Android: Release Notes Not Showing on Pending Downloads Page in Google Play Store App

Question

I have released an update for my app in the Google Play Store. This is my first update prior to the initial release of the app.

Everything seems to have gone according to plan. If I check my store listing page in a browser, the update is live, along with the release notes under the 'What's New' section of the page.

However, if I launch the Play Store app on a physical device, tap my account icon in the top right corner of the screen to open the menu, select 'Manage apps and devices', then select 'See details' under the updates available section. This opens the 'Pending downloads' page for all apps.

I can see my app has an update, but if I tap the down arrow next to the 'Update' button, to display the 'What's new' information, there is nothing there. My release notes are not showing. It just states 'No information from the developer'.

I submitted my release notes, and they are displaying on my store listings page, so why not in the Play Store app?

Is there somewhere else in my Play Console where I need to add this information to get it to display in the Play Store app?

Answer 1

You are likely doing nothing wrong. This appears to be (another) Google bug.

The Google Play Store system seems to be broken in yet another way (it also thinks updates are available for apps when there is no compatible update available).

Release notes for all apps seem to be broken in the Google Play Store.

A discussion on XDA Developers Forums indicates others having problems with Google's Play Store.

Similarly, a discussion on Reddit talks about people having the problem with Google Play Store that you identified. A member of that discussion postulates a hypothesis as to why this may be happening:

Google strongly encourages turning on automatic updates and just blindly accepting every update. Sure seems like they've decided that if they blind us to what the updates contain, we'll just turn on automatic updates since we can't make informed decisions about them without the update info.

From the data I have gathered, this Google bug seems to be affecting all versions of Android.