While onsite, you observe an Android user demonstrate a problem: When they tap Update for a well-known productivity app in Google Play, the status stays at "Downloading…" for several minutes and never progresses. The handset shows a strong Wi-Fi signal, 60 percent battery, and over 4 GB of free internal storage. Before recommending more drastic measures, which action should you try first to resolve the failed update?
Disable Wi-Fi and force the update to download over mobile data
Clear the Google Play Store cache from App info and relaunch the store
Enable Developer options and turn on USB debugging
Perform a factory reset and restore the device from backup
A common cause of Play Store updates getting stuck at "Downloading…" is a corrupted or bloated cache for the Google Play Store app. Clearing only the cache forces the Store to rebuild its temporary files without affecting user data, and often allows the pending update to begin immediately. Switching to mobile data may not help if the problem is local to the Play Store app; enabling developer options is unrelated; and performing a factory reset is far too drastic for an isolated update failure.
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Why does clearing the Google Play Store cache often resolve app download issues?
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What is the difference between clearing the cache and clearing data for an app?
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How do you clear the cache for the Google Play Store on an Android device?