Error with duplicated FileProvider in manifest.xml with Cordova

Question

How is it possible to have multiple provider of the same type in the manifest? Since the cordova camera plugins brings a file provider, our app can't be build anymore. In the manifest we have the following:

<provider android:authorities="${applicationId}.provider" android:exported="false" android:grantUriPermissions="true" android:name="android.support.v4.content.FileProvider">
  <meta-data android:name="android.support.FILE_PROVIDER_PATHS" android:resource="@xml/provider_paths"/>
</provider>

<provider android:authorities="com.our.app.dev.fileprovider" android:exported="false" android:grantUriPermissions="true" android:name="android.support.v4.content.FileProvider">
  <meta-data android:name="android.support.FILE_PROVIDER_PATHS" android:resource="@xml/file_provider_paths"/>
</provider>

The first entry comes from the camera plugin, the second from one of our plugins.

During build, the following error occurres:

AndroidManifest.xml:44:5-46:16 Error:
Element provider#android.support.v4.content.FileProvider at AndroidManifest.xml:44:5-46:16 duplicated with element declared at AndroidManifest.xml:41:5-43:16

Thanks!

Answer 1

I think this is not a cordova problem but inside the android build process. At least i could reproduce it within a plain Android Studio and Gradle setup:

It seems that android is not OK with having two tags with the same name attribute. I don't see why this is a problem as long as you have different authorities it should work fine. But this also leads to a solution:

within YOUR plugin (or your own fork of the plugin you want to use). You create your own FileProvider.java which just extends the original android.support.v4.content.FileProvider

package com.our.app.dev;

public class FileProvider extends android.support.v4.content.FileProvider {
} 

within your plugin configuration you link to this FileProvider, which now has a different package name, thus avoiding this problem. Hope this works, for me it seems to do the trick.