Android Google Place Picker working in Signed APK but not working in Live app

Question

I have an application in which i have used Google Place Picker. There is very strange issue i am facing. When i am creating signed APK with my app's keystore, Place Picker is working very well. That same APK I have uploaded over Google PlayStore. When I come to open that Place Picker it automatically closed down. I already read a lots of comments online and also here in SO. But I can not determine why its working well in signed APK and the same APK which is over Google PlayStore is not working.

When i checked logs of LIVE application of Google PlayStore it giving error like this :

Volley : [198] BasicNetwork.performRequest: Unexpected response code 403
for https: //www.googleapis.com/placesandroid/v1/search?key=MY_KEY/ ? V / ConnectivityManager : isActiveNetworkMetered() returns: true
/ ? E / AsyncOperation : serviceID = 65, operation = SearchPlaces
OperationException[Status {
 statusCode = PLACES_API_INVALID_APP, resolution = null
}]

I already have checked into my Google Developer Console that my key is same or not. I also check my SHA which I have created from my KeyStore file. And all are good (Otherwise it will also not works in Signed APK if anything wrongs there).

Here is how I calling Place Picker from my Activity

int PLACE_PICKER_REQUEST = 999;
PlacePicker.IntentBuilder builder = new PlacePicker.IntentBuilder();
startActivityForResult(builder.build(this), PLACE_PICKER_REQUEST);

Here is my AndroidManifest.xml file where i have give my API key in meta data which is into application tag.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.example" >
    // ALL PERMISSIONS ARE HERE
    <application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
        <activity
            android:name=".MainActivity"
            android:label="@string/app_name" >
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
        <meta-data            
            android:name="com.google.android.geo.API_KEY"
            android:value="@string/MY_KEY" />
    </application>
</manifest>

There is file which i deleted "release/values/google_maps_api.xml" which is automatic generated. As i already mentioned my API key into string.xml, So I deleted this whole values package from release package.

Can anyone tell me what is wrong with this?

Answer 1

After several days of investing time for finding solution of this problem. Finally I got the solution. It is because of Google Play App Signing .

With Google Play App Signing: You sign your app with your upload key. Then, Google verifies and removes the upload key signature. Finally, Google re-signs the app with the original app signing key you provided and delivers your app to the user.

So, when I Created API key for "Google Places API for Android" I have restricted that key using my package name and my SHA-1 of Signed APK's KeyStore.

Now that is under "Upload Certificate" and it is not used, as I have to pass my App Singing Certificate's SHA-1 to Google Developer Console. And after doing that my Google PlayStore's live app's Google PlacePicker working well.