How to solve ‘Error 905’ in Android?

Some days back, I had a log-in error in my Facebook Application, in my Moto G 2014. I thought reinstalling the app would solve the problem, and hence uninstalled the app. Immediately after, I went direct to the Google Play Store, searched the Facebook App, and then hit the ‘install’ button. What stunned me was the result thereafter. The app downloaded in full, and when it tried to install, an error pop-up showed up saying ‘‘Facebook’ could not be downloaded due to an error. (905)’. [please see the image for reference]

I tried to install the app a couple of times more, but each time the play store showed the same error. I was literally pissed off, I had the latest version of system (Android 5.0 Lollipop) running, had the play store and the Google Play Services up to date, and had a lot of free space in my device. Despite these, my phone showed the error. I searched the web for this, and came to know that a particular number of apps, especially the big ones such as Heroes of Warcraft, Star Wars Commander, Jetpack Joyride etc also suffered from the same problem. Moreover, this error was popping up on the Android devices only since the start of this year, which also showed that this is a new error code in the platform. This error was also different from other commonly prevailing errors in Android, such as error 497, error 491 or error 492.

So, I eventually had to get to the point: to solve the problem. I tried to clear the cache and data of the Google Play Store app, but that didn’t help at all. Finally, I came up with a process that was able to help me solve this ‘error 905’ in my Android device. The steps that I tried were:

1. Go to the Settings menu on your Android device
2. Go to Applications
3. Select “Manage Applications” or “Application Manager“
4. Select “Google Play Store”. If you do not see it check the “All” tab.
5. Select “Uninstall Updates“

This way, I went back to the previous version of the Google Play Store in my device. When I tried to update the app back to newer version, it automatically downloaded the newer version support for the apps, on which it was showing errors. This way, my problem was solved.

For all the Android users who are having this problem, it will be most probably solved by now. But in case if it doesn’t happen so, you can also try these given steps which were also proved to be working for Error 905:

(Note that in some newly bought phones, the Google Play Store always runs on the latest version. That means, the Google Play Store and Google Play Services are pre-built on the latest version, which have not got any updates and hence, cannot be uninstalled. In that case too, the users have to apply the following methods to solve the problem.)

1. Go to the Application Manager Section in the Settings Menu of your Android smartphone.
2. There in, click on Google Play Store, and clear the cache and data of it.
3. Reboot your phone.
4. Make sure that you have enough space in your phone. If you don’t have so, delete some of your data or apps.
5. Install back the app.

Also read:

• Error 919 – Unknown error code during application install: 919
• How to Keep Track of Storage on your Android Device
• Android Fix: Unknown Error code during Application install: “-505” (Error 505)

Do you have something to add to the story (the successful error solution of your phone by these methods or also if you have a method different than aforementioned), please feel free to share your experience in the comment section below.