The latest release with bugfixes is not in PlayStore

[prototyperspective]

What is the user problem or growth opportunity you want to see solved?

It's been a long time now since the latest release here. That release also fixes the bug that causes the category search to just be a blank page. It's still not in PlayStore where people can only install the old version where a core key feature is broken. In other apps when a key feature is fixed, the upgrade gets pushed out rather quickly. Please get the latest version onto PlayStore.

How do you know that this problem exists today? Why is this important?

No idea why it's still not in PlayStore.

Who will benefit from it?

Most users of the app since most installed it from PlayStore.

Anything else you would like to add?

No response

[nicolas-raoul]

v5.1.1 is being pushed to production in a staged manner since two weeks ago. Would you mind posting a screenshot of your About screen?
And I believe 5.1.1 contains the fix, at least I don't see a category search-related commit in the commits after 5.1.1: v5.1.1...main

@sivaraam regardless I think a new release would be warranted, for instance Nearby has improved a lot since 5.1.1. :-)

[prototyperspective]

I checked if there's an update every few days and there wasn't up until. It would be weird if it was out earlier, maybe that's a problem on the side of playstore (maybe it held the update back for me). It's also possible I missed it in the apps waiting to be updated. Updated it now and it's version 5.1.1.

However, categories still don't work – rather than showing a blank page, it now shows a blank page and the error "Error occurred while loading categories". Is there a separate issue about that error? It seems like the fix of category search is not working; could have told you earlier if the update was pushed to the PlayStore right away or earlier. It's really important that categories work, it would be how I and probably would mainly use the app. There does not seem to be a log or debug mode so I can't see any details. I wonder if it works for other users or if it used to work.

[sivaraam]

(maybe it held the update back for me).

This should've been the case. It was in staged rollout for 20% of users just to ensure we don't hit any weird problems in production. I just promoted it to 100% recently. You should've got it after that.

However, categories still don't work

I think you mean the fix done for issue #5758 (via PR #5830). If so, I suppose it be a part of v5.1.1.

Alternatively, do you mean the fix for issue #5910 (via PR #6093) ? That one is not part of v5.1.1.

regardless I think a new release would be warranted, for instance Nearby has improved a lot since 5.1.1. :-)

Sure. I'll look into pushing one out soon.

[prototyperspective]

#5758 and #5844 So it's already fixed? Because I can't see any categories and just get this error but it shows 5.1.1 in the about page. What has changed is that this error is shown in a label at the bottom and that now there's this blue button "Load more" which if tapped shows the same error again. Other than that button it's still a blank page.

[nicolas-raoul]

@prototyperspective As a power user you may want to build from source. It is much easier than programming, it just means installing Android Studio and clicking a few buttons, then doing it again once in a while when you want the latest.

[sivaraam]

#5758 and #5844 So it's already fixed? Because I can't see any categories and just get this error but it shows 5.1.1 in the about page. What has changed is that this error is shown in a label at the bottom and that now there's this blue button

Is it possible for you to possibly attach a screen recording that demonstrates the issue in v5.1.1 ? I'm finding it a bit difficult to understand what issue you are facing and at what screen you see the error.

[prototyperspective]

@nicolas-raoul Currently I'm not using the app at all because it can't play audio and videos which is what I'd use it for. I intended to use it to search and download spoken Wikipedia audios and apparently not even that is possible since it can't show categories, the key part of Commons (plus it doesn't show the file title but only their captions).

@sivaraam Quite simply 1. open the app 2. search for something like "rabbits" or just anything else 3. this error shows at the bottom and images are shown 4. go to the category tab: it's blank and when tapping on the "Load more" button the page stays blank and the error shows again for one second at the bottom.

[nicolas-raoul]

@prototyperspective I understand. For read-oriented purposes, I would suggest using the website. As you know, our development resources are limited so we concentrate on upload-oriented features, the area where a native app has most advantages compared to a website.

[sivaraam]

@sivaraam Quite simply 1. open the app 2. search for something like "rabbits" or just anything else 3. this error shows at the bottom and images are shown 4. go to the category tab: it's blank and when tapping on the "Load more" button the page stays blank and the error shows again for one second at the bottom.

Got it. I am able to reproduce this. I suppose #6093 fixes the issue that you observe. I'll look into releasing it as a new version once #6127 is fixed (as that issue is about category search on upload that seems broken now in main).

[sivaraam]

Actually, the fix was a bit too trivial to hold up for the main issues to converge. So, I ended up pushing a hotfix release v5.1.2 to production to handle this. It's on staged rollout again for 20% of user base. We'll graduate it after ensuring there's nothing chaotic about this release.

[prototyperspective]

Great thank you, finally the functionality of searching and browsing categories is working again. Closing this; just reopen if I got something wrong. There still seem to be major issues with it like redirects showing up in the results but not redirecting: #6146