Wrestling with a Google Play Services Error

Last week I got the Android 10 update on my Galaxy S9+. Whoo! Then, a few days later, I went to update a Tasker action that used the Spreadsheet Tasker Plugin and got the following error:

Spreadsheet Tasker Plugin requires one or more Google Play services that are not currently available. Please contact the developer for assistance.

I did the usual things: rebooted my phone, re-installed the Spreadsheet Tasker Plugin, made sure all my apps were up to date, searched Google for others having similar problems and cursed the universe. None of this did any good.

Surely the upgrade to Android 10 broke things. I grabbed an old Android device and installed Tasker, the Spreadsheet Tasker Plugin and did a restore from Google Drive to import Profiles and Actions. To my shock and great annoyance, I got the same exact error. Whatever was going on, it wasn't due to the Android 10 update. Even my crusty Android 8.1.0 phone was failing with the same error.

The only hint that others had into this issue was a couple of threads related to Android Auto. Deep in one of those discussions was this advice:

I had this issue but was able to fix it by going to settings > apps > google play services > storage and then clearing the cache. Once I did that and reinstalled Android Auto I no longer got that error. I uninstalled the app, then cleared the cache, then reinstalled the app.

With nothing to lose, i gave this a try:

For maximum impact, I cleared both the cache and the app's data. After doing this and rebooting, my problem was solved!

So what the heck happened? I've got no idea. But if you get the above error, before you curse the universe, try clearing the Google Play Service's cache & data.