Error parsing the package on Shield TV, with old firmware

[retrobenny]

I'm stuck on an old Android version 7.0.0 Nougat because there is no way I am risking a bricked device from what I heard of a recent OTA upgrade, and not touching updates involving Scoped Storage at all. So, on my Shield TV I get a parsing package error instead of being able to install the apk. The native Flash Player plugin used to work a long time ago until it started crashing, ironically after doing an update, spoiling everything.

The to-do list says this app now supports the (very old) 32bit arm hardware with it done and checked off (a good reason for why the app should supposedly just work and install successfully on an armv8 64bit device with an outdated Android version) so I am assuming there might be something wrong with the latest artifact build apk, as I can't install it due to that pesky parsing error.

Is there an older artifact still present for a previous version that could more likely succeed at installing? Such a huge waste if several devices with outdated Android versions can't install an unrestricted/non-PlayStore app. Hoping there is a solution for this to get it up and running.

[torokati44]

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that... :| I don't have access to any (working) older Android devices to test, but I suppose this could indicate that the app manifest explicitly states that it requires a newer minimum API version. Maybe.

This project is not that old itself, so perhaps the oldest APK you could try is in here: https://github.com/torokati44/ruffle-android/actions/runs/2080537562 But I doubt it will improve compatibility in any way.

Even more unfortunate is that I just replaced the audio backend with one that only works on Android 8+. We thought that this is acceptable, as it is estimated that this currently covers around 90% of active devices. It is possible to add an alternative backend for older devices though, but I don't think it's a high priority right now. :/

Until then, you could try playing something using the demo page: https://ruffle.rs/demo/

[retrobenny]

I could care less about audio if I could at least actually install the damn thing!

That artifact is expired, can't download because of shitty artifact time-limit. Artifacts are a real brain-dead design, with a good example, bisecting an issue between builds that exceed 5 or 6 months apart but being unable to bisect due to no longer having access to a specific old build for said bisecting. If I had known about this at least 2 or 3 months sooner, I wouldn't have been locked out of accessing that. :rage3:

Why no builds in releases instead?!

Using that demo page kills the whole point of avoiding online-based access with a standalone app. The entire point of wanting standalone is; an swf file, ruffle as an app with no internet usage required, run swf file in app.

Guessing this android version of ruffle is a native port to Android instead of running in a webkit container or something. A webkit engine app that runs offline would've been a fast early way to run Ruffle standalone without porting it but running the code directly on the browser engine, also being able to run a unique copy of ruffle as an offline backup of the website hosted locally on the user's device so you don't need an active internet connection and no/less frustrating Android minimum version-cap restrictions since it would run off of the webkit engine or whatever that is called.

[mero09-99]

hello, if your default installer is having issues parsing apks, try an alternate one, like SAI (it does split and regular apk installs) https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aefyr.sai.fdroid/ you can find it on the fdroid open source apps repo