App not updating for alpha testers on google play
Nothing with Google Play is automatic. They have a caching system much like Apple App Store among others. From my experience, once or twice a day the cache system gets flushed and the market gets updated.
At some point after that, the updates get pushed. This can be a multi-day process unfortunately.
Just had the same problem. My update wasn't available after 48 hours. Tried closing the app store and restarting the phone, which didn't work. Then I went into the phones settings and cleared the play stores cache, which worked immediately, and I could download the latest alpha version.
In addition to the time it takes for app updates to fully process, the Google Play app itself also caches app information, so your users (and you) may be seeing a cached version of your Google Play list.
Here's a trick to force Google Play to fetch the latest version of your app. This works every time for me.
How to reset the Google Play app's cache:
- Force close the Google Play app
- Open the Settings app
- Go to Applications > Application Manager > Google Play Store > Storage
- Click Clear Cache
The Google Play app's cache should now be reset. Try finding your app again and see if it shows the latest version.