• GeneralPixel 6a
  • GmsCompat/Play Store Issue Forces User to Babysit Automatic App Updates

Hello, 6 month GrapheneOS user and first time poster here! I'm using a Pixel 6a, and I only have one user profile. In the Play Store, automatic app updates are turned on, and I have set recommended Network and Battery settings for Play Store, Play Services, and G Framework.

The Play Store recently updated to a version that was newer than what GOS had available in "Apps". Since then, I have to manually update each individual app and monitor the entire process. This behavior began approximately one week ago.

For example: I open the Play Store and navigate to Account Thumbnail > Manage Apps & Device, and I see that I have 18 app updates available. Sweet! I tap "Update All", and PS starts downloading Chase Bank. But wait, after Chase Bank is downloaded, I get a silent notification from GmsCompat saying "Action Required in Play Store". I tap it, and a dialog comes up: "Do you want to update this app?"

Uhh, seriously? I just said "Update All" 30 seconds ago. Whatever, yes, update! Now Keep Notes is downloading. Installing. Whoops, another GmsCompat "Action Required" notification! And again, I'm met with "Do you want to update this app?"

And this absurdity continues for every. single. app. every. time. What's worse is if I ignore the notification, the Play Store will say "Couldn't update" next to each app, and the apps will get stuck. I am now forced to wait for each app to download, then approve each individual app, even though I've already said "Update All". Smells buggy to me, but I'm no developer.

No file hosting, so I'm not currently providing screenshots. Does anyone have any insight to offer?

Were the apps themselves installed through Play Store, or somewhere else and then updating them via Play Store?

If you go to Settings > Apps > and go to app info for one of those apps, does it say it was installed from the Play Store? You need to do this for an app you've not updated via the Play Store in this way, as the last app to update it is what will show there.

5 months later

I'm having this problem as well. All the apps on my Pixel Tablet, aside from the stock GrapheneOS ones, were installed from the Play Store. A few days ago GmsCompat notified me that "Play Store needs to update Play Store. It's recommended to allow this", so I did it.

Today I opened Play Store to install a new app and noticed there were about 30 updates pending. I chose Update All then switched to a different app, expecting it to do all those updates in the background but every single update resulted in another GmsCompat notification that "Action is required in Play Store" and that action was just to respond Yes to each app update.

I can't say for certain whether this has only started happening since I allowed Play Store to update, but I've tried uninstalling it, then reinstalling it from the GrapheneOS App Store, so it's back to a slightly older version and is prompting me to update it again. I'll ignore that prompt for now and see if other app updates still need confirming for each one.

If you have things set up correctly, that shouldn't be happening. Note that Google Play Store only updates apps when the phone is left idle for a while, so it's perfectly possible that available app updates will mount up before it actually updates them. In my experience it tends to do the updates overnight whilst I leave my device connected to my WiFi.