Play Store Rejection When Creating a New App - Incompatibility with 16KB Library (Android 15)

[leonelgregioauler]

Yesterday, I received the following rejection on create a new app into Google Play Console.

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1 Recommended Action
Recompile your app to align with the 16KB native library
The app uses native libraries that do not support devices with 16KB memory page sizes. Your app may not install or launch on these devices, or may crash after opening.

In this release, there are new app packages that are not compatible with 16KB.

Build Codes:

45321901
Android 15 supports devices with 16KB memory page sizes, which can improve app performance. We recommend that you recompile your app when migrating to Android 15 and test it in a 16KB environment to avoid issues for users.

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I discovered this was due to the use of the cordova-sqlite-storage plugin. Solved by replacing it with the cordova-plugin-sqlite-2 plugin.
Is there any other solution to continue using cordova-sqlite-storage?

[breautek]

This is an issue with any plugin that imports or bundles native binaries. Libraries that purely execute in the JVM (e.g. pure java or kotlin libraries) are not affected.

Cordova does not maintain any packages that makes use of native libraries, so the core cordova framework is not affected. But third-party plugins may be.

The authors of that plugin needs to recompile the native libs with 16kb page size support.

Is there any other solution to continue using cordova-sqlite-storage?

The plugin authors needs to update their packages. They will need to update, or recompile their native libs with 16kb page size support.

How developers can build native modules can vary but I have a blog post that goes over the general highlights: https://breautek.com/articles/preparing-for-16kb-android-binaries.html

If the author is no longer active or maintaining the package, then there isn't much that you can do, unless if the native source code is available. If the native source code is available, then you may be able to fork the plugin and rebuild the native sources with 16kb page size support yourself. But it kinda sounds like cordova-plugin-sqlite-2 has already done that if that solved your issue.

[leonelgregioauler]

I'm trying to get in touch with the owner of this plugin.
This author/plugin is still active — the last update was in January 2025, and it has thousands of monthly downloads.
It's widely used, so I imagine it should be updated soon.

[t-var-s]

By the way, can you share how you identified the specific plugin that is using native binaries?

[breautek]

You can also test individual binaries (the .so files). To do this, you'll need NDK 29 or later installed.

$ANDROID_HOME/ndk/$NDK_VERSION/toolchains/llvm/prebuilt/$YOUR_OS/bin/llvm-readelf -W -l your_binary_or_lib.so | grep -B2 'LOAD'

You'll have to fill in the blanks for:

• ANDROID_HOME
• NDK_VERSION
• YOUR_OS
• the binary file path/name

It will print out something like:

Type           Offset   VirtAddr           PhysAddr           FileSiz  MemSiz   Flg Align
  PHDR           0x000040 0x0000000000000040 0x0000000000000040 0x0001f8 0x0001f8 R   0x8
  LOAD           0x000000 0x0000000000000000 0x0000000000000000 0x09e130 0x09e130 R E 0x4000
  LOAD           0x09e130 0x00000000000a2130 0x00000000000a2130 0x0025c0 0x002ed0 RW  0x4000
  LOAD           0x0a06f0 0x00000000000a86f0 0x00000000000a86f0 0x000020 0x001c90 RW  0x4000

For the LOAD types, if the Align value is 0x4000 then that binary is compiled with 16kb page size. If it's 0x1000 then the binary is compiled with 4kb page size, which was the original default, and thus not compatible with 16kb page size devices.

EDITED: To correct the llvm-readelf usage to find the proper record types.

[t-var-s]

Thanks for the guidance 👍 I'll start by looking at the most likely plugins

cordova plugin ls 
@havesource/cordova-plugin-push 4.0.0-dev.0 "Cordova Push Plugin"
cordova-plugin-androidx-adapter 1.1.3 "cordova-plugin-androidx-adapter"
cordova-plugin-buildinfo 4.0.0 "BuildInfo"
cordova-plugin-calendar 5.1.6 "Calendar"
cordova-plugin-camera 8.0.0 "Camera"
cordova-plugin-contacts 3.0.1 "Contacts"
cordova-plugin-deeplinks 1.1.1 "Cordova Deeplinks Plugin"
cordova-plugin-device 3.0.0 "Device"
cordova-plugin-file-opener2 3.0.5 "File Opener2"
cordova-plugin-file-transfer 2.0.0-dev "File Transfer"
cordova-plugin-file 8.1.3 "File"
cordova-plugin-inappbrowser 6.0.0 "InAppBrowser"
cordova-plugin-ionic-keyboard 2.2.0 "cordova-plugin-ionic-keyboard"
cordova-plugin-localization-strings 5.0.5 "Localization"
cordova-plugin-media-capture 6.0.0-dev "Capture"
cordova-plugin-statusbar-height 1.0.0 "StatusBarHeight"
cordova-plugin-statusbar 4.0.0-dev "StatusBar"
cordova-plugin-x-socialsharing 6.0.4 "SocialSharing"
cordova.plugins.diagnostic 7.1.3 "Diagnostic"
es6-promise-plugin 4.2.2 "Promise"
phonegap-plugin-barcodescanner 8.1.0 "BarcodeScanner"

[breautek]

Just to note, I made a correction to the readelf usage. The original command didn't actually find the LOAD entries, as I guess there might be a PHDR entry before the LOAD entries.

[breautek]

I guess Android Studio also has an APK Analyzer and will lint dependencies that are not 16kb compliant: https://developer.android.com/guide/practices/page-sizes#identify-native-code so this might also help identify source of 16kb compliant issues.

[GitToTheHub]

And you can also use the app bundle explorer in Google Play Console: https://play.google.com/console/developers/app/bundle-explorer-selector
If you upload there a bundle, you can see in the details if there are any libraries which are not compatible.