, Google backs up most or all your app data to your Google Drive, and restores it automatically when you restore your phone. The caveat is that this only works for apps which have been updated by devs to specifically target Marshmallow and above. In my personal experience, I have see few apps get their data restored (usually this requires a second reboot after the initial restore) - but unfortunately this has only been a minority. Apps like Trade Me for instance don't seem to target Marshmallow.

With Android N coming out soon, devs will be looking to update their apps, so I'm hoping it's only a matter of time that majority of the apps will automatically backup/restore their data.

I'd recommend reading this article on Ars for more info.

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tripper1000

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#1558946 24-May-2016 20:51

kiwiandy:

This is still one area where Android is way behind iOS.

You should just be able to backup your phone to your computer, and then restore to your new one (without having to root and use TiB etc)

I really like how easily I can add music, movies and documents to my android, and how I can save and retrieve PDF's etc from the net and how I can bluetooth to pretty much any other type and brand of device, and how I can put a micro SD card in it to expand its memory so I think I can live with this one flaw. :-)