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Raccoon Changelog

What's new in Raccoon 4.24.0

Jan 18, 2023
  • Feature release:
  • Added –gp-renew-gsfid commandline parameter.
  • The GSF ID is a supercookie that evolved from the Android ID, which was/is baked into the Android Framework itself. Originally, it was more or less guaranteed to be valid for life. Nowadays, it lives inside the Playstore app and may expire or become otherwise invalid. When that happens, Play forgets the associated hardware profile, resulting in empty search results.
  • Since not all causes for a breaking GSF ID are known, the new commandline argument just fixes the problem by simply registering a new GSF ID.

New in Raccoon 4.23.0 (Nov 23, 2022)

  • Bugfix release:
  • Some versions of Android have a bug that will cause the packagemanager commandline tool to crash on the device, when called with packed flags (“-rtd”). Raccoon did not catch that and reported a finished install, even though it was actually just a finished transfer. This bug only affects traditional, single APK apps. App bundles (“split APK”) are not affected as they require the pm command to be called with different parameters. Fix is to call the pm command with unpacked flags (“-r -t -d”).

New in Raccoon 4.23.0 (Nov 23, 2022)

  • Bugfix release:
  • Some versions of Android have a bug that will cause the packagemanager commandline tool to crash on the device, when called with packed flags (“-rtd”). Raccoon did not catch that and reported a finished install, even though it was actually just a finished transfer. This bug only affects traditional, single APK apps. App bundles (“split APK”) are not affected as they require the pm command to be called with different parameters. Fix is to call the pm command with unpacked flags (“-r -t -d”).

New in Raccoon 4.22.0 (Oct 2, 2022)

  • Bugfix:
  • Use the TLS Fingerprint spoofing client when running –gp-auth from the commandline.

New in Raccoon 4.21.0 (Jul 20, 2022)

  • Service release:
  • Catch up with a Google Play protocol change. Apps should no longer randomly fail on download.

New in Raccoon 4.20.0 (Apr 26, 2022)

  • Mock a Samsung Galaxy S21 phone by default now, when creating a new profile

New in Raccoon 4.19.0 (Sep 9, 2021)

  • Maintenance release:
  • Potential fix for the “Bad Authentication” error.
  • Adjusted a timeout to give Play more time to settle after creating a new profile. Without this, the first ever search would result in a strange collection of apps being found.

New in Raccoon 4.18.0 (May 10, 2021)

  • Added –gpa-download-dir commandline argument to download APK files to an external path, which is not tracked by Raccoon.

New in Raccoon 4.17.0 (Mar 4, 2021)

  • BUGFIX: when deleting a bundled app (“split APK”), delete all it’s APK files.
  • BUGFIX: fixed a race condition when reloading the app list in the packagemanager after deleting an app.
  • BUGFIX: Limit the newsfeed to the 10 latest items to keep the UI from stalling when parsing the HTML

New in Raccoon 4.16.0 (Feb 23, 2021)

  • BUGFIX: Do not cause a DF-DFERH-01 error when downloading updates and a profile has no apps associated.
  • BUGFIX: Do not fail when updating apps on a device and the app in question is an app bundle.
  • Updated library dependencies.

New in Raccoon 4.15.0 (Jul 3, 2020)

  • BUGFIX: Download without crashing when Google Play does not include a download auth cookie with the app delivery response.

New in Raccoon 4.14.0 (Apr 22, 2020)

  • Fixed a layout bug in the ‘unlock features’ dialog that would squash the personalisation code.
  • SECURITY BUGFIX: Verify the TLS certificate

New in Raccoon 4.12.0 (Feb 5, 2020)

  • Login should no longer be stuck on “CAPTCHA required” message.

New in Raccoon 4.11.0 (Oct 21, 2019)

  • Keep up with protocol changes:
  • Google changed the app search protocol again, resulting in Raccoon v4.10 (and earlier) showing non app items for certain search terms. These are filtered away now.

New in Raccoon 4.10.0 (Oct 1, 2019)

  • Allow the full range of ports to be used when configuring a proxy.

New in Raccoon 4.9.0 (Sep 24, 2019)

  • Split APK apps can now be downloaded from the command line.

New in Raccoon 4.8.0 (Jul 7, 2019)

  • Updated the default hardware profile to claim that it also supports Bluetooth Low Energy.
  • Updated all the URLs pointing to this website.
  • Reworked the shoutbox to show the Blog’s RSS feed.

New in Raccoon 4.7.0 (Apr 10, 2019)

  • Bugfix release:
  • Honor -D raccoon.playprofile commandline flag
  • Added missing translation string for --gpa-auth commandline flag
  • Wire protocol updates that may fix an issue with app updates.

New in Raccoon 4.6.0 (Mar 27, 2019)

  • Updated URL constants to match the current website structure (no more HTTP redirects)
  • Fixed a few typos
  • Fixed missing window title in the app import dialog
  • The help menu now has a "Support" item.
  • Reworked the "Market|Direct Download" dialog to make it more clear that it's purpose is to download old app versions. Also removed the "Offertype" parameter. It is not needed for downloading apps.

New in Raccoon 4.5.0 (Mar 1, 2019)

  • Raccoon v4.5 contains several important updates to keep up with Google's changes to the wire protocol.
  • Updated the search response parser to cope with Google latest changes to the search result data format: The list of search results can now be scrolled down again to load more entries.
  • Speedhack: request server side scaled app icons to make the search result pages load faster on slower internet connections.
  • Fixed a few typos.
  • Fixed download size calculation.
  • Play detects when the user searches for popular apps (e.g. Mozilla Firefox) and returns not one, but two lists of search results. The first contains just the app, the user was likely looking for, the second contains all close matches. Raccoon now merges those two lists instead of just showing the exact match

New in Raccoon 4.4.0 (Feb 18, 2019)

  • Added support for Google's new publishing format: App Bundles
  • Added a download booster feature to cut down download time
  • Use the app Icon from Play, if one cannot be extracted from the APK (e.g. because it's a bundled app).
  • Bumped the default device profile again to support App Bundles.

New in Raccoon 4.3.0 (Feb 8, 2019)

  • With this release, the versioning scheme of Raccoon changes to a two digit string. NOTE: for technical reasons, the third digit will be hardwired to 0 for the time being.
  • Changes:
  • Updated the build in default device profile to keep up with compatibility demands of apps (this will mostly affect more recent games).
  • NOTE: if you are updating from a previous version of Raccoon, you won't get the new profile settings automatically. You'll have to create a new profile through the setup wizard. Deleting and recreating a profile means that apps bound to that profile can no longer be automatically updated. If that is an issue for you, consider buying Raccoon Premium, which allows you to have multiple profiles at the same time.

New in Raccoon 4.2.7 (Feb 8, 2019)

  • Fixed some typos/phrasing
  • Virtual device should now show up again on the Play "device settings" page (this might have prevented some search results from showing in the past).

New in Raccoon 4.2.5 (May 13, 2018)

  • Bugfixes
  • Switched to a newer version of the APK Parser library. The old one would choke on some APK files under certain circumstances resulting in Raccoon rejecting them as corrupt after download.

New in Raccoon 4.2.4 (May 8, 2018)

  • Updated the windows launcher (should no longer cause trouble on 64 bit windows with 32 bit Java)
  • Added a few clarifications in the gui.

New in Raccoon 4.2.3 (Mar 21, 2018)

  • This is a critical maintanance release. Google changed the data format for search results. An update is required.

New in Raccoon 4.2.2 (Mar 20, 2018)

  • Bugfixes:
  • Changed the device, Raccoon mimics as by default, to a Samsung Galaxy S8.

New in Raccoon 4.2.1 (Jan 22, 2018)

  • BUGFIXES:
  • Don't download the latest version of an app over and over again, if old versions are kept.
  • Don't choke during update if Play returns app details that were not requested.
  • Don't choke during update if the database contains an incomplete record for an app.

New in Raccoon 4.2.0 (Jan 3, 2018)

  • NEW FEATURES:
  • Added --gp-auth to force refreshing of the auth cookie on the commandline.
  • Added --gpa-download to download apps directly from the commandline.
  • Added --gpa-update to update apps from the commandline.
  • BUGFIXES:
  • Changed the login process to catch up with Google
  • Minor GUI tweaks
  • Fixed a race condition in the App Browser Window (app list wouldn't update properly when deleting apps).
  • Rewrote the code behind Market|Update apps

New in Raccoon 4.1.6 (Oct 30, 2017)

  • App search showed "no results" when trying to search with an expired or otherwise invalid session. Raccoon now automatically reconnects if possible or prompts the user to run the setup wizard again.

New in Raccoon 4.1.5 (Oct 8, 2017)

  • BUGFIXES:
  • App browser was not updating the list of apps after deleting an app from the local repository without a restart.
  • Apps declaring permissions with really long names (>255 characters) could not be downloaded. Bumped the limit up to 8kb.
  • OTHER:
  • Switched to sans serif fonts in the sidebar.
  • Added pre v4.1.3 backwards compatibility to be safe.
  • Phrasing changes

New in Raccoon 4.1.4 (Sep 8, 2017)

  • Mandatory update. Fixes what v4.1.3 didn't.
  • Downloading (free) apps should work again, no workaround required.

New in Raccoon 4.1.3 (Sep 7, 2017)

  • This is a mandatory bugfix release, catching up with a protocol change.
  • Bugfix: Apps can now be downloaded again.

New in Raccoon 4.1.2 (Jun 22, 2017)

  • BUGFIXES:
  • The File|Import apps dialog gets no longer squashed after closing and reopening the window
  • Apps can now manually be renamed in the App Details dialog (this is a workaround in case Raccoon extracts the app's name from the APK file in the wrong language).
  • Added tooltips to the buttons in the File|Import apps dialog.
  • No longer hang when importing an APK file from the local filesystem that does not contain an icon.

New in Raccoon 4.1.1 (Jun 10, 2017)

  • This is a bugfix release and a mandatory update. Support for prior versions of Raccoon ends with this update since Google made changes to the client/server protocol. Please update as soon as possible.
  • Premium keys bought for v4.0.x remain valid and will carry over automatically. No user action is required.
  • Bugfixes:
  • Catch up with Google's latest changes to the login process.
  • Fixed a display problem with apps requesting permissions not containing a dot character.

New in Raccoon 4.1.0 (Apr 14, 2017)

  • This is a bugfix, as well as a feature and maintenance release. Support for prior versions of Raccoon ends with this update since Google made changes to the client/server protocol. Please update as soon as possible.
  • Premium keys bought for v4.0.x remain valid and will carry over automatically. No user action is required.
  • NEW FEATURES:
  • Reworked app importing: Raccoon is now able to scan a directory tree for candidates.
  • Added --gpa-search (developer only)
  • BUGFIXES:
  • Don't choke when downloading an APK without an icon
  • No longer delete app/profile association after changing the account's password.
  • Allow non-premium users to setup a new profile after deleting their current one.
  • Vastly improved ADB file transfer speed
  • OTHER:
  • Various GUI tweaks
  • Explain premium features in the Help menu
  • Friendlier formatting in the shoutbox
  • Caught up with Google's latest change for communicating search results, which gives special treatment to popular apps
  • "VIP apps" now open directly in the details view when being searched for
  • Preparations for accepting more forms of payment (other than Paypal)
  • Lots of internal restructuring and cleanup

New in Raccoon 4.0.2 (Mar 30, 2017)

  • Renamed the "QR tool" to "QR Code Generator".
  • Made the layout of the shoutbox more readable.
  • Disable the "Help|Unlock features" menu entry if there's nothing to do there.
  • Various clarifications in how things are phrased.
  • Minor code cleanup
  • FIXED: In special cases, the setup wizard would get stuck, only displaying "1" below the progress bar.

New in Raccoon 3.7 (Oct 31, 2016)

  • Google changed their account creation process to no longer implicitly accept the Play TOS upon signup, resulting in Raccoon being unable to log in recently created accounts.
  • NOTE: this bugfix only assigns accounts to Play. But you still have to accept the TOS manually by either creating your new accounts via the Play website or at least logging in from there once.