You can halt an app release that is rolled out to 100% of your users. If you discover a critical issue with your app, the halt rollout feature minimizes disruption for users by preventing new and existing users from installing, or updating to the affected version of your app. When you halt a full release, the previous version of your app will become available to new users, and anyone not using the halted version of your app.
To halt a fully rolled-out release
- Go to the Releases tab on your track page.
- Select Manage rollout > Halt rollout.
Key Capabilities
This feature provides the following key capabilities:
- You can stop a fully rolled-out release on any track, excluding internal test tracks, directly from the Play Console web or mobile UI, or via the Publishing API. The halted version will no longer be served to users.
- When you halt a release, a previously live, fully rolled-out version of your app will automatically take its place and become available to new and eligible users.
- You can resume a halted release to any percentage of users. This allows you to gradually reintroduce a release after fixing the issue.
Considerations
Before utilizing the Halt a fully-rolled out release feature, it's important to be aware of the following key considerations:
- If the release you want to halt has been available for a significant length of time, or is being used by a large percentage of your users, halting it might not be the most effective solution as most users may have already updated to the halted version of your app.
- You cannot halt your first release on a track. If your current 100% release is the very first version of your app on a given track, there will be no previous release available to revert to.
- If your previous release has a policy violation, it cannot be used in place of your halted release.
By using the Halt a fully-rolled out release feature, you can gain more control over your app releases and quickly mitigate issues that arise after a full rollout, ensuring a better experience for your users.