[AdmiralAsshat]

So, frustratingly, I can't seem to get the launcher to downgrade after it automatically updated last night.

Someone on the thread linked to the previous version APK from a site called uptodown (glanced at it, didn't seem to be malware, but didn't do any real forensic analysis). I enabled sideloading on my phone, tried to "update" the app, but the OS then refused to install it, claiming it was invalid.

Can't tell if it's an OS level safeguard or an app-level one. Very frustrating, either way. I had my version of Nova launcher locked for years on both my phone and tablet after the acquisition, but when I got a new phone I obviously had to install the latest-greatest, and at that point I forgot to disable the auto-update flag...

[opan]

Rollbacks pretty much only work on LineageOS. I've seen this come up a lot in the last year as multiple F-Droid apps pushed out a bad update and people wanted a fix ASAP rather than in a couple weeks.

You can probably extract the apk of the old version on your other phone, btw.

http://7thzero.com/blog/extract-an-apk-from-android-devices-...

[AdmiralAsshat]

Thanks. I took the nuclear option and uninstalled Nova completely before sideloading the previous version.

Luckily, Nova has a very good backup/restore option, so I made a backup right before uninstalling and was back up and running in short order. I of course unchecked the box to allow auto updates.

I'm hoping this buys me a little bit of time to explore other launcher options in detail.

[ignoramous]

> Can't tell if it's an OS level safeguard or an app-level one.

App version rollbacks are not allowed on Android. Even if it were, apps will have had to implement support for rollbacks (think database schema changes that must be undone etc).