Cannot Publish App To PlayStore - It Is Forbidden To Downgrade Devices Which Previously Used M Permissions

I am unable to understand the error. What I understood is that in my 14th version targetSdkVersion was 23 and now I am unable to upload the apk. I now have targetSdkVersion = 22 a

Solution 1:

It appears you have uploaded an APK to prod that uses the M runtime permissions model (level 23); This means that you can't downgrade to 22. This is due to the changed permissions model between these different versions.

To be clear, you won't be able to distribute your APK targeting API 22 again, and there is not a way to change this.