I’m posting this topic to funnel information and/or resolution to Play Store app rejection due to “memory budget”. I understand the issue is not from WFS 1.4.20 but Google Play. Play Store support team is to resolve the glitch in their vetting tool.
However, I have noticed something in WFS 1.4.20 and figured it could be affecting the watch memory usage rather than the watch size. I noticed that;
When opening a ‘Recent Projects’, it takes exceptionally long to open the project. To be precise is about 10 – 15 seconds to open unlike WFS 1.3.13.
When having built (Publish) and ‘Run on device’, I noticed the Preview image that appears on my Galaxy Wearable app is flawed. Referring to the screenshot below, the hands and their shadow are off position. Although on my paired Watch 4 Classic, all functions and features work perfectly fine. Therefore I figured, there could be a minor glitch in WFS1.4.20 that may be confusing Play Store’s testing tool.
Lastly I like to ask if the watch memory is exceedingly taxed when I use at least 4 layers to build the Minute and Hour hands. For example, I have 4 layers (image) to build a minute hand for shades, luminosity, and shadow. The same is repeated on the Hour hand and AOD. This type of construction does make me suspect excessive use of watch memory, but on my Watch 4 Classic, it works just fine.
NOTE: All my watch assets are made at 640px x 640px @ 97ppi and optimized lossy with Kraken.IO to 512px x 512px. My apps usually are below 6 MB.
Yesterday, I uploaded my first watchface to the Play Store. Unfortunately, it was rejected due to exceeding the memory budget. This issue is affecting many developers, and it seems that neither Samsung nor Google are taking any steps to address it. If this problem isn’t resolved within the next few days, I’m considering discontinuing the use of this software. It’s frustrating and time-consuming, with no apparent workaround available to resolve it.
I would like to express my take on all of this and trust the rest of the developers here too. We truly appreciate the support extended by the SDP team throughout the years. Including developing GWS and WFS for us free of charge and continuing to improve them from time to time.
My appreciation to Ron and the team for his patience, diligence, and “coolness” in taking all our suggestions and inquiries – for years.
I’ve been publishing watch faces only for about 3 years now. It was tough to be an approved “publisher” and it’s a kind of “recognition” of being the best amongst all the other non-Galaxy Store publishers (Facer, Play Store, Huawei, etc.).
Lastly, thanks to all members/publishers in this forum for your valuable, selfless knowledge sharing. You guys are awesome.
Noted. Sorry for the silly question. You said, “…and set the API at level 30”. I thought with WFS 1.3.13 all builts are at level 28. Is there something somewhere that I need to set manually - API Level 30? Thanks
I’m new to making watch faces with this software, but I decided to try it because it’s faster than using Android Studio. I appreciate the prompt response, although it was quite vague as they didn’t mention the underlying cause of the problem. I believe they should either roll back to the previous working version of the app or provide clarification for users that these watch faces cannot be uploaded to the Play Store, instead of letting them discover it after putting in all the work.
Lastly, I’d like to point out that the software is not free. Nothing comes for free, as Samsung pays the developers and we, in turn, pay Samsung.
Play Store has mandated that in August all apps must be level 30 both Android apps and Wear OS apps. I believe that it is a setting in Console that you select.
I’ve been avoiding having to upload a watch face to Play Store I guess I’ll have to do this.
Currently, among the numerous Play Store bugs, I think what developers are concerned about right now are the “Play Store Icon” warning messages and “memory budget” rejections. To date, no one has yet figured out how to solve these issues and Google usually does not deign to provide clear explanations. Cryptic or canned messages only. A kind of scratch card. We hope to receive some updates soon, at least from the Samsung team which has remained the usual serious source.
What was the issue with Play Store Icon Design warning it seemed pretty clear you can no longer superimpose your brand icon in a Play Store Icon for Watch Faces. But you can use it on the other images in your description. Was there something I missed about that?
That will be awesome Ron, thank you. In most rejection cases, their answers are standard script, long-winded, and redirect us to their Wear OS Policy. Only 1% of their entire text address the nature of rejection. It’s concise and not elaborated. But we have got used to that and we will figure it out. But this ‘memory budget’ their policy says to not exceed 10 MB. No further explanation or documentation. I have on several occasions given them survey feedback about it.
This watch face contains animation. Rotating earth, shining stars and symbols. Like everyone else I got the error of exceeding the memory usage budget with 8 updates. While the first application was 8.64 mb, I got rejected even though it decreased to 4.49 mb with the last update. Removing animations could be a solution, but users would not be satisfied. I was starting to think it had something to do with RAM consumption. But I installed the watch face which is 4.49 mb in Android Studio emulator.
The storage as installed was 10.02 mb. Now I will try to reduce it below 10mb with a few changes and send it back for approval. When I installed the 8.64 mb version, it was taking up 13.07 mb. This is the case even though PNGs are compressed. I think, as we see in the properties of the files, there are 2 concepts as size and size on disk. Therefore, when the watch face is installed, it takes up more space than we expected.
