I maintain a library whose core functionality involves sharing programmatically-captured screenshots to external email applications.
I use a FileProvider
to accomplish this, which means my library's manifest contains a <provider>
tag:
<provider
android:name="android.support.v4.content.FileProvider"
android:authorities="${applicationId}.bugshaker.fileprovider"
android:exported="false"
android:grantUriPermissions="true">
<meta-data
android:name="android.support.FILE_PROVIDER_PATHS"
android:resource="@xml/filepaths" />
</provider>
filepaths.xml
is defined as follows:
<paths>
<files-path path="bug-reports/" name="bug-reports" />
</paths>
A consumer of my library has an application which itself uses a FileProvider
to share files. My expectation was that it should be possible to allow both providers to share files if the consuming application used the following manifest <provider>
tag:
<provider
android:authorities="${applicationId}.fileprovider;${applicationId}.bugshaker.fileprovider"
android:exported="false"
android:grantUriPermissions="true"
android:name="android.support.v4.content.FileProvider"
tools:replace="android:authorities">
<meta-data
android:name="android.support.FILE_PROVIDER_PATHS"
android:resource="@xml/file_paths"
tools:replace="android:resource" />
</provider>
This manifest entry:
Provider
authorities, ${applicationId}.fileprovider
(for application file sharing) and ${applicationId}.bugshaker.fileprovider
(for library file sharing);filepaths.xml
, which contains separate directory definitions for application-generated files and library-generated files:<paths>
<external-path
name="redacted"
path="" />
<files-path
name="bug-reports"
path="bug-reports/" />
</paths>
After building the application, we have confirmed that the generated manifest has had the correct nodes replaced with these updated values.
However, when the application using this configuration is assembled (successfully) and run, we see a crash on launch:
E: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
Process: com.stkent.bugshakertest, PID: 11636
java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to get provider android.support.v4.content.FileProvider: java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to invoke virtual method 'android.content.res.XmlResourceParser android.content.pm.PackageItemInfo.loadXmlMetaData(android.content.pm.PackageManager, java.lang.String)' on a null object reference
at android.app.ActivityThread.installProvider(ActivityThread.java:5856)
at android.app.ActivityThread.installContentProviders(ActivityThread.java:5445)
at android.app.ActivityThread.handleBindApplication(ActivityThread.java:5384)
at android.app.ActivityThread.-wrap2(ActivityThread.java)
at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1545)
at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:154)
at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:6119)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:886)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:776)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to invoke virtual method 'android.content.res.XmlResourceParser android.content.pm.PackageItemInfo.loadXmlMetaData(android.content.pm.PackageManager, java.lang.String)' on a null object reference
at android.support.v4.content.FileProvider.parsePathStrategy(FileProvider.java:583)
at android.support.v4.content.FileProvider.getPathStrategy(FileProvider.java:557)
at android.support.v4.content.FileProvider.attachInfo(FileProvider.java:375)
at android.app.ActivityThread.installProvider(ActivityThread.java:5853)
at android.app.ActivityThread.installContentProviders(ActivityThread.java:5445)
at android.app.ActivityThread.handleBindApplication(ActivityThread.java:5384)
at android.app.ActivityThread.-wrap2(ActivityThread.java)
at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1545)
at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:154)
at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:6119)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:886)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:776)
Using the debugger, I am able to see that the method FileProvider.parsePathStrategy
invokes PackageManager.resolveContentProvider
with the authority string "${applicationId}.fileprovider;${applicationId}.bugshaker.fileprovider"
. resolveContentProvider
then returns null, leading to this NPE.
If I manually call resolveContentProvider
while paused at this instruction and pass either "${applicationId}.fileprovider"
or "${applicationId}.bugshaker.fileprovider"
, resolveContentProvider
instead returns a non-null ProviderInfo
instance (which would seem to be the expected result).
This difference confuses me because the <provider>
element documentation states that multiple authorities are supported:
A list of one or more URI authorities that identify data offered by the content provider. Multiple authorities are listed by separating their names with a semicolon. To avoid conflicts, authority names should use a Java-style naming convention (such as com.example.provider.cartoonprovider). Typically, it's the name of the ContentProvider subclass that implements the provider
There is no default. At least one authority must be specified.
FileProvider
with multiple authorities and file paths?
My solution to this problem has actually been to avoid relying on a single FileProvider
parsing multiple authorities. While this doesn't directly address the question as stated, I'm posting it for posterity.
I updated my library to leverage an empty subclass of FileProvider
, so that the library's updated manifest provider entry is now:
<provider
android:name=".flow.email.screenshot.BugShakerFileProvider"
android:authorities="${applicationId}.bugshaker.fileprovider"
android:exported="false"
android:grantUriPermissions="true">
<meta-data
android:name="android.support.FILE_PROVIDER_PATHS"
android:resource="@xml/library_file_paths" />
</provider>
The merged manifest of an application that (1) uses a stock FileProvider
and (2) consumes my library will now contain both of the entries shown below (no collision!):
<provider
android:name="android.support.v4.content.FileProvider"
android:authorities="com.consuming.application.fileprovider"
android:exported="false"
android:grantUriPermissions="true" >
<meta-data
android:name="android.support.FILE_PROVIDER_PATHS"
android:resource="@xml/application_file_paths" />
</provider>
<provider
android:name="com.github.stkent.bugshaker.flow.email.screenshot.BugShakerFileProvider"
android:authorities="com.consuming.application.bugshaker.fileprovider"
android:exported="false"
android:grantUriPermissions="true" >
<meta-data
android:name="android.support.FILE_PROVIDER_PATHS"
android:resource="@xml/library_file_paths" />
</provider>
I didn't realize that this was a potential solution until a coworker pointed it out. My assumption had previously (and incorrectly) been that all FileProvider
s in the manifest must set
android:name="android.support.v4.content.FileProvider"
but a quick check of the documentation revealed my error:
The name of the class that implements the content provider, a subclass of ContentProvider. This should be a fully qualified class name (such as, "com.example.project.TransportationProvider"). [...]
i also face this issue and use this approach to resolve it. like i have a library image picker which use file provider and also my app use a file provider when i build my app conflict accur.
my file provide is
<provider
android:name="android.support.v4.content.FileProvider"
android:authorities="org.contentarcadeapps.photoeditor.fileprovider"
android:exported="false"
android:grantUriPermissions="true">
<meta-data
android:name="android.support.FILE_PROVIDER_PATHS"
android:resource="@xml/file_paths"/>
</provider>
change this to
<provider
android:name="android.support.v4.content.FileProvider"
android:authorities="org.contentarcadeapps.photoeditor.fileprovider"
android:exported="false"
android:grantUriPermissions="true"
tools:replace="android:authorities">
<meta-data
android:name="android.support.FILE_PROVIDER_PATHS"
android:resource="@xml/file_paths"
tools:replace="android:resource"/>
</provider>
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