Android Question How to remove old app test track APKs

[copanut]

The Google Play Console greets me with this warning:

The policy violation is that my app supposedly is not targeting SDK 33, however my released app does indeed target SDK 33, so the above warning is incorrect.

It turns out that the above warning is produced not because of the actual live app release, but because of a couple of very old test tracks (which were never used, by the way) that I was never able to remove in the past, and so I had set them to "pause" and proceeded to ignore them:

But I was reading that Google's automated system may remove my actual release from the store, despite being compliant, if I fail to comply with these old test tracks before the deadline.

Amazingly, nowhere is there a mechanism to remove, delete, disable, or discard these old test track APKs. I have read that I can make them go away (indirectly) by uploading something to replace them, but I have uploaded many releases since these were created and yet they persist. Google does not seem to provide any kind of email support where I could send an explanation and request that they remove them.

Does anyone know how to do it?

 

[mcqueccu]

1. From this thread, https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/api-level-requirement.149676/post-948729 it seems even if you target 33 but your minimum Api level is less than 21 you will still get the message so in case your api level is lower than 21, change it to at least 23

2. If all fails on the removing testing track, just compile new apks with the new requirement to replace them.

 

[copanut]

1. From this thread, https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/api-level-requirement.149676/post-948729 it seems even if you target 33 but your minimum Api level is less than 21 you will still get the message so in case your api level is lower than 21, change it to at least 23

2. If all fails on the removing testing track, just compile new apks with the new requirement to replace them.

Thank you for pointing me to that thread. In my case, the actual app is not the problem - it is compliant and does not cause the warning message. The warning message has to with the "Closed" and "Internal" test tracks, to which I uploaded APKs years ago, and the real question is how to get rid of them. There should be a simple "Discard APK" button, one would think.

If I understand your suggestion correctly, I am to create a valid APK with a release number larger then the one in the test track, and upload it to supercede the bad APK. However, I will then be left with another orphan APK that will cause problems in the future. So then I guess I should promote it, and release it to replace the current real app, then repeat the process for the other test track. This seems vagely insane and I can easily imagine this will break my version numbering system or cause other problems and result in yet more broken and unremovable junk from my dashboard. I may have to try it if the alternative is for my perfectly good and compliant app to be removed from the app store by Google bots.