Adb Install Failure INSTALL_FAILED_VERSION_DOWNGRADE
adb, android, downgrade, installation
Solution
Since Android 7 (Nougat), for security reasons, packages can no longer be downgraded unless they are marked as debuggable. Quoting the commit message :
An attacker could downgrade a package to an older version with known security vulnerabilities and then use some of the vulnerabilities to access the application's data. This would constitute a bypass of Android Application Sandbox. Thus, downgrading while keeping application data is no longer permitted.
You must uninstall it completely.
Problem
I uninstalled whatsapp and kept its data using: ``` adb.exe shell pm uninstall -k com.whatsapp ``` Then I tried to install an old version of whatsapp, but got the following error message even using the -r -d flags: ``` >adb install -r -d tmp\LegacyWhatsApp.apk 1738 KB/s (18329558 bytes in 10.298s) Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_VERSION_DOWNGRADE] ``` I'm using Windows 10 and Pixel XL android version 7.1.2