Android: can't upgrade read-only database from version 0 to 1

Solution:

If you have named one of your SQLite tables "default", change the name to something else.

Details:

So I was poking around with Android programming the other day, and I ran into this error:

04-12 14:35:09.779: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(790): Caused by: android.database.sqlite.SQLiteException: Can't upgrade read-only database from version 0 to 1: /data/data/com.example.test/databases/mydatabase.db
04-12 14:35:09.779: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(790): at android.database.sqlite.SQLiteOpenHelper.getReadableDatabase(SQLiteOpenHelper.java:170)

The line causing the error was simply calling SQLiteOpenHelper.getReadableDatabase():

SQLiteDatabase db = dbHelper.getReadableDatabase();

I finally narrowed it down to the database table name I was using: "default". As soon as I changed the table name, it worked fine. In fact, I simply changed it from "default" to "default1".

Just to be clear, I wasn't doing anything fancy. I was using pretty basic code to create the database:

public class DatabaseHelper extends SQLiteOpenHelper {
    public static final String DB_TABLE_NAME = "default";
    ...
    public static final String DB_TABLE_CREATE =
        "CREATE TABLE " + DB_TABLE_NAME...

It doesn't appear to be a SQLite thing, because according to their documentation the only reserved table names begin with "sqlite_". So it appears to be an Android issue, and as far as I can tell it isn't documented.

I checked the database after I changed the name, and the "default" table was never created either, so I'm not sure why it wouldn't work:

sqlite> .tables
android_metadata default1

A bug, perhaps?