Unable to purchase new Play store app

[sillyoldhector]

Hi,
I decided to dust off my old Nexus 7 2012 and pass it on to a family with an autistic son with some apps installed that hopefully would help him.
First off, I did a factory reset, signed in to my Google account, and loaded up a couple of free apps. So far, so good.
Then I attempted to load up an app from the Play store which required payment - clicked the pay button only to be advised of a server error.
I see that others have had the same experience, and removing / reinstalling your Google account may help. Tried this but soon got stuck.
Having selected the account, the menu only offers me sync now. There is no delete account option. So what to do - I am stuck.

Then I thought I would look in Play Store. When I selected my account, I was advised "unfortunately, Google Play Store has stopped". Tried this several times with the same result.

Does all this mean that my old Nexus is unuseable, or is there something I can do to rectify matters?

Please keep your answers simple to follow, I am a bit out of my comfort zone with all this.

 

[sillyoldhector]

Bit of an update:
Regarding not being able to delete my Google account - sorry, I found I could do it after selecting the account. So I deleted and re-installed it.

Re the Play Store, I deleted cache and data. That changed things a bit as the play store page now looks different. I tried to download the same app that I had problems with before. It now allows me to select paypal or credit card. Regardless of which I select, it comes back transaction denied. No idea why.

 

[B. Diddy]

That device is most likely way too out of date to comply with the security requirements for the Play Store. I don't think there's much you can do short of flashing a custom ROM that's compatible with more recent versions of the Play Store. You can check the forums at XDA-Developers.com to see if this is possible.

 

[mustang7757]

Yeah that's way old you could get something better from a carrier unbranded device runs android 13 out the box or best buy has device unlock 150.00 or under

 

[joeldf]

Agree with Diddy.

See if you can check the Android version of that tablet. It's somewhere in "Settings", but they kept moving around where to find the OS version. Although it launched with Android 4.1, it did get official update to Android 5.1.1.

Google cut off support for Android 4 earlier in the year, so there is no way to get the Play Store to run on it if it is running something older than 5.

But if you can update to 5, then it should work - for maybe another year before Google cuts off Android 5.

 

[sillyoldhector]

Well, The tablet seems to run pretty well for what I want. It has Android 5.1.1

If it needs a new ROM then I am willing to try it, if that is confirmed necessary. Will have a look around, but this is def out of my comfort zone. I need simple instructions!

 

[mustang7757]

Well, The tablet seems to run pretty well for what I want. It has Android 5.1.1

If it needs a new ROM then I am willing to try it, if that is confirmed necessary. Will have a look around, but this is def out of my comfort zone. I need simple instructions!

You can check xda forums old threads on this but since that Android version is not of interest with Devs anymore expect not to get help on this there.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Well, The tablet seems to run pretty well for what I want. It has Android 5.1.1

If it needs a new ROM then I am willing to try it, if that is confirmed necessary. Will have a look around, but this is def out of my comfort zone. I need simple instructions!

Unfortunately, installing custom ROM isn't one of those things that is simple. I last did it back in 2016 when I wanted Android 6 on an old Nexus 7 tablet. I rooted that tablet and played with custom ROMs quite often during the time I had it and used XDA to find what I needed. I don't have the tablet anymore and haven't bothered with custom ROM since then. It did involve trial and error, and need to recover from dead Android on its back a few times till I figured it out.

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

Unfortunately, installing custom ROM isn't one of those things that is simple. I last did it back in 2016 when I wanted Android 6 on an old Nexus 7 tablet. I rooted that tablet and played with custom ROMs quite often during the time I had it and used XDA to find what I needed. I don't have the tablet anymore and haven't bothered with custom ROM since then. It did involve trial and error, and need to recover from dead Android on its back a few times till I figured it out.

With a device that old, they are probably going to run into issues even getting hold of the right files. Lots of mega and Drive links that go nowhere.

Who wants to pay to host 8 year old files for a 11 year old device.