DownloadManager not working for Android 10 (Q)

Question

I've been beating my head against this issue for quite awhile... I am updating an app that uses DownloadManger to do a simple task like downloading a file to the external storage public directory i.e:

Environment.getExternalStoragePublicDirectory(Environment.DIRECTORY_DOWNLOADS)

Everything works fine here from Android api 19-28. Its when testing on API 29 (Q/10) is where issues occur. Android implemented scoped storage and so deprecated the getExternalStoragePublicDirectory... As a result I need to figure out a compatible solution to support APIs 19-29. I cannot use internal application storage since DownloadManager will throw a SecurityException. Androids documentation states that I can use the DownloadManager.Request setDestinationUri and it even mentions for Android Q that I can use Context.getExternalFilesDir(String). When I do this though, the path is still the emulated path:

/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.my.package.name/files/Download/myFile.xml

I get a callback from the download manager that the download is complete (with right ID) but then I cannot grab the download from the area I saved it to. I check to see if the file exists and it returns false:

new File("/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.my.package.name/files/Download/myFile.xml").exists();

Any help is appreciated

Adding code for context. So setting up download manager

    private void startDownload() {
        IntentFilter filter = new IntentFilter(DownloadManager.ACTION_DOWNLOAD_COMPLETE);
        registerReceiver(downloadReceiver, filter);

        String remoteURL= getString(R.string.remote_url);

        DownloadManager.Request request = new DownloadManager.Request(Uri.parse(remoteUrl));
        request.setNotificationVisibility(DownloadManager.Request.VISIBILITY_VISIBLE);
        request.setTitle(getString(R.string.download_title));
        request.setDescription(getString(R.string.download_description));
        request.setDestinationUri(Uri.fromFile(new File(getExternalFilesDir(Environment.DIRECTORY_DOWNLOADS), "myFile.xml")));

        DownloadManager manager = (DownloadManager) getSystemService(Context.DOWNLOAD_SERVICE);
        mainDownloadID= manager.enqueue(request);
    }

checking file if it exists:

new File(getExternalFilesDir(Environment.DIRECTORY_DOWNLOADS), "myFile.xml").exists(); //this returns false in the onReceive (and download IDs match)

Answer 1

Try add this into your manifest file in application tag

android:requestLegacyExternalStorage="true"