Created Tuesday, Sep 6th 2022 13:35Z, last updated Friday, Sep 23rd 2022 10:17Z
Starting Saturday we started to receive reports, that users of our AVH Android App no longer received coverages released in September, in the meantime 7 users have reported the same issue so far.
On Saturday, after receiving the first report, we immediately began to check what the problem was. We were not able to reproduce the problem on our devices. We checked the user settings and the communication between the user's device and our server and found everything entirely in order, all September coverages were contained in the data transfer.
As our Android devices also show the content without any problem, it was clear, it must be related to the users' Android devices. It could not have been any issue on the servers and it could not have been any issue with our App.
All affected users, who reported their devices, had a Samsung Galaxy device, which directed my suspicion towards an issue related to these devices, especially as some time in August a "security update" had been released which could have caused the problem.
In the meantime we found out, that a very recent change in Android 12 only (Android 11 and earlier work perfectly) affected their date conversion routines, so that they no longer accept the internationally fixed and standardized textual date format (e.g. 02 Sep 2022) and throw an exception, however now expect instead "02 Sept 2022" (watch the additional t), which has absolutely no bearing and no foundation in any of the standards whatsoever.
This bug was verified on our test bench in the meantime and also verified by our Android App developer Gianluigi Bresaola.
The AVH team is now considering our options of how we could work around or even fix this issue in the quickest possible way. It is clear, we can't fix it via our servers as it would break compatibility with all other still working Android and iOS devices.
I see a possible way to permanently fix this and eliminate the operating system (Android) routines completely out of the date conversions, this will require a change of the AVH App of course and Google will need to review the new App. Gianluigi needs to take this burden onto him. I can not yet estimate how long this process will take, it could take anywhere between one to 3-4 weeks.
However, I am determined to have this issue fixed permanently as quickly as possible, and ask all those affected for patience so that we can accomplish this task.
At the same time all affected users are invited to file a bug report with Google/Android as well as Samsung (their device manufacturer known so far).
Update Sep 7th 2022 (about 22:45Z):
We have just switched live a temporary work around that problem. The affected Apps will still show the problem and not display any September entries upon launching the App. You then refresh the list (pull the list of occurrences down and release), and the September entries now should appear.
The server detects the malfunctioning behaviour of the App during the refreshes and sends a temporary fix.
So, you start the App and if there is no September coverage, just refresh the list of coverages by pulling it down and release it, and the September entries are there.
This gives Gianluigi additional time to develop the solid fix in the App, go through the Google review process before we can release the new version of the App.
While I realize, this is not an ideal solution yet, it at least restores the function of the App (with a server side fix) with some I hope minor nuisance. The ideal solution, Version 1.05 of the App is going to be done (Gianluigi has already done quite a lot, but needs to bring the App in line with the newest Google requirements) now, will undergo a proper test and beta test phase (Beta Testers with Android devices of all Android versions wanted, contact me through the contact form!) and will then be released in a matter of weeks.
Update Sep 23rd 2022: Our upcoming App Version 1.06 (an internal version 1.05 was skipped) has been put into Beta Testing. A release date is not yet known. It is possible, that we face new problems on Oct 1st 2022 (we can not yet be sure that the App has been released into the Android Play Store by then).
