install parse failed no certificates error for Android apk

It turns out that this is some sort of catch-all error, and various things which can cause this
Installation error: INSTALL_PARSE_FAILED_NO_CERTIFICATES
for Android apk files are discussed at
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2914105/what-is-install-parse-failed-no-certificates-error

My issue turned out to be an incorrect signing configuration as in the top answer.