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"Your app’s back button doesn’t send users back to search results"
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Description

From google webmaster tools for enwiki...

To: webmaster of http://en.wikipedia.org/
Google systems have detected issues with your app's pages. In some cases, a click on the "Back" button does not return the user to the search results page. Out of 77 URIs we've tested in the past 7 days, 66 URIs had this issue. This can make users feel trapped or confused because they can’t navigate properly. Therefore, we may consider not showing deep links to those app pages in our mobile search results in the future.
Here’s how you can fix this:
1 Start with the example URIs
Use the list of sample of URIs below that show where we detected this behavior. Common causes for this error are overwriting the default back button behaviour, redirecting to another activity when launching an deeplink, or having pop-up dialogs (e.g. sign-in, or confirmation of leaving the app).
2
Use the testing tool
Our deep links testing tool can help you more easily test your app’s behavior to ensure the back button behaves correctly.
Try it now
3 Verify the fix
Test the deep links with your attached device or emulator: exit the app, open the deep link, and press the back button. Confirm that the device displays the previous context and not your app.
The following example URIs had back-button issues:

android-app://org.wikipedia/http/en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Zanzibar_v_British_Aerospace_(Lancaster_House)_Ltd

android-app://org.wikipedia/http/en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_Football_League_(Philippines)

android-app://org.wikipedia/http/en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_(frontier_defensive_structure)

android-app://org.wikipedia/http/en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruela_D%C3%ADaz

android-app://org.wikipedia/http/en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Reaching_Ministries

Event Timeline

Reedy raised the priority of this task from to Needs Triage.
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Reedy added a project: Mobile-Apps.
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Reedy subscribed.

So, this is definitely regarding Wikipedia-Android-App-Backlog, and here's what I think the root cause is:

The back-button behavior in the app works correctly, except for the first time the app is launched, which is when we show the first-time onboarding screen. In that case, it requires an extra back-button press to go back to the previous context. If we want to be perfectly consistent with Google guidelines, we may want to reevaluate this behavior, at least for the case of deep links.

KLans_WMF subscribed.

Dan, discussed this at standup today, would like to get your two cents on priority.

Change 180400 had a related patch set uploaded (by BearND):
Back button goes back to calling activity if on first page

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/180400

Patch-For-Review

Change 180400 merged by Dbrant:
Back button goes back to calling activity if on first page

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/180400

Dbrant claimed this task.