Can I update my android application using update button?

Question

We have built an android application. Its a non-market application, and is deployed to the set of customers. Using MobiControl we send the new updates for our application. The update happens silently.

At the time of update if the application is in use, and user is entering any data, then the application get closed without waiting user's confirmation!!, user is upgraded to the newer version of the application and it re-launches it. Because of this user lose his changes!! Also, as our application deals with the sensitive information we could never write them on the physical storage of the device. Hence, 'retain and restore' is not an option.

One idea I thought could be to provide an 'Update' button on one of the screen of my application (say settings) from where I could update it to the newer version. For that, I got following code using which I can show an installation intent after passing the APK as parameter.

Intent promptInstall = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW)
    .setData(Uri.parse("file:///path/to/myapp.apk"))
    .setType("application/vnd.android.package-archive");
startActivity(promptInstall); 

But when the above code is executed, I face the following error.

06-21 18:29:01.666: E/AndroidRuntime(8981): Caused by: android.content.ActivityNotFoundException: 
No Activity found to handle Intent { act=android.intent.action.VIEW typ=application/vnd.android.package-archive }

It worked yesterday when I called setDataAndType in one line. But today with the same code I faced the same problem again...

06-25 10:27:39.383: E/AndroidRuntime(3737): Caused by: android.content.ActivityNotFoundException: No Activity found to handle Intent { act=android.intent.action.VIEW dat=/mnt/sdcard/test/ReinstallSample.apk typ=application/vnd.android.package-archive }
06-25 10:27:39.383: E/AndroidRuntime(3737):     at android.app.Instrumentation.checkStartActivityResult(Instrumentation.java:1622)
06-25 10:27:39.383: E/AndroidRuntime(3737):     at android.app.Instrumentation.execStartActivity(Instrumentation.java:1417)
06-25 10:27:39.383: E/AndroidRuntime(3737):     at android.app.Activity.startActivityForResult(Activity.java:3370)
06-25 10:27:39.383: E/AndroidRuntime(3737):     at android.app.Activity.startActivityForResult(Activity.java:3331)
06-25 10:27:39.383: E/AndroidRuntime(3737):     at android.app.Activity.startActivity(Activity.java:3566)
06-25 10:27:39.383: E/AndroidRuntime(3737):     at android.app.Activity.startActivity(Activity.java:3534)
06-25 10:27:39.383: E/AndroidRuntime(3737):     at com.example.reinstallsample.MainActivity.launchInstaller(MainActivity.java:73)
06-25 10:27:39.383: E/AndroidRuntime(3737):     at com.example.reinstallsample.MainActivity.reInstall(MainActivity.java:66)
06-25 10:27:39.383: E/AndroidRuntime(3737):     ... 14 more

Answer 1

Try using this instead, I recall from somewhere that setDataAndType needs to be done in one line.

Intent promptInstall = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
promptInstall.setDataAndType(Uri.parse(filePath), "application/vnd.android.package-archive");
startActivity(promptInstall);