Some days ago when uploading my Windows app to the Store, I’ve got a strange error message : “A previous submission for this app was released with a Windows Phone 8.1 appxbundle. Subsequent submissions must continue to contain a Windows Phone 8.1 appxbundle.”. Here’s how I fixed it !
About appxbundle
When you build an app, you can choose to translate it and add ressource dedicated to a special environments. Images/Logo specific to each pixel density plateau is one example of it. If you create bundles, your final package uploaded on the Store will be one “main” package and satellite package for each “specific target”.
It also means that the user will download only what is necessary to their devices : less bandwith used, smaller apps : happy users !
Creating app’s bundle is easy, in the last step of the Visual Studio package wizard, you choose either “If Necessary” or “Always”.
Choosing to use app bundles has some consequences. The one which I was not happy with was that you won’t be able to let the user choose the language of your app since only the languages installed on it’s device will be available.
In my last update of TV Show Tracker, I wanted to let this freedom to my users so I used the wizard and choose to never create a bundle. I uploaded my package to the Store and I then get the previously mentionned error 🙁
Creating my own appbundle
The solution is then to create my own app bundle with the SDK tools and upload it to the Store.
Here are the steps :
- Create a package using Visual Studio without app’s bundle.
- Go to the created package folder and find the appx file (it can be in a subfolder).
- Copy this file in a separate folder, all alone.
- Use the MakeAppx tool to create a bundle aiming this directory.
- Upload the created bundle to the Store.
makeappx bundle /p NameOfTheCreatedBundle.appxbundle /d FolderWithTheAppxInside
The name of the bundle can be anything as the name of the folder with the appx inside.
What did I lost in the process ?
The whole app with all ressources will now be downloaded by my users. This can be frightening : how much more will they have to download ? Let’s take a look inside the app bundle…
So an user on a standard density pixels, english phone will now download the not used “scale-140” assets, the “scale-180” assets and french language : 300 more kb –> 2,85 %. So for 2,85% more package size, my user will be able to choose the language of their app. That’s ok for me 🙂
Happy coding !
.jpg){kind=logo}