android-wear embedding old (cached) wear apk in the mobile-release apk

Question

I am generating the signed apk using the option Build -> Generate Signed APK

Problem is mobile-release.apk doesn't embed the updated wear apk. I have tried changing text / logic, but it always display the old thing.

I have tried all of the following, any ideas why it keep embedding the old wear apk instead of creating the new one.

• File -> Invalidate cache / Restart.
• Build -> Clean + Rebuild project
• Clear cache of wear app on phone
• Settings -> Resync all apps (option on handheld wear app)
• manually delete all apks in the build folder of both mobile and wear mobile.

Any hints, or anybody facing similar issue, please reply.

Update 1:

I tested the generated wear-release.apk separately, its the latest, still somehow the embedded apk is old.

I changed my gradle config to manually include newly generated apk,

compile fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar'])
// wearApp project(':wear')
wearApp files('wear-release11.apk') // renamed purposefully to make sure its picking right file.

it indeed give error if wear-release11.apk is missing.. but when the wear-release11.apk is available, it still embed some old cached apk.

Update 2: I extracted and inspected the contents of generated APK, it indeed has the latest generated apk inside it. But somehow, the phone push cached version. Not sure if its 'android-wear' companion app or the Play Store app causing this bug. For me uninstalling the android-wear companion app (surprisingly, not just clearing data) solve this issue. But it will cache the apk again after some time.

Answer 1

I have seen a situation a while ago where the wearable app would get stuck and would not update. I think the bug has been resolved, but I wanted to put this answer down for the record just in case it is still happening.

If you are 100% sure your APK is versioned properly, then you can try this procedure which should always fix it up. If this does not fix it, then there is a problem with your APK build process:

1. Factory reset the watch: Settings ... Reset device
2. On your phone: Settings ... Apps ... Google Play services
3. Click on clear cache
4. Click on manage space
5. Manage wearable storage ... Clear now
6. Under total data used by Google Play services ... Clear all data
7. Reboot the phone
8. Try to pair the phone with the watch again