My app, which is currently in Open Testing on Google Play, used to need the Android USE_EXACT_ALARM permission.

I’ve completed a new version, which, instead, uses only SCHEDULE_EXACT ALARM and I’ve tried to submit it on the Play Console – the process went fine on the Internal Testing track.

However, when I attempted to promote the version to Closed Testing, I got an error that there was a version in Open Testing that used a sensitive permission.

Consequently, I left the Closed Testing release in draft and tried to promote the new version to Open Testing. This time the Console said I could not continue with that release, because a version in Closed Testing used sensitive permissions.

So, I am left with a Catch-22 situation, in which I cannot submit a new non-policy-violating version because the previous versions violate a policy.

Does anyone have any ideas what I could do (other than contact Google, which I’ve already done, or delete the app and start from scratch)?

Thank you!