Unable to download .apk via webbrowser from drupal site

Question

I have a drupal-based website where people can log in and see private discussion forums. This is where I want to have my beta testers for my Android application download the beta .apk files. I tested this thoroughly on my Android 1.6 based myTouch 3G, and was able to log in, and download files attached to forum posts without problems.

Now comes the interesting part: my testers on Droids and Nexus Ones (Android 2.0.1 and 2.1) were complaining that their downloads are failing. Since I don't have an 2.0 phone, I tried it out in a 2.0 emulator, and lo-and-behold, it didn't work. The download shows the indeterminate progress for a second or two, then shows "Download unsuccessful".

Based on what I see in the logs, it is apparent that the server is returning a 404 for the download request from 2.0 browsers. I can download to my desktop and 1.6 phone no problem. The only reason I can think of that the server would return a 404 for a request is that for some reason the credentials or cookies aren't being passed by the download process. Logcat shows: http error 404 for download x

Some background: I added the mime type to my .htaccess like this: AddType application/vnd.android.package-archive apk

I checked the server logs and see the following for failed downloads: xx.xx.xx.224 - - [28/Jan/2010:20:39:00 -0500] "GET /system/files/grandmajong-beta090.apk HTTP/1.1" 404 - "http://trickybits.com/forums/beta-testing/grandma-jong/latest-version-090-b1" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 1.6; en-us; sdk Build/Donut) AppleWebKit/528.5+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.2 Mobile Safari/525.20.1"

Answer 1

The default storage location for drupal files is /sites/default/files. If you uploaded the file via Drupal (as a node or whatever) it will be here. You should also check out the file /sites/settings.php or your file uploads settings (http:///admin/settings/file-system) to see where your files are being stored.

This is not a MIME type issue, so remove the entry for the apk files unless you want the server to attempt to read them.

Answer 2

Are the apk's signed? Maybe the later versions of Android expect only signed apps. http://tordtech.blogspot.com/2009/10/signing-android-applications.html