App requires network permission?

[Glitchy-Tozier]

Fdroid detects this app requiring network -permission. Why is that?

If not needed, it would be great if unnecessary permissions could be removed.

[Glitchy-Tozier]

If none of your packages require networking-permissions (which at first glance I don't think they do), this may be due to one of the the following:

1. You accidentally released the debug-build of your app
2. You might need to manually remove the requested internet-access from some xml-file in your android-directory

[iakmds]

You are right – it shouldn't require network permissions.

Currently I don't know where it may be coming from. There is no internet access in the AndroidManifest.xml set, and the F-Droid team surely hasn't built the app in debug mode. We'll have to see if it still occurs in the next F-Droid release.

[Glitchy-Tozier]

You're right, you seem to use the exact same files as I do in my app (that doesn't require internet access).

• https://github.com/iakmds/librecamera/search?q=internet
• https://github.com/Glitchy-Tozier/githo/search?q=internet

Also you seem to be using the same build commands I do:

• https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/11804/diffs
• https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/merge_requests/10627/diffs

No idea what is going on.

[iakmds]

Interesting. Let's see if it will be there in the next release too.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the packages I am using. Do you know whether packages in Flutter can effect permission use?

[Glitchy-Tozier]

I wonder if it has anything to do with the packages I am using. Do you know whether packages in Flutter can effect permission use?

I'm not 100% certain (it's been a while), but I think they can. If you check out my app on F-Droid, you'll see it requires some permissions. However, I haven't explicitly enabled them in my AdroidManifest.xml. In my case I'm pretty sure a package (probably flutter_local_notifications) automatically added them.

[iakmds]

Well, that may at least be a hint, thank you.

[Loughty]

Ey, @iakmds, I read the thread and for curiosity I made a quick search using the words "network" and "internet", and with the last one foud this in the source:

https://github.com/iakmds/librecamera/blob/2de3b697072c5e0ca44d76a49e9918a8e6d3cf96/android/app/src/profile/AndroidManifest.xml

https://github.com/iakmds/librecamera/blob/2de3b697072c5e0ca44d76a49e9918a8e6d3cf96/android/app/src/debug/AndroidManifest.xml

I hope this could be usefull :smile:

[iakmds]

Hi,

thanks for the idea; Sadly the AndroidManifest.xml in these folders (profile and debug) are not merged with the final apk (it's a Flutter thing), therefore it cannot be the problem. What is interesting is that F-Droid marks the permission as view network connections which isn't even real "internet access", let's see and wait if it's still the same in the new version once it comes to F-Droid

[Loughty]

:thinking:

Well, for now, I gonna leave this links from the F-Droid: This is the source that F-Droid uses, maybe comparing both sources (from F-Droid and Github) could give to you some hint, I think there's programs that make the comparision more easy: https://f-droid.org/repo/com.iakmds.librecamera_1_src.tar.gz And this is the log of the compiling process: https://f-droid.org/repo/com.iakmds.librecamera_1.log.gz

Also, I extracted the AndroidManifiest directly from the APK of the F-Droid version, and yeah, there's nothing about network or internet: AndroidManifest.txt Maybe you could see something that I don't.

[iakmds]

In the AndroidManifest.xml you extracted, it actually does say the following on line 13:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE"/>

So it is the thing F-Droid detected, we need to find out where it comes from (especially if it's still there in the next F-Droid version)

[iakmds]

Good news everyone 🎉

The next version won't require the permission for Network Access 🥳🎉

For the ones interested, here is how I fixed it:

The cause for the Network Access permission request was the package video_player (to my surprise), which I used for displaying the video preview/thumbnail. I discovered this by creating a new blank project and adding all the packages from Libre Camera. I then removed the packages in different combinations, built the apk and inspected it's AndroidManifest for the permission. And after a couple of tries, the video_player package was left. Now, the app will be using the video_thumbnail package instead – no need for any permissions 🎉

[Glitchy-Tozier]

Great to hear, good job! 🎉

[iakmds]

Version 1.3.1 is now on F-Droid, and as you can see, the permission is gone!

Can we close this issue? :tada:

[Glitchy-Tozier]

Sure :)