Posted in Mobile phones, Social media, Technology, Tips and Tricks

Google Play Store Authentication Error – How to Fix it

   July 6, 2019  Leave a comment

I was getting a funny error when trying to update the Google Chrome app on my Moto X4 which is an android phone. The error that popped up was:

“Authentication is required. You need to sign into your Google account.”

Funnily, I could update a lot of other apps without a problem. Here is a screen grab video showing the error and the inability to update chrome.

This is how I sorted out the glitch. I’ve also linked you to a few resources that trouble shoot other problems that could cause this.

Step 1

I went to settings and chose the “Accounts” menu.

This will give a list of accounts of most apps you use – Google, travel apps like Expedia/GoIbibo/MakeMyTrip, etc. I had one particular old Google account that I had stopped using and was logged out of – I didn’t login to this account for a while.

However this was not the primary account I was using on the Play Store. My primary account was correctly logged in, bit it looks like this old account was interfering with the Play Store updates for some reason.

When I click the account it takes me to the submenu which has a few options including the button to remove account from the phone. Since this was an inactive account, I removed it.

After this I could update chrome without a problem and also auto updates of a lot of other apps happened immediately. So this worked for me.

Some other fixes including deleting the cache, signing out of your primary account and signing back in, the usual restart phone option, etc all of which didn’t work for me.

I tweeted to google about it and they sent me 2 links (basic and advanced) to trouble shoot this issue.

Author: Just Another Herb

A little fish told me I should get wiser!

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