Stop an app from updating

Solved
E
Eddie
Morrison Data Services Limited

I believe an app update is causing an issue and I want to stop either that app, or if I have to all apps, until a new version hits the Play Store.

I'm sure I've done this before but I cannot for the life of me remember it.

MobiControl 15.5

Android Devices running 8.1.0 upwards.

3 years ago
SOTI MobiControl
ANSWERS
AW
Adam Williams
3 years ago

In your profile you can add to the configuration "Email & Others" -> "Managed Google Play" -> "Never Update".

The last time I tested this, this prevented automatic updates from google play but for all applications.

However, for my use case this was not satisfactory because when an application update became available, a notification appeared on the device allowing the users to manually update. Users could also navigate to google playstore and choose to manually update there.

Solution
E
Eddie
3 years ago

Perfect Adam.  thank you.  I knew I'd seen/done it before.

We can instruct users to not update for the time being.  I'd rather take that small hit for a few days

The last time this issue happened Chrome was fixed on the next release.

RS
Rafael Schäfer
3 years ago

You can also "Postpone" app updates, which means they are delayed for 90 days. This can be set per app in the app policy (app configuration -> installation options -> priority). We use this, so the developer have time to fix major issues before the upate hits our devices.

And for very critical apps i recommend to use Enterprise App deployment instead of Playstore but then you need the apk file(s).

RS
Rafael Schäfer
3 years ago

Just saw another post which could be interesting for you: https://discussions.soti.net/thread/restrict-app-updates

This is by scripting, could be also worth to know.

AW
Adam Williams
3 years ago

HI Rafael,

On this point of enterprise app deployment,  I have found that even if an application has been installed via Enterprise App deployment but exists on the public google playstore at some point google playstore will take charge of the update schedule of that application and update accordingly. Even though it is NOT listed as a managed google play application.

MD
Matt Dermody Diamond Contributor
3 years ago

Yes, and that drives me crazy. Thankfully we have some better options to control it now as it happens with the SOTI agent quite frequently, leading to inconsistent versions across an estate of devices. 

RS
Rafael Schäfer
3 years ago

Ouch, thats nice to know and a very bad behaviour because we started playing around with that on a definitely critical app where we want to control those updates but would like it to be handeled in the app policys to have all where it should be (not to have some apps in profiles/packages and some in app policys).

Did you ask Soti about that @Eddie?

We haven't seen that "issue" so far so we can't create a ticket to that for now (not able to get logs etc.).

AW
Adam Williams
3 years ago

Hi Rafael,

In the past I raised a ticket about this issue (actually because I didnt want Mobicontrol agent to update automatically, even outside of the 90 days postpone period), however the conclusion of that ticket and after some discussion with @Matt Dermody, that it is a feature of Google Play and outside of the control of SOTI.

As Matt mentions above, with one of the latest Mobicontrol agent/server, there is the ability to define applications which do not receive application updates from google play via script "app_upgrade disable <package-list>". But this is only currently available for Samsung and Zebra devices.

https://www.soti.net/mc/help/v15.5/en/scriptcmds/reference/androidplus_enterprise_do.html?hl=script%2Ccommands%2Candroid%2Centerprise%3A%2Cmanaged%2Cdevices

Otherwise, disabling google playstore seems to be the only other way to achieve this, which is not the nicest of solutions. Guess it depends on how critical the particular application is

RS
Rafael Schäfer
3 years ago

Thanks for the update of this.

I think we have to investigate that also from our side then because we need the app configuration to be set which isn't possible with a package (or id on't know about) and also need the managed playstore available.