What does a syntax error mean? "Syntax error" on Android devices: how to fix it

When downloading applications and launching them, Android users sometimes encounter the following text: “package parsing error” , and the application itself completely refuses to work. The reasons for this are the following:

  1. The smartphone and its operating system do not meet the requirements.
  2. Application files are corrupted during download or installation process.
  3. The original.apk file has been changed.
  4. Antivirus operation.
  5. Developer mode is disabled and USB debugging is not enabled.

“The appearance of the interface and settings in the screenshots may differ from yours. My device: Samsung J5 2016 with Android version 6.0.1. The difference in appearance does not affect the algorithm of actions.”

How to fix?

There are a whole string of ways to fix it. Let's start with the simplest ones.

Does your phone meet the requirements?

Not all developers are attentive to users. Therefore, the description of some applications may not indicate Android version requirements. Thus, having Android 5.1.1 installed and downloading the application for Android 6.0.1, you will most likely receive a parsing error. Therefore, it is recommended to find out which version of Android is required for a particular program.

Most often, the system requirements for a smartphone or tablet can be found in the “additional information” tab in the application description. Also, some developers indicate system requirements in the description text itself.

“The text in the screenshot was translated using the program”

Disable your antivirus

It was the enabled antivirus that often led to applications being installed incorrectly and then throwing up a parsing error. You can disable the antivirus in the menu of the antiviruses themselves.

Initially, antiviruses are designed to combat malware. But today, security software developers strive to protect users as much as possible. Therefore, any downloaded APK file immediately comes under suspicion. In the best case, the antivirus simply will not allow it to run, and sometimes even delete it without asking permission. It is the obstacles to running APK files that cause the parse error.

Enable the ability to install applications from unknown sources

This function blocks the installation of applications downloaded from third-party sites in the form of APK files. If you try to install an application downloaded from a third-party resource without such permission, you will most likely receive a parsing error.

The function of blocking the installation of applications downloaded from other sources is designed to protect your smartphone or tablet from malware. When it is activated, you can only download applications from the Google Play Store.

In order to allow installation from unknown sources, you need to change this option in the settings. Therefore, select “Lock screen and security” or simply “Security” depending on your version of Android. Next, simply click the switch to “Unknown Sources”. Agree with the warning in the pop-up window. Ready!

Enable USB Debugging

USB Debugging is one of the anomalous issues that prevents some applications from installing and running due to unknown reasons. A large number of users reported that after enabling it, the parsing error disappeared and applications worked normally.

To do this, you first need to enable developer mode. To do this, go to settings, select “About device”. Next, go to the “Software Information” tab. We need the “Build Number”.

Now just press and hold “Build Number” for 5 seconds. After this, a message will appear stating that developer mode is enabled or has already been enabled previously. The mode itself does not void the device’s warranty and is completely safe. After the operation is completed, you do not need to exit it, since it does not affect the device if you have not changed the settings in it.

Now enable USB debugging

To do this, in the settings you need to go to “Developer options”. In it, make sure that the top switch is in the “On” position. Next, enable USB debugging itself.

Make sure you have completely downloaded the APK file and it is not damaged

To do this, you can compare the size of the downloaded file and the estimated file size. It is also advisable to fully control the download process. If at any point it is interrupted, then you will receive a corrupted APK file and the application will install with an error.

It is also recommended to change the source from which you download the APK file. Some websites may contain corrupted and non-functional application files. It is best to download the application from popular sites with a large audience and reviews.

For greater guarantee, you can delete the already downloaded file and download again.

Do not change the APK file after downloading

There is no need to rename the file or change it in any way after downloading. This may cause a parse error and prevent it from installing. Therefore, if you changed the name of the file, rename it back.

If you changed something in the file itself, then you need to return everything to its previous state. If this is not possible, then download the application again. Quite often, using Root access or special applications, users make small changes that lead to errors in the application. For example, some programs can only work when they display advertising.

Transfer an already installed application from another device

This can be done using the SHAR Eit utility. It allows you to transfer any files from one smartphone to another, including installed applications. The utility itself is absolutely free and is available in the Google Play Store.

Results

Parsing error is one of the problems of Android operating system that developers still need to work on. But, also often, application developers or users themselves are to blame for its occurrence.

Solving the parse error problem does not take much time and does not require special knowledge. By following the steps indicated in the instructions, you can solve this problem.

Owners of mobile gadgets running Android OS often, when trying to install some applications, encounter an unpleasant situation when, instead of successful installation, a syntax error appears on the device screen when installing the APK. Now we will look at the reasons for its occurrence and the simplest methods of correction.

Syntax error when installing APK file: reasons

First of all, you need to pay attention to the most basic things. For example, it is possible that the installation file itself is either under-downloaded or simply damaged. Most often this applies to situations where the file is not taken from the Google Play service (Play Market), but downloaded from the Internet.

However, the most common phenomena include, say, the fact that the APK installation file is not designed for the version of Android OS currently used on the device, and also that the system settings simply block the installation of third-party files not obtained from an official source (in In our case, this is the Play Market service).

If you look at the default settings, it’s not hard to guess that the OS essentially prohibits the installation of user applications. So it turns out that installing APK files on Android becomes impossible due to current restrictions on the part of the system itself. However, as they say, there is always a way out.

Syntax error: how to fix (Android)?

In some cases, an installation error with the corresponding file being blocked may be accompanied by a notification that there is not enough free space. Don't be upset. Everything is fine with the gadget. It’s just that the syntax error itself when installing an APK file manifests itself in this way.

To fix access to the installation you need to follow some simple steps. It all comes down to turning off inhibitions. In the simplest version, you need to use the settings menu, where you select security settings. There is a special field “Unknown sources”. Activating it (check the box opposite) involves setting permissions for installing applications from third-party distributions.

If a syntax error appears again when installing an APK distribution (most often it is associated with the parsing of the installed application), you should pay attention to the state of the package itself. You can try downloading it again and installing it again.

Along the way, you need to look at which version of the system this program is designed for. For example, an application is designed for use on Android 5.1 Lollipop, and the user tries to install it on 4.2 Jelly Bean or 4.4 KitKat. It is clear that the operating system itself simply will not accept it (it will not recognize that it will work in this environment). Here we can give an analogy with Windows. Not a single application, say, for Windows 7 or 8 in the Windows XP environment will not only start, but will not even be installed (this is to make it clear). The same is true with Android modifications.

In this case, you will need to find an installation file designed specifically for the version of the system that is used on the gadget. By the way, sometimes such a situation can arise in the case of self-installation of certain types of firmware. No one here can guarantee that the installation will be successful.

Bottom line

However, as we see, the situation with errors can be corrected quite simply. True, in most cases this applies to unflashed Android systems. Otherwise, the most basic settings allow you to avoid errors in the future.

The most common syntax errors

Everyone knows that some people are endowed with so-called “innate literacy”, and they successfully avoid grammatical errors. Others have to memorize a lot of rules to improve their writing. But syntactic errors, examples of which can often be seen even in newspapers or in the speech of television announcers, are equally often made by both.

This can be explained by the fact that the rules of syntax are the most difficult to understand. Therefore, they have to be memorized. Below we list the most common syntax errors. And maybe this will help you avoid them in the future.

Most often, syntactic errors arise due to the omission of rules of agreement and control. These include incorrect choice of case of the controlled word and incorrect use of prepositions ("pay for travel" instead of "pay for travel", "laugh about a joke" instead of "laugh at a joke", etc.). Also, syntactic errors are often found in sentences with the construction “those who...”, for example: “Those who know the rules will write it correctly” (correct: “Those who know the rules will write it correctly”). Here the first predicate refers to the word “who”, and the second to the word “those”, which creates confusion.

Syntactic errors are also common in coordinating the participial phrase with the main word for it (example: “on the table brought from Italy” - the correct word would be “brought”), as well as when introducing other parts of the sentence into circulation (“I saw a letter written by a friend” instead of "I saw a letter written by a friend").

In the use of participial phrases, the most common syntactic errors are those associated with the person performing the action. For example: “walking past the store, a sign caught my eye” instead of “passing the store, I saw a sign.” The action of an adverbial phrase always refers to the same person as the one expressed by the predicate.

Syntactic errors in the use of homogeneous members in some cases can be classified as semantic. They include combinations of heterogeneous concepts (“the table is cold or green”), the introduction of a term that does not correspond to the main word (“he was surrounded by care and help” - help cannot be surrounded).

Syntactic errors in the construction of complex sentences are associated with switching attention from one part to another, and the inability to retain the complete structure in the head. These include the use of several similar clauses in a row (“I saw a letter written by my friend who lives in Spain”). This can be avoided by introducing a participial phrase (“I saw a letter written by my friend who lives in Spain”).

We have looked at the main types of syntactic errors, and we can say that most of them are made due to the omission of connections between different parts of the sentence. To prevent them, it is enough to simply pay attention to all structures and their coordination with each other. It is also worth remembering the most common syntax errors so that you can recognize them in the future. If you follow these rules, then even the most complex designs will not baffle you.

What are syntax errors?

User deleted

Syntax errors

Syntactic errors consist of incorrect construction of phrases, violation of the structure of simple, complicated and complex sentences.
Errors in the structure of phrases:

1. Violation of agreement with the main word in gender, number and case of the dependent word, expressed by an adjective, participle, ordinal number, pronoun: “This summer I was in the steppe Trans-Volga region.”
2. Violation of control.
Errors in unprepositioned management (wrong choice of preposition): “If you touch a birch tree on a hot day, you will feel the cool trunk.”
3. Wrong choice of case with a correctly chosen preposition: “He looked like a deathly tired man.”
4. Omission of a preposition: “After a hasty lunch, I sat at the helm and went (?) to the field.”
5.Using the unnecessary pretext “Thirst for fame.”
6. Omission of the dependent component of the phrase: “Getting into the hot cabin again, turning the steering wheel shiny from the palms again, (?) driving.”

Errors in the structure and meaning of the sentence:

1. Violation of the connection between the subject and the predicate: “But neither youth nor summer last forever,” “The sun had already set when we returned.”
2. Lack of semantic completeness of the sentence, violation of its boundaries: “Once during the war. A shell hit a poplar.”
3. Syntactic ambiguity: “Their (the girls’) dream came true, they (the fishermen) returned.”
4. Violation of the types of temporal correlation of verbs in the sentence: “Grinev sees Pugachev getting into the carriage.”

Errors in a simple two-part sentence:

*Subject:
- Pronominal duplication of the subject: “Children sitting on an old boat with its keel overturned, they are waiting for their father.”
- Violation of agreement between the subject and the pronoun replacing the subject in another sentence: “Apparently, there is a storm at sea, so it is full of dangers.”
*Predicate:
- Errors in the construction of the predicate: “Everyone was happy.”
- Violation of the agreement of the predicate in gender and number with the subject, expressed by a collective noun, quantitative-nominal phrase, interrogative and indefinite pronoun: “My mother and I stayed at home,” “A sheaf of rays of the sun entered the room.”
- Pronominal duplication of the addition: “Many books can be read several times.”
*Definition:
- Incorrect use of an inconsistent definition: “On the right hang a lamp and my portrait from the kindergarten.”
- A conglomeration of agreed and not agreed upon definitions relating to one member of the sentence: “The huge, wonderful world of life in our country and our peers opens up in millions of books.”
- Incorrect choice of morphological form of the circumstance: “I teach my lessons on the table” (at the table).

Errors in one-part sentences:

1. The use of two-part structures in place of one-part ones.
2. Using an adverbial phrase in an impersonal sentence: “When I saw the dog, I felt sorry for it.”

A syntax error occurs when information is entered into a computer in an unrecognizable or incorrect format. If, for example, an email address were typed with the word "dotcom" instead of ".com", the message would be delivered due to a syntax error. Poor or incorrectly formatted information can be entered by the programmer, the user of the program, or even the computer software itself. programs can be thought of as forms of language, and as such, they have their own grammar rules. When these grammar rules are violated, there is a syntax error.

Kamilla Kasymova

Typically, this error on Android occurs for the following reasons:
- the application was loaded with an error (or underloaded). You need to download the application again. If the application was downloaded through a browser, then you should try using a different browser, since this problem often occurs among those who use opera mobile
- as noted above, the application or its version may not be suitable for your device (hardware) or installed version of Android

Sasha Voronov

These are errors or omissions in the construction of phrases or sentences that violate the rules of word connection or lead to syntactic homonymy and, as a consequence, to ambiguity of statements
SYNTAX ERRORS
vocabulary.ru›sintaksicheskie-oshibki

Error when parsing a package in an Android smartphone, reasons?

Syntax error in devices running Android OS when installing games and applications.

Most often, this error appears when the supported Android versions of the application being installed do not match yours (for example, the application requires 4.4+, and yours requires 4.2.1). In this case, you won’t be able to install it, unless you look for modifications of the application in which the api and, accordingly, supported Android versions have been reduced, but because of this they may have errors and other bugs.

It is also possible that the application was downloaded with an error (it was damaged during downloading), in which case you should try to download it again or try a different browser or a different .apk file.

Quite often, a syntax error occurs when downloading and installing applications and games not from the Google play market. When an application or game is first downloaded from the Internet and installed on an Android device. You simply wouldn’t download this on Google Play; it would say that the application is not suitable for your device. On third-party sites they can only write for which version of Android the application or game is intended. And if, for example, you have a smartphone running the Android 4.2.2 operating system, and you downloaded a game designed for the Android 4.4.4 operating system, then during installation it will give you this syntax error. For example, I got this error the other day on my smartphone when installing the game Pokemon Go. The smartphone has OS 4.2, and the game is suitable for OS 4.4. This error occurred before under similar circumstances when I tried to install an application or game designed for an OS different from the one on my smartphone.

Horizon

I just got this error when installing "Pokemon GO" on my Android smartphone. As far as I know, this error occurs when your smartphone does not support this version of the application. Therefore, I had to download Pokemon GO with a special mod that just hid this error. My Android version is lower than 4.4, and Pokemon GO requires Android version 4.4 and higher, which is why this error appeared.

Some system problems in the OS have a long tail and creep from version to version. The Android mobile operating system is no exception to the general rule. Moreover, the nature of errors in some operating systems can be very similar to the type of failures in another. Which, in essence, is not surprising, because no matter how different the systems are from each other, the basic principles underlying their construction are the same.

Windows users have encountered enough problems when installing programs on their desktops. Either the version is wrong, or a seemingly satisfactorily installed program refuses to start and displays an error window, or it requires some components that are missing in the system, or it also happens that it simply freezes without any comments.

Problems with installing software exist in all operating systems. Here we will mention one such error reported by Android users. The message text displayed when it occurs is as follows: “a problem occurred while parsing the package.” It is clear that the meaningfulness of this message from the point of view of the mass user is practically zero. After which the installation process of the application is completed.

What causes the error?

This is caused by the package installer built into the OS. There may be several reasons for this behavior:

  • Incompatibility of the installed program version with the OS version;
  • Corrupt application file;
  • Modified Android settings, mainly security settings;
  • Modified AndroidManifest.xml – a special configuration file included in the apk package;
  • Curses from the antivirus.

Of this entire list, the reader may not understand only one of the items, which mentions a certain AndroidManifest. This is a fairly meaningful xml document inside the application package, which has approximately the same purpose as configuration files in Windows.

AndroidManifest.xml file included in the installation package.apk

It contains a lot of useful information regarding the features of the software and its interaction with the OS. Here you specify the name of the Java package, a list of program components, permissions to access certain resources, and requirements for providing access to different functional layers of the operating system program interface (API).

If the current OS settings and the parameters specified in AndroidManifest.xml are incompatible, the error we are investigating can easily occur. To overcome this problem, you need to study the format of this file and learn how to edit it.

Ways to solve the problem

So, there was a problem parsing the package, what should I do in this case? We’ve already talked about the manifesto, now let’s look at simpler questions. The smartphone's security settings can be configured to prohibit downloading applications from any source other than the Google Play store. An attempt to download and install such an application will inevitably end in failure. If you still want to install the program, you need to change the security settings. This is done like this:

  • Go to “Settings” -> “Security”.
  • We look for the item “Unknown sources” in the list of parameters.
  • Check the box if it is missing.

Allow installation of applications from unknown sources

The file being installed could have been downloaded from the network incompletely, may have been corrupted from the start, or may have been a viral bookmark that imitated a well-known application. In all such cases, a failure of the above type is possible.

The first thing you need to do is compare the declared program section with the actual size of the downloaded file. If everything is in order and the sizes are the same, then try looking for the program somewhere else. Perhaps, where you downloaded it, someone has already worked with the file. Be sure to make sure that the software and Android versions are compatible - there may also be a catch in this.

If the versions do not match, look for a more suitable application distribution. Ultimately, try disabling your antivirus at your own risk. In short, go for it!

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Many users sometimes have no idea what and how operating systems work, and when messages about problems appear, this makes a person think that something is broken. In fact, all problems have a logical explanation, and to fix them you do not need to take the device to a service center, because the vast majority of them are software problems, with the exception of the failure of specific components. The same applies to the appearance of a window with the text “Syntax error” and the accompanying explanation “error parsing the package” during the installation of an application. Let's figure out what this means and how to solve the problem.

A similar nuisance occurs if the user decides to install the software using a file with the .apk extension; in exceptional cases, this can happen when using the Play Market. This can only mean that this program is not intended for the current version of Android and, accordingly, subsequent installation is impossible. Moreover, if users claim that this software was previously installed and worked normally, it means that the operating system performed an automatic update, which subsequently led to this result.

How to solve this problem?

It’s worth saying right away that such a nuisance occurs when the device has an Android version lower than 5.1 installed; in other cases, this should not happen. To fix the error, first go to the Play Market website and pay attention to the minimum requirements for the downloaded software, as well as from which version of Android it can be installed.

If you have an earlier release of the OS, then you need to find the same program, but of an earlier release, which is suitable directly for this gadget. In order not to carry out a lengthy search, you can go to the Play Market from your phone or tablet and find the application you are interested in by entering its name in the search bar. The fact is that this service will display only those software versions that will probably work on this gadget.

As for the situation when an auto-update was performed, after which the problem in question occurred, in this case it is recommended to first remove this application, then, using the Play Market, re-install and disable auto-update specifically for this software.

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Surely, you have encountered the problem “error parsing the package on Android” when you installed some application in apk format. To be more precise, the notification is as follows: “Syntax error” - an error when parsing the package. All you are asked to do is click “OK”. It would seem that there is no choice, but no, everything will be ok. If you have English set as the system one, it will display the following: “Parse Error. There was an error parsing the package - in the English interface)".

What to do

There is a very simple answer why this error appears. The thing is that you are installing an application that does not support your version of Android. In general, for example, Android 6.0 is installed on a smartphone, and the program is written for Android 7.0 and higher.
Even if the program worked before, and now you are installing a new version, then such an error may occur, since changes were made during the update. Unfortunately, now you can only use previous versions of the application.
There are similar problems when using an Android emulator on Windows, since it usually runs Android 4.4 or 5.0/5.1. And now Android 8.0 is in full swing and the developers are sharpening the programs for the G8.


  • If you go to the Play Store in your browser using the same Google account as your device, you'll see information about whether your devices support the app by its name.

  • If the application you are installing is downloaded from a third-party source in the form of an apk file, but when you search in the Play Store, it is not found on your phone or tablet (and is definitely present in the application store), then the problem is probably that it is not supported for you.

Accordingly, look for previous versions of programs to continue using the application.