On Friday evening, a peculiar glitch emerged within the Google Play Store, affecting Android users who found themselves facing repeated app updates for applications they had already installed. This is not an isolated incident, as similar bugs have surfaced in the past.
In a recent screenshot highlighting pending downloads, several popular apps, including Gboard, Google Messages, Pocket Casts, and The Athletic, displayed an unusual characteristic: the absence of update sizes. Instead, they simply indicated the message “Updated at [time].”
Upon selecting “Update” for these four applications, users observed that the version numbers remained unchanged. Interestingly, the Play Store was indeed downloading a small file—ranging from 1 to 2 MB—for each app, leading to a familiar “Installing” process. It seems users are inadvertently re-updating to versions that are already present on their devices.
In contrast, other applications in the same list experienced normal version number advancements, indicating that both Google and third-party apps are susceptible to this issue.
Fortunately, users have not reported any functional problems with the apps that underwent these redundant updates. The primary consequence appears to be the unnecessary consumption of a few megabytes of data. While this situation seems to stem from a bug, it remains uncertain whether these repeated updates are genuinely necessary or if Google Play will eventually retract them. Users across various Google Accounts on Android 14 (Samsung) and 15 (Pixel) devices have been encountering this anomaly.
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