1195854 - TelephonyManager.getNeighboringCellInfo() is deprecated in API level 23 (Android 6.0)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Android Background Services Graveyard :: Geolocation, defect)

Description

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

TelephonyManager.getNeighboringCellInfo() is now deprecated in API level 23.

> 3:02.50 /Users/sebastian/Projects/Mozilla/fx-team/mobile/android/stumbler/java/org/mozilla/mozstumbler/service/stumblerthread/scanners/cellscanner/CellScannerImplementation.java:173: warning: [deprecation] getNeighboringCellInfo() in TelephonyManager has been deprecated
> 3:02.50         Collection<NeighboringCellInfo> cells = mTelephonyManager.getNeighboringCellInfo();

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/telephony/TelephonyManager.html#getNeighboringCellInfo%28%29

> Use (@link getAllCellInfo} which returns a superset of the information from NeighboringCellInfo.

Comment 1

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

The alternative getAllCellInfo() was introduced in API level 17 (Android 4.2) so we might need to use a support library functionality or write it ourselves.

Comment 2

[:garvan]

Hmm, there must be a missing annotation, there is a runtime check of android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT to use getAllCellInfo() if available.

Comment 3

[:garvan]

Attachment: bug1195854.diff

Removes the warning, and avoids using the call on Android M.

We could do reflection here, but that is overkill. By the time the function is fully removed, we should just remove it completely, as the percentage of older devices that require this will likely be very small.

Comment 4

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

Comment on attachment 8652860 [details] [diff] [review]
bug1195854.diff

Review of attachment 8652860 [details] [diff] [review]:
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LGTM.

I see that we first query getAllCellInfo() and then add the result of getNeighboringCells() to that list.  According to the Android documentation getNeighboringCellInfo() returns a subset of getAllCellInfo(). But a comment in our code says "getNeighboringCells() sometimes contains more information than that is already in getAllCellInfo(). Use the results of both of them.". Which one is correct? :)

Comment 5

[:garvan]

Good question. The code predates my involvement, but I am trusting the comment. The contributor of that code was someone who contributes to the IMSI scanner project also, and on that project there are reports of older (or fringe market) devices producing more complete results with getNeighboringCells().
By the time getNeighboringCells() requires reflection (yuck!) to support, those devices will not be significant contributors -actually, they may not be ATM but there is no cost to keeping the code in there for now.

Comment 6

[Sebastian Kaspari (:sebastian; :pocmo)]

Thanks for the background information. :)

Comment 7

[:garvan]

https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=2532c8232184

Comment 8

[Pulsebot]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/0c92aae1b559

Comment 9

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/0c92aae1b559