How to deal with INSTALL_PARSE_FAILED_INCONSISTENT

Question

I tried to reinstall an apk

$adb install -r new.apk

And it shows the error:

Failure [INSTALL_PARSE_FAILED_INCONSISTENT_CERTIFICATES]

One solution is to uninstall and install the new.apk, that works fine.

But I'm wondering whether I could re-build an apk and re-install without the uninstallation. Eg. change some config in the AndroidManifest.xml, or not sign the APK, etc.

It would be great appreciated if you could tell me the whole meaning of the "INSTALL_PARSE_FAILED_INCONSISTENT_CERTIFICATES".

Answer 1

I ran into this while testing on a new Xoom. I had previously installed my app from the Marketplace. Later while trying to test a new version of the app I ran into this error.

I fixed it by removing the app that was installed via Marketplace (just hold and drag to the trash). Thereafter I was able to deploy my development version without any issue.

Answer 2

This happened to me when another developer on the team built our app on the hardware device I was trying to deploy to. Uninstalling the app from hardware fixed my problem.

Answer 3

I've had the same error today, but the problem wasn’t exactly the same. I’m using ADB with Android installed in VirtualBox. I tried to install different versions of my app (signed / not signed, debug / release mode) and got two errors alternatively : INSTALL_FAILED_UID_CHANGED and INSTALL_PARSE_FAILED_INCONSISTENT_CERTIFICATES.

Now, when looking at /data/data/{package.name}, I found a bunch of files that were still there after uninstalling the app. I tried to rm -rf them without success : I got I/O errors.

The solution to this was :

• Shut down the VM
• Mount the VDI image with vdfuse (read/write)
• Repair the Partition1 image file with e2fsck
• Umount and restart the VM

Answer 4

Nothing from above worked for me. The problem for me was that I had wrong source in my Java Build Path for android-support-v7-appcompat. When you go to Project> Build Path> Configure Build Path>. Under the Source tab make sure you have android-support-v7-appcompat/gen , android-support-v7-appcompat/libs and android-support-v7-appcompat/src and nothing else. Click OK and it should work.

Answer 5

If you encounter a failed deployment to an Andorid device or emulator with the error "Failure [INSTALL_PARSE_FAILED_INCONSISTENT_CERTIFICATES]" in the Output Window, simply delete the existing app on the device or emulator and redeploy. Debug builds will use a debug certificate while Release builds will use your configured certificate. This error is simply letting you know that the certificate of the app installed on the device is different than the one you are attempting to install. In non-development (app store) scenarios, this can be indicator of a corrupted or otherwise modified app not safe to install on the device.

Answer 6

I faced an another use case where I got the similar error. When At first I got the error, I panicked, and removed /data/data/{package.name} After that I tried, and my problem was still present. Then I tried uninstall, it failed.

I then removed the apk file present in /system/app (required root access), and tried uninstall and it was successfull.

After that I tried re-installing the apk, it worked.