Google Messages is telling users to install a phantom update

Summary

• A persistent 'Update Google Play Services' error notification is affecting some Android users, impacting Google Messages and the Google app across both beta and stable Play Services versions, despite no actual update being available.
• The issue appears to be a false alarm as the affected apps continue to function normally.
• The root cause of the issue remains unclear. We encountered the bug on our Pixel 9 Pro but not on other devices like the OnePlus 12R, Samsung Galaxy S23+, Google Pixel 7, and Nothing Phone 2a Plus.

A persistent error notification is currently nagging a subset of Android users — one that prompts them to 'Update Google Play Services' to restore functionality for some Google apps.

Google Messages won't run unless you update Google Play services

Tapping the notification redirects users to the Google Play Store page for the core system app, only to reveal that there's no update available.

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Related

How to update Google Play Services

Updating Google Play Services is worth the effort

Posts

We're seeing this on one of our Pixel 9 Pros (three notifications over the span of two hours), with others on X (Twitter) echoing a similar sentiment. Reports indicate that the issue spans both stable and beta channels of Google Play Services. We're running the latest beta for Google Play Services, version 25.10.33, and constantly getting error notifications. The notification appears as a warning icon (triangle with an exclamation mark in it) in the status bar.

Leaker @theonecid, who's also facing the same issue, is on Play Services version 25.09, which is the latest stable build.

Additionally, while user reports suggest that the persistent 'Update Google Play Services' notification primarily affects Google Messages, we can confirm that the issue extends to the Google app as well, as seen in the first screenshot above.

The root cause of the issue remains unclear. However, at least for now, the bug appears to simply be a false alarm. Despite the peristent notifications, we can confirm that apps like Google Messages continue to function without any interruption. We're running Google Messages beta version 20250316_01_rc00.

The bug isn't affecting everyone

We followed up with checks on other devices and did not encounter the bug on devices like the OnePlus 12R, Samsung Galaxy S23+, Google Pixel 7, and Nothing Phone 2a Plus — even with these devices running the same software versions. However, Android Police founder Artem Russakovskii has also encountered the issue now, suggesting the error is hit-and-miss.

Additionally, we also observed a change in the notification pattern. Initially, at least for us, both Google Messages and Google app triggered the error notification roughly around the same time. Interestingly, though, updating to Google app version 16.19.36 seems to have stopped it from triggering the notification altogether. We're already running the latest Google Messages beta build, and can not verify if a newer app version would resolve the issue.

EDIT: We are seeing the notifications again for the Google app, even after updating to version 16.19.36. They stopped for a couple of hours, but have now returned.

For now, checking for updates to the affected apps seems to be the best course of action if you're being hit with this bug.