Android Reader Suite 2.3.9 Beta Release

Kevin Byford (Faithlife)

The Android team is pleased to announce the 2.3.9 beta release of the Bible, Biblia, FSB, Verbum and Vyrso apps.

If you installed the app via the download link you can upgrade to the latest beta by clicking on the download link listed below, download the apk to your device and upgrading your existing app. If you want to receive an automatic notification when a new beta is available click on the gear icon, selecting the “about” option then change the Update Channel option from “stable” to “beta” (no quotes). Note: This Update Channel option only appears on the About page if you installed the app via our download link.

If you discover any issues please create a new post and include the following info:
  Description – How were you using the app when the problem occurred.
  App Info – Which app you are using. (Bible, Biblia, Faithlife Study Bible, Vyrso)
  Device Info – (Nexus 7, Motorola Triumph, Droid Bionic, Kindle Fire (1st gen))
  Android Version – (2.2, 2.3, 3.x, 4.0, 4.1, 4.2)

Download

• Bible 2.3.9 (Build 78)
  • Beta download – http://downloads.logos.com/Android/Logos/beta/index.html
• Biblia 2.3.9 (Build 50)
  • Beta download – http://downloads.logos.com/Android/Biblia/beta/index.html
• Faithlife Study Bible 2.3.9 (Build 52)
  • Beta download – http://downloads.logos.com/Android/Faithlife/beta/index.html
• Verbum 2.3.9 (Build 14)
  • Beta download – http://downloads.logos.com/Android/Verbum/beta/index.html
• Vyrso 2.3.9 (Build 67)
  • Beta download – http://downloads.logos.com/Android/Vyrso/beta/index.html

Fixed

• Force close when opening some older resources
• App crashes on startup after upgrading Android devices with a known bad android id AND that had originally installed app version 2.2.3 or earlier
• Table of Contents doesn’t close after navigating to a chosen resource location

Gabe Martin

Some lengthy additional details about the crash experience by some of our users after upgrading from 2.2.3 to 2.2.8/2.2.12/2.3.4 to 2.3.8.

In order to support Mobile Download Management (MDM - the ability to specify that certain resources be downloaded to your device from the web or desktop app) the mobile app registers data specific to the user / app / device. To uniquely identify Android devices we use an ID that is generated by the device the first time it is turned on and never changes for the lifetime of the device unless the device is factory reset.

This feature was initially implemented and included in the app sometime before the 2.2.3 release. After this feature was initially implemented we began noticing that a single device was registered to a very large number of users. After some additional investigation it turned out that there was a bug in how this supposedly unique ID got generated on some Android devices (notably the Droid2 and Samsung Galaxy Tab among others) such that they all generated a specific android_id value. This had to do with a bug in the random number generator such that it was not getting seeded properly and thus resulting in the same random ID being generated. Starting in the Android Reader Suite 2.2.8 release we added additional heuristics as recommended in this Google Blog post to detect bad android_id values and generate a new one that is used by any/all Logos Android apps that get installed.

People with devices with the bad android_id would have noticed after upgrading to the 2.2.8 or later release that they now had two device entries. This was because devices that had already been registered with the bad android_id were re-registered with a new unique device id and any already downloaded resources were added to the MDM list. There was a minor undetected bug in this upgrade code that caused the list of resources to not sync properly after upgrading. A fresh install of 2.2.8 or later would work as expected.

The Android 2.3.8 stable release includes an enhancement that greatly speeds up the sync time and reduces overall network usage on devices by only syncing when changes are detected. Unfortunately, due to the undetected upgrade bug introduced in the 2.2.8 release, devices with the bad android_id it would crash after initial app startup if they had previously installed the 2.2.3 or earlier release, then upgraded to 2.2.8 / 2.2.12 / 2.3.4, then upgraded to the 2.3.8 release.

We try to do extensive upgrade testing as well as test on a variety of physical devices as well as emulated devices in various form factors. We also try to ensure quality stable releases by making builds available to our beta user community before upgrading our stable / store releases. Unfortunately in this circumstance the bug slipped through to our stable users.