F-Droid automatic updates may install the wrong platform build (TV vs. mobile) on the device

[jivanpal]

Each version of the app has two builds: one for mobile devices, and one for TVs. These builds are published separately to the F-Droid repo, with separate F-Droid build numbers, but understandably with the same app version number. I have just experienced an automatic update on my mobile device from build 1977 (v3.97 for mobile) to build 2082 (v3.98 for TV). This understandably leads to visual breakage when running the app, for no obvious reason to the user; until I investigated the cause of this visual issue by rolling back to v3.97 and seeing the two builds for each version number, then installing the correct build of v3.98, I assumed there was a bug in the v3.98 release.

Additionally, the current F-Droid app UI doesn't show the update release notes for each build listed under Versions, unlike what is shown on the repo's package webpage (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.windscribe.vpn/). This makes selecting the right version to install on the device a matter of trial and error in practice, as users are unlikely to consult the F-Droid webpage — is it the first or second entry listed for the version in question?

Would it be possible to either:

• Publish a single unified build for both platforms?
• Give the F-Droid repo maintainers whatever info is necessary so that devices only see builds targeted for their device platform by default, and thus F-Droid's automatic updates feature and manual Updates page will not install/show unsuitable builds for the device by default?

As a workaround, I have disabled automatic updates for the app temporarily (enabled "Ignore all updates" on the Windscribe listing in F-Droid) and will have to manually check for updates as I do not want to enable "Show available updates" in F-Droid, since this would notify me for all apps, including ones that will be auto-updated, so I don't want to see all of those unnecessary notifications. This workaround is only necessary because F-Droid only allows you to "update" to a later build without uninstalling the app. That is, in order to "downgrade" from build 2082 (v3.98 for TV) to build 2081 (v3.98 for mobile), I first had to uninstall the app, meaning I lost my app data/settings, and I don't want that to happen again in the future.