At first I made a location request app without the play services package. The APK weighed 357kb. At first the location was OK but suddenly it started to be inaccurate and on a different device I got a lot of "service not available" error for the geocoder.
I started reading about it and got to the point where I changed everything to work with the play services mechanism. It's still giving me the inaccurate address (I wish I knew why) and I still didn't work with the other device to see if the "service not available" problem happens there but the APK now weighs 1.7mb! for the same exact thing!
Is there any benefit for using the play services mechanism for the location request?
Thanks!
the major benefit is that you dont have to manage all the different location providers it is done for you
Related
I have a similar issue to this post How to make my Android app comply with the "Background Location Policy" but that post doesn't have an answer.
I have a web browser app, which on occasion will ask for location permissions if the user visits a website that requests that. App targets API 29. The app manifest has <uses-permission-sdk-23 android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" /> which is API 23 and higher because I didn't want to force location permission on older phones.
Today I got an email saying I have until March to fix this, but I don't understand what I have to do, I'm not requesting background location anywhere.
Anyone have any idea what I have to do?
Edit: I have read the help center, and I'm wondering if that my issue is the ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION, maybe something is accessing it on the background. I don't know how I would prevent ad networks from that if they do it. I already pause the WebViews the app is not on the foreground so websites should not be using it.
Edit2: Is there maybe a way I can log background location access so that I can monitor my app a few days to see if it happens?
I would like to answer my own question in case someone else is searching for this. I can't say that I know for certain this is correct but it has worked for me so far.
First, on this answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/65894488/704836 I was told to use AppOpsManager to log background location requests. After doing that I found a few places where that takes places. I will discuss those below:
Ad networks. I have ad network initialization on my Application.onCreate() and a lot of those accessed location. So when triggering a BroadcastReceiver, they would check location.
WifiManager.getConnectionInfo() - this will trigger a location request. Same deal as above, I had one of those on Application.onCreate().
After removing those calls the Play store stopped complaining.
So I have an app that works flawlessly on many devices. The problem is on one specific phone with Android 6.
The location for our app only works when another app uses the GPS.
For example, starting our app, the GPS icon starts as if the GPS was active but location updates on the app do not appear or refresh. Then, we start Google Maps and only then locations on our app start getting refreshed. As soon as we close Google Maps, our locations stop being received.
I actually tested the app on another phone with Android 6 with no problems.
I think there might be some kind of issue with Google Play Services or with the new the permissions schema. Or maybe with BroadcastReceiver receiving the position updates.
Key information:
Our app es compiled for SDK 22 with Google API.
Google Play Services version on the phone with the issue is 8.4.92
The app uses this version of play services:
compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:22.2.0'
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-location:7.+'
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-maps:7.+'
compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-gcm:7.+'
All permissions are activated for our app on that phone.
The phone with the problem was working fine before it got updated to Android 6.0
We tested on another device with Android 6.0 and had no issues.
The phone is in a client in another continent so we don't have access to debugging or logs. No errors occur though because we would receive those on Fabric.io.
We use a Broadcast to dispatch new positions to a service and an activity so the problem might be there.
Im running out of options and tests.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
EDIT
The problem is that on that version of Android, getSpeed from Location is always 0.0, unless another app is using the location, then we get updates with the speed included.
This really sounds like a bug. Why would legacy apps not get the speed in the location? Assuming its because we use API 22.
On a side note, we use speed to filter out positions and stop updating location when the phone is standing still. Thats why we did not see location updates.
I guess we will have to calculate our own speed.
We have a weather app for Android that also provides a widget.
The widget displays the current time and weather for the current user location.
We update the widget clock every minute (via AlarmManager) if the display is active, the weather data at longer intervals. Sometimes the widget "freezes". We were able to track that down to the alarm for the next check not being set but don't have a clue why, yet.
Now we noticed the following warning in the device logs of an affected device:
03-12 10:15:44.803 771 4958 W ActivityManager: Permission Denial: opening provider com.google.android.gsf.gservices.GservicesProvider from ProcessRecord{41a4d028 25012:com.my.app/u0a88} (pid=25012, uid=10088) requires com.google.android.providers.gsf.permission.READ_GSERVICES or com.google.android.providers.gsf.permission.WRITE_GSERVICES
This starts to appear exactly at the time where the clock should have been updated. The message is then repeated several times until the ActivityManager terminates the process.
We use the Google Play Location Services to get the current (or last known) location of the user. I found references to a bug in version 4.2 of the services (here and https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22682538/when-to-use-read-gservices-permission) that could cause this error, but the device has version 6.7.76 installed.
One more thing to consider is that the device is running Cyanogenmod, though the stuck widget problem also happens on devices with "regular" Android.
Any hints what could cause this permission error are very much appreciated. Thanks!
Edit: The widget and app work fine on that and many other devices until the warning appears. Also the Google documentation is not mentioning that you need to get those permissions. In fact the only mention of those is here in this document according to the on site search, but no mention of READ_GSERVICES on the page itself.
The two permissions it is asking for:
<uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.providers.gsf.permisson.READ_GSERVICES"/>
<uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.providers.gsf.permission.WRITE_GSERVICES"/>
Something to remember just because this issue was reported in Google Play Location Services in 4.2 does not mean it has been fixed. It may be worth looking through the Google bug reported to see if anyone has any issues. I found a few issues raised running much newer Google Play Services.
Upon doing a quick Google search myself it seems like the major problem phones are the Moto X and the Nexus 5. Which is rather interesting as they are both Android Open Source Project bugs (i.e phones running stock Android with no skin!)
Just a few questions:
Can you confirm what phone you have and which version of Android you
are running please?
Also what is your target SDK?
What version of play services are included in your APK?
I work in QA for an company that helps market applications. Currently I have been tasked to ensure location dependent apps function if correctly (ie if im in russia the app displays the russian content and if i change to us the app updates to the us content)
I have tried numerous items to accomplish this but get no where.
What i have tried:
Proxy. Setting this up via wifi to several locations. Both the app and the device still show my current location.
Apps: I have tried all of the following apps and they all give the same result as above.
Fake Location
AutoProxy
Fake GPS
I have enabled developer mode on the devices, and have ensured that "Mock Locations" is checked.
Use case 1:
A developer whats us to test his app which is only available in england. Google Play still sees me in US
Use case 2:
A developer releases a game where the background changes based on your location if i cant force the location change I cant verify this feature works.
Im guessing the fails so far are due to the fact that the location being called in our test apps is network location not GPS?
Any help would be awesome. Even if you could just point me in a direction.
Thank you Greatly
J
Update:
Ok, Thanks to the answers about google play and mock locations. So with those in mind lets think about it from another perspective. If the app is not calling for mock location, Is there anyway to force a mock location override? im trying to cover all the bases here, One app for sure does not use this method, so I still need to find a way around.
depending on how they are calling for the location, I would think (remember im knew here) that using a proxy would work, however as stated above, i'm not getting anywhere there either. Did try a few free proxy's from hidemyass but even the browser wouldn't work with them.
Yes, network location does not get faked by mock location providers. I don't know why not, but it only fakes GPS. In addition, your app has to request the MOCK permission to get it. If it doesn't have this permission, setting a mock location will not actually fake anything to the app. This is for security purposes, so a malicious app can't start broadcasting the wrong location to the phone.
I downloaded the GeoDetection.zip file for trying out location based geofencing using the Google Play Services API that is available from the developer android website from the following link:
http://developer.android.com/training/location/geofencing.html
but when i tried to add geo fences using this app, i constantly get the error GEOFENCE_NOT_AVAILABLE
i tried to check what this error means, and i found that if location access is not available that is when i should get this message, but i checked the Location Services section on my phone and i saw that all the Location provides GPS/Wifi Location are all enabled. I am also connected to WIFI successfully. Not sure why i still get the message.
Any body else encounter this issue?..if so, do you have a fix that i could try?
Any other suggestions?.. i tried a lot of options to make sure it is capturing all the options, but there is isn't much debug information for me to proceed any further.
Thanks in advance
Are you requesting the FINE_LOCATION permission?
Remember on Android 6 and above you have to handle the permissions at run-time too.
The above error, GEOFENCE_NOT_AVAILABLE is an expected error code, to let you know that the location adapter is off and location (and geofence) will NOT be tracked anymore.
Once available again, your geofences will be active and you will get the desired callback.
Few Reasons why the triggers aren't happening :
Check if your expiry timestamp that you set in your geofence request, is still valid.
Did your device get restarted ? If yes, you need to re-register fences. (Refer documentation : Re-register geofences only when required documentation)
Is your location, set to High Accuracy mode in Device settings ?
When you re-register your fences, you should un-register them first and then only re-register.
Open Google maps and check if it's showing the right location.
Is Battery Optimisation on for your device ? This will delay geofence triggers
Is you app whitelisted for background operations (Happens in some Chinese OEM's)