Getting black screen when testing game from Google Console but all works great on local devices

Target Platforms XR
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Hello, dear community!

I read from this post, that other people are getting a similar problem as I am, but I didn’t find any solution for that problem, at least not in that post.

I’m also having issues when posting my very 1st app on the Android Console, I’m in the phase where 12 testers have to test my app for 14 days.

Everything works perfectly on iOS and the app is already in the Apple’s Appstore. However, it’s not the same scenario for my Android version.

During my local tests, I am able to smoothly test the app using an old Xiaomi Mi A3 (from 2019) smartphone, a Samsung (2025) smartphone and a Motorola (2023) smartphone and in all of them the app runs perfectly ok.

However, when I create the .aab bundle to upload it to the Google Play Console, I got the black screen and it does not work in some devices and in others (like the Xiaomi Mi A3) it says that it doesn’t even is compatible. How come that during local testings I can I can use almost any old or new device but when I try to use the app by downloading it from Google Play Console, everything fails or it doesn’t allow to install the app in devices that run the app in local testing? Also, when I can install the app in a device, the camera doesn’t activate and all the users see is a black screen.

I’ve tried the same configurations as other users as stated in the previous post I shared and it still fails.

What can it be? I’m using Unity 2022.3.48f1 on a Mac M1 Max and all the packages related to AR are up to date.

Is there a solution that has already been posted and that I haven’t found yet?

I appreciate any reply you may tell me.

Regards.

2

The solution is the following if you are doing a project using Augmented Reality, then you deploy it in Google Console to test it and you get a black screen when you install it through the Google Console’s link:

In Project Settings > Player > Publishing Settings, deselect all the checkboxes inthe “Minify” section (Release, Debug and Split Application Binary must be deselected).

However, this will force you to do the following:

  1. First, create a bundle with the “Release” checkbox selected to create the mapping.txt file needed for google console (you can ignore the rest of the files created), since when you deselect all the checkboxes in Minify, this file is not created
  2. Create a new bundle but DO NOT SELECT ANY of the checkboxes (including “Release”) in Minify, as stated at the beginning of this text.

This is done to get all the necessary files (mapping.txt, symbols and aab) to upload it in Play Console.

Also, it is needed to re-adjust the project to make it have a size <200 MB, to prevent a size complaint from Google Console, since you can’t use the “Split Application Binary” in the Minify section.

And that’s it. It’s sad that nobody in the Unity staff helped for a long known issue when working in AR.

This solution worked well using Unity version 2022.3.48f1 and Unity 6.1.6f1.