No support for Android 8.1

[sansha]

Have you checked the latest release for fixes?

• Yes, I’ve tested on the latest release

Description

Expected Behavior

#12457 From this discussion it seems like the latest android builds should be based on Qt 6.6.3 and hence support Android 7.1 and up (including the ones built in CI).

Current Behavior

But, from the docs it seems like Qt 6.8 is used (also looks like that in #13234) and Android 9 is also mentioned as minimum requirement. This means an install fails on older Android versions. I have tested this with the 5.0 release as well as the latest (todays) daily.

I know these versions are quite old, but we have a bunch of Skydroid controllers and they are all running android 8.1, and we need to use QGC 5.0 to use our custom modes on them.

Is this a bug and is it possible to reenable support for these? If anything some more information or documentation on this issue would be appreciated. Thank you!

Steps To Reproduce

1. Download APK on Android 8.1 Device
2. Install app
3. See "package failed to parse" error

Additional Details

#13234 removed Qt 6.6 compatibility

System Information

QGC 5.0 and Daily
Android 8.1 running on Skydroid H12 (pro)
Pixhawk 6X running 1.16.0 with custom modes (hence the need for a new QGC)

Log Files and Screenshots

No response

[sansha]

I was just able to run a version by just downloading the artifact of this CI job: https://github.com/mavlink/qgroundcontrol/actions/runs/17504268492
and it seems to work but feels very hacky. Is this the intended solution? Is it possible to make this more obvious for other people using these kind of controllers?

[HTRamsey]

Yeah getting the Qt 6.6.3 build from QGC v5.0 is probably the only way to support older devices at this point. It gets too complex trying to support multiple Qt versions just to support 10 year old Android devices

[DonLakeFlyer]

QGC v5.0 is the last version of QGC which supports older Skydroid/Herelink controllers. In order to use it you have to build it yourself using Qt 6.6.3 and modifying QGC_ENABLE_HERELINK in CustomOptions.cmake. We don't automatically create version like that in CI.