Develop Reference

Delay in Google OneTap SignIn / SignUp popup display on Android

I have implemented Google Onetap SignIn in my application. Everything is working fine, the only issue that I am observing is that on certain devices the pop-up often takes 7-10 seconds to display. Especially in case of Sign-In popup.
Since I have multiple login options available in the app it might so happen that before I can show the user his last used google account to login (via OneTap popup), he gets enough time to click on any other option (eg, Facebook) & it becomes a poor experience.
Since this pop-up is displayed by play-services, I don't see how I can optimise this time taken.
As per the code, it seems the call to
contract
.getOneTapClient()
.beginSignIn(getSignInRequest(isRegistering))
is the one taking the most time. It seems the code that queries for user's on device Google Accounts.
Using below code structure. Adding for reference
contract.getOneTapClient().beginSignIn(getSignInRequest(isRegistering))
.addOnSuccessListener { result: BeginSignInResult ->
try
{
contract.startIntentSenderForResult(
result.pendingIntent.intentSender, requestCode,
null, 0, 0, 0, null)
successCallback?.onSuccess(isRegistering, "Rendering Popup")
val timeTaken = if(isRegistering) System.currentTimeMillis() - signUpTime
else System.currentTimeMillis() - signInTime
BBLogUtils.logWithTag(TAG, "Completed in ${timeTaken/1000.0}s")
}
catch (e: IntentSender.SendIntentException)
{
failureCallback?.onFailure(isRegistering, e, ERROR_INTENT_SENDER_EXCEPTION)
}
}
.addOnFailureListener { e: Exception ->
// No saved credentials found.
// OR Temporarily blocked due to too many canceled sign-in prompts.
BBLogUtils.logWithTag(TAG, "Exception | registering=$isRegistering|rCount=$rCount | Error= ${e.message}")
failureCallback?.onFailure(isRegistering, e, ERROR_NO_CREDENTIALS_FOUND)
}
SignIn request object is the standard as prescribed by the docs
private fun getSignInRequest(isRegistering: Boolean): BeginSignInRequest
{
return BeginSignInRequest.builder()
.setGoogleIdTokenRequestOptions(BeginSignInRequest.GoogleIdTokenRequestOptions.builder()
.setSupported(true) // So that we receive the idToken in result
.setServerClientId(contract.getGoogleAndroidClientId())
/*
* true: for Registration ie. showing all accounts
* false: for return user signIn, ie. showing only previously used accounts
**/
.setFilterByAuthorizedAccounts(!isRegistering)
.build())
.build()
}
Another related question to this feature.
On the first launch of the app on device I saw this additional pop-up
Is there someway this can be skipped ?

Answering 2nd part of my own query here.
After a lot search I still haven't bee able to find a workaround for skipping the process. Turns out that this popup is medium for play services to inform the user about the new sign-in experience.
I observed that if I installed another app using Google Onetap (eg. Reddit or PIntrest), the same pop-up appeared there as well. Also, its shown only once to a user, ie. if the pop up was shown in the Reddit app then it won't come in my app & vice-versa.
In addition, if you wan't to repro this scenario, you can clear the storage of Google Play Services. For some duration, it might show error: 16: App is not whitelisted, but after a while, you will get the How It Works pop-up again.

Android Brightcove onVideo does not get called sometimes and hence video does not play

I have integrated Brightcove android-sdk-4.2.7 and trying to play video using videoID.
Here is the code snippet :
Catalog catalog = new Catalog(<**MEDIA_READ_TOKEN**>);
catalog.findVideoByID(videoId, new VideoListener() {
#Override
public void onError(String error) {
Log.e(TAG, "onError : " + error);
}
#Override
public void onVideo(Video video) {
Log.i(TAG, "onVideo called" );
brightcoveVideoView.add(video);
brightcoveVideoView.start();
}
});
When I launch video_player_activity from other activity for the first time video plays perfectly fine, but when I go back to second activity and again try to play the same/other video, It does not play. onVideo does not get called. Sometimes it gets called after a long time.
Following are some more details :
activity is getting destroyed properly when I go back
onError is not getting called
video id is getting set properly
Tried emitter events and READY_TO_PLAY event occurs but DID_PLAY does not
Android version I tested on is 4.4.x
What might be the possible issues? Any help/pointer around this will be really appreciated.
Thanks!

Repeated calls to findVideoByID(), should work fine. For each one, you should see a request in the logcat, something like:
D/HttpService(27297): issuing GET request: http://api.brightcove.com/services/library?command=find_video_by_id&video_id=3603631382001...
and a response, something like:
D/HttpService(27297): response: {"id":36036...
If that is not the case, please file a bug with Brightcove Support. If that is working, there isn't enough information here to debug further. You could try to compare what you are doing with the public sample apps available on Github:
https://github.com/BrightcoveOS/android-player-samples
These apps don't have multiple activities like your scenario, but they do handle the app going into the background and then being brought back to the foreground. Extending the BrightcovePlayer or BrightcovePlayerFragment enables the lifecycle handling. If you don't extend one of those classes, you have to write your own lifecycle handling, as if you were using the Android VideoView. For example, calling pause() in onPause() and calling stopPlayback() in onStop().

How to handle GoogleApiClient instance upon Activity reconnection in Chromecast App?

I'm writing a simple app to send public photos from Dropbox public folder to Chromecast.
Instead of CastCompanion library I decided to write my own stuff to understand better the API.
According to Google Guidelines:
if the sender application becomes disconnected from the media route, such as when the user or the operating system kills the application without the user first disconnecting from the Cast device, then the application must restore the session with the receiver when the sender application starts again.
It seems to me that the same solution should apply to Activity recreation upon orientation change since it recreates the Activity from scratch.
My first question: Is my assumption correct? Both scenarios, orientation change and system kill, may use the same solution?
Given this assumption I wrote some code to restore session upon Activity restoration.
I'm considering the orientation change scenario, when Activity is recreated from scratch and I am supposed to restore route Id, Session Id and try to reconnect (I'm storing and retrieving both values from shared preferences).
I've been testing with and it's working fine.
That's what I do (based on Google Sender Guidelines code):
After discovering the ongoing Route Id and find the cast device I call this method:
private void connectToDevice(CastDevice castDevice) {
Log.d(TAG, "connecting to " + castDevice);
Cast.CastOptions.Builder apiOptionsBuilder = Cast.CastOptions
.builder(castDevice, new CastListener());
Log.d(TAG, "apiClient is null ? " + (apiClient == null));
apiClient = new GoogleApiClient.Builder(this)
.addApi(Cast.API, apiOptionsBuilder.build())
.addConnectionCallbacks(this)
.addOnConnectionFailedListener(this)
.build();
Log.d(TAG, "apiClient connected? " + apiClient.isConnected());
Log.d(TAG, "apiClient connecting? " + apiClient.isConnecting());
apiClient.connect();
}
private class CastListener extends Cast.Listener {
#Override
public void onApplicationStatusChanged() {
if (apiClient != null) {
Log.d(TAG, "callback => " + this);
}
}
#Override
public void onVolumeChanged() {
}
#Override
public void onApplicationDisconnected(int errorCode) {
teardown();
}
}
After this method I call Cast.CastApi.joinApplication if I recognize a reconnection.
But once reconnected to Chromecast the log of onApplicationStatusChanged prints one different instance for every phone's rotation. E.g: if I rotate phone 3 times the log prints 3 times with 3 different pointer addresses. That makes me believe it is internally holding all callbacks instances.
How am I supposed to handle this situation since the Activity is being recreated and I need to create another instance of GoogleApiClient keeping the session?
Full source:
https://github.com/ivan-aguirre/chromecast_samples/blob/master/DropboxCast/app/src/main/java/com/dropboxcast/dropboxcast/MainActivity.java

IMHO, I believe the proper way (or at least a better way) to approach this is one of the following:
if you have only one activity and that is all you care about, then use a fragment that persists across configuration changes and put the stuff that you want to persist seamlessly, there. This way, rotation of the phone is not going to cause any disruption in your cast related stuff.
if you have more than a single activity, think about creating an object that lasts across all your activities and put the cast stuff there and then ask that object for the instance of CastApi whenever needed, etc.
In your case, do you really get disconnected when you rotate the phone? Since you are setting up a whole new connection, you might want to disconnect yourself first when configuration changes (assuming you don't want to go with my earlier proposed (1) or (2)).

How to best save InApp purchase status locally?

I'm on the edge of finishing my first app, and one last remaining thing is to implement IAP billing, so that's why I am currently reading quite a lot about the topic (including security concerns like encryption, obfuscation and stuff).
My app is a free version, with the ability to upgrade to full verison via IAP, so there would be just one managed purchase item "premium". I have a few questions about this:
In the Google IAP API example (trivialdrivesample), there's always the IAP check in MainActivity to see if the user bought the premium version, done via
mHelper.queryInventoryAsync(mGotInventoryListener);
My first concern:
This does mean that the user always needs to have an internet/data connection at app-startup, to be able switch to the premium version right? What if the user doesn't have an internet connection? He would go with the lite version I guess, which I would find annoying.
So I thought about how to save the isPremium status locally, either in the SharedPrefs or in the app database. Now, I know you can't stop a hacker to reverse engineer the app, no matter what, even so because I don't own a server to do some server-side validation.
Nevertheless, one simply can't save an "isPremium" flag somewhere, since that would be too easy to spot.
So I was thinking about something like this:
User buys Premium
App gets the IMEI/Device-ID and XOR encodes it with a hardcoded String key, saves that locally in the app database.
Now when the user starts the app again:
App gets encoded String from database, decodes it and checks if decodedString == IMEI. If yes -> premium
If no, then the normal queryInventoryAsync will be called to see if the user bought premium.
What do you think about that approach? I know it's not supersecure, but for me it's more important that the user isn't annoyed (like with mandatory internet connection), than that the app will be unhackable (which is impossible anyway).
Do you have some other tips?
Another thing, which I currently don't have a clue about, is how to restore the transaction status when the user uninstalls/reinstalls the app. I know the API has some mechanism for that, and aditionally my database can be exported and imported through the app (so the encoded isPremium flag would be exportable/importable as well). Ok, I guess that would be another question, when the time is right ;-)
Any thoughts and comments to this approach are welcome, do you think that's a good solution? Or am I missing something/heading into some wrong direction?

I too was making the same investigations, but during my testing I figured out that you do not need to store it, as Google do all the caching you need and I suspect (though I have not investigated it) that they are doing so as securely as possible (seeing as it in their interest too!)
So here is what i do
// Done in onCreate
mHelper = new IabHelper(this, getPublicKey());
mHelper.startSetup(new IabHelper.OnIabSetupFinishedListener() {
public void onIabSetupFinished(IabResult result) {
if (!result.isSuccess()) {
// Oh noes, there was a problem.
Log("Problem setting up In-app Billing: " + result);
} else {
Log("onIabSetupFinished " + result.getResponse());
mHelper.queryInventoryAsync(mGotInventoryListener);
}
}
});
// Called by button press
private void buyProUpgrade() {
mHelper.launchPurchaseFlow(this, "android.test.purchased", 10001,
mPurchaseFinishedListener, ((TelephonyManager)this.getSystemService(Context.TELEPHONY_SERVICE)).getDeviceId());
}
// Get purchase response
private IabHelper.OnIabPurchaseFinishedListener mPurchaseFinishedListener = new IabHelper.OnIabPurchaseFinishedListener() {
public void onIabPurchaseFinished(IabResult result, Purchase purchase)
{
if (result.isFailure()) {
Log("Error purchasing: " + result);
return;
}
else if (purchase.getSku().equals("android.test.purchased")) {
Log("onIabPurchaseFinished GOT A RESPONSE.");
mHelper.queryInventoryAsync(mGotInventoryListener);
}
}
};
// Get already purchased response
private IabHelper.QueryInventoryFinishedListener mGotInventoryListener = new IabHelper.QueryInventoryFinishedListener() {
public void onQueryInventoryFinished(IabResult result,
Inventory inventory) {
if (result.isFailure()) {
// handle error here
Log("Error checking inventory: " + result);
}
else {
// does the user have the premium upgrade?
mIsPremium = inventory.hasPurchase("android.test.purchased");
setTheme();
Log("onQueryInventoryFinished GOT A RESPONSE (" + mIsPremium + ").");
}
}
};
So what happens here?
The IAB is set up and calls startSetup, on a successful completion (as long as it has been run once with an internet connection and is set up correctly it will always succeed) we call queryInventoryAsync to find out what is already purchased (again if this has been called while online it always works while offline).
So if a purchase is completed successfully (as can only be done while online) we call queryInventoryAsync to ensure that it has been called while online.
Now there is no need to store anything to do with purchases and makes your app a lot less hackable.
I have tested this many ways, flight mode, turning the devices off an on again and the only thing that messes it up is clearing data in some of the Google apps on the phone (Not likely to happen!).
Please contribute to this if you have different experiences, my app is still in early testing stage.

I refactored ne0's answer into a static method, including the comments from snark.
I call this method when my app starts - you'll need to enable your features at the TODO
/**
* This is how you check with Google if the user previously purchased a non-consumable IAP
* #param context App Context
*/
public static void queryPlayStoreForPurchases(Context context)
{
final IabHelper helper = new IabHelper(context, getPublicKey());
helper.startSetup(new IabHelper.OnIabSetupFinishedListener()
{
public void onIabSetupFinished(IabResult result)
{
if (!result.isSuccess())
{
Log.d("InApp", "In-app Billing setup failed: " + result);
}
else
{
helper.queryInventoryAsync(false, new IabHelper.QueryInventoryFinishedListener()
{
public void onQueryInventoryFinished(IabResult result, Inventory inventory)
{
// If the user has IAP'd the Pro version, let 'em have it.
if (inventory.hasPurchase(PRO_VERSION_SKU))
{
//TODO: ENABLE YOUR PRO FEATURES!!
Log.d("IAP Check", "IAP Feature enabled!");
}
else
{
Log.d("IAP Check", "User has not purchased Pro version, not enabling features.");
}
}
});
}
}
});
}
This will work across reboots and without a network connection, provided the user purchased the item.

Since you already know that it's impossible to make it unhackable using this system, I would recommend not attempting to prevent hacking. What you are proposing is known as "Security through obscurity" and is usually a bad idea.
My advice would be to try queryInventoryAsync() first, and only check your 'isPremium' flag if there is no internet connection.
There are also a few potential other ways of going about this, such as having separate free and premium apps, instead of an in app purchase. How other people handle this and the tools Google makes available might warrant an investigation.
queryInventoryAsync will automatically take into account uninstall and reinstalls, as it tracks purchases for the logged in user.

Yes the purchases can be retrieved offline. Also, I'm thinking about counting how many times the user opens the app as a mechanism before showing the billing UI.

Android in-app billing, how to handle app reinstalls

I'm very confused on how in-app billing works. I've read the documentation and I must have missed something because I don't understand the final step I need to implement into my application to make this work. The in-app billing works great, however, if a user uninstalls my app and installs it again at a future date, my application doesn't know how to determine if the in-app purchase has previously been made. Here's a snippet from my main class where I attempt to handle all of this:
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
{
mContext = this;
startService(new Intent(mContext, BillingService.class));
BillingHelper.setCompletedHandler(mTransactionHandler);
}
I am using the example classes from the dungeons example project. What I don't understand is how the below code works at the time of purchase, but re-running it doesn't work to check if something been purchased already. I have been stuck on this part for about a month now and I've been getting very frustrated with it.
public Handler mTransactionHandler = new Handler()
{
public void handleMessage(android.os.Message msg)
{
Log.i(TAG, "Transaction complete");
Log.i(TAG, "Transaction status: "
+ BillingHelper.latestPurchase.purchaseState);
Log.i(TAG, "Item purchased is: "
+ BillingHelper.latestPurchase.productId);
if (BillingHelper.latestPurchase.isPurchased())
{
new Message("Thank you!", getApplicationContext());
PAY_VERSION = true;
SharedPreferences purchasePreferences = getSharedPreferences(PURCHASE_PREFERENCES, Activity.MODE_PRIVATE);
Editor purchaseEditor = purchasePreferences.edit();
purchaseEditor.putBoolean("purchased", PAY_VERSION);
purchaseEditor.commit();
Intent intent = getIntent();
finish();
startActivity(intent);
}
};
What I need is some way to query the server to see if this item has been purchased or not. I understand that there's a PURCHASE_STATE_CHANGED thing there somewhere however I have no idea how to do anything when it determines the state has changed or how to initiate it to check. I'm lost and all I need is a good push in the right direction because so far I'm just completely lost.
EDIT:
I've also heard you need to parse JSON, but I have no idea how to even begin doing that.
EDIT 2:
Am I supposed to call this stuff to check?
BillingHelper.restoreTransactionInformation(BillingSecurity.generateNonce());
BillingHelper.getPurchaseInformation(new String[] {"myItem"});
That code previously had crashed on my sisters phone (SGS3, ICS) but not on mine (GN, ICS, and JB work). I was calling it in onCreate() of my first activity. Not really sure what to do with getPurchaseInformation(...) once it's been called. It has no return value so I'm not sure if I can parse the JSON or whatever I'm supposed to do...
Also, those 2 lines give me this:
08-27 11:54:04.271: E/BillingService(17702): BillingHelper not fully instantiated
08-27 11:54:04.271: E/BillingService(17702): BillingHelper not fully instantiated

JSON
An example of a JSON order object that includes a subscription purchase token is shown below.
{ "nonce" : 1836535032137741465,
"orders" :
[{ "notificationId" : "android.test.purchased",
"orderId" : "transactionId.android.test.purchased",
"packageName" : "com.example.dungeons",
"productId" : "android.test.purchased",
"developerPayload" : "bGoa+V7g/yqDXvKRqq+JTFn4uQZbPiQJo4pf9RzJ",
"purchaseTime" : 1290114783411,
"purchaseState" : 0,
"purchaseToken" : "rojeslcdyyiapnqcynkjyyjh" }]
}
How to parse JSON in Java.
Android supports JSON library
Android Billing
If you have a remote server, we recommend that you store purchase information on your server instead of in a local database on a device. Look here.
Read about Managed per user account, Unmanaged, or Subscription
I use billing like this:
In onCreate
BillingHelper.setCompletedHandler(handlerTransaction);
You have handler in your code.
Next in onClick or something
BillingHelper.requestPurchase(this, currentMarketProduct.getMarketId());

You are on the right track with the second update. The trick is to realise everything is done in async.
The typical flow is as follows:
User installs your app.
On first load of your app, you check if you need to restore
purchases.
If you do, send a RESTORE_TRANSACTION synchronous request to Google.
Google will respond with a acknowlegment response to your
RESTORE_TRANSACTION request. (This is only an acknowlegement that
they received your request.)
At this point, you should mark that you had already sent a restore request to Google and no further restores needs to be sent from the app.
Now asynchronously Google will start sending a 'PURCHASE_STATE_CHANGED' event to your app for each in-app purchase the user has previously purchased. This call is the same as what Google would had sent if the user had made that purchase for the first time.
Since it's the same call, your app would pick up the event and handled it normally as if the user has just purchased the in-app product (thereby "restoring" the purchased feature).
In regard to steps 2 and 5, what I've done for my app is to keep a SharedPreference value called 'APP_INITIALISED' that defaults to false. Everytime my app starts up, if 'APP_INITIALISED' is false, I tell Google to RESTORE_TRANSACTION (step 2) then I set APP_INITIALISED to true (step 5).