Android 4.2 filters out CHANGE_CONFIGURATION permission?

Question

I come across a weird problem, I got an application allowing to freely change the font size on Android Device (Font Size Setter). It uses introspection to call some internal Android apis. To do this call, it needs the following permission : android.permission.CHANGE_CONFIGURATION. It worked like a charm under Android 4.0 and up to 4.2 where it does not work anymore. Digging into logs I found out that I can't update font size because it misses this permission. Debbuging to check effective permissions, I got these when inspecting the PackageInfo corresponding to my app

requestedPermissions = {java.lang.String[2]@830038778728}
    [0] = {java.lang.String@830038778760}"android.permission.CHANGE_CONFIGURATION"
    [1] = {java.lang.String@830038778896}"android.permission.WRITE_SETTINGS"
requestedPermissionsFlags = {int[2]@830038779016}
    [0] = 1
    [1] = 3

Does somebody got any clue about what's going on, or any workaround idea ? Thanks a lot for reading me.

Per request, the AndroidManifest.xml file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
          package="fr.gatay.android.fss"
          android:versionCode="1"
          android:versionName="1.0">
    <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="14"/>
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CHANGE_CONFIGURATION" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_SETTINGS"/>
    <application android:label="@string/app_name" android:icon="@drawable/app_icon">
        <activity android:name=".MainActivity"
        android:label="@string/app_name">
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/>
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
    </application>
</manifest>

Answer 1

Check this post http://blog.sightidea.com/?p=44

You can ask your user to grant permission to the app with adb tool:

>adb shell
>pm grant com.yourapp.packagename android.permission.CHANGE_CONFIGURATION