okay, so before I typed this, I have checked out all solutions on StackOverflow regarding my issue and I have tried the following :
- clean and rebuild
- incrementing the version code and the version name
- made sure I have uploaded the bundle to the correct app in the play console
- made sure the app Gradle has all the correct info of the key
- restart AS
- nothing related to debug is on the release build variant
- and LAST but not least request for a new key, clean and rebuild, and still doesn't work.
what I did do on this new build: I did pull the old code form a pervious branch and continued some work on it, is this somehow impacting the key issue?