1573479 - Crash in [@ android.os.RemoteException: at com.android.server.am.ActivityStackSupervisor.checkStartAnyActivityPermission(ActivityStackSupervisor.java)]

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect, P1)

Description

[Marcia Knous [:marcia]]

This bug is for crash report bp-afacaf40-b916-4420-adc7-ca1420190813.

Seen while looking at Fennec crash stats - this appears to have been around in a few previous releases, but is higher in 68: https://bit.ly/2YZoBY9

Java stack trace:

android.os.RemoteException
	at com.android.server.am.ActivityStackSupervisor.checkStartAnyActivityPermission(ActivityStackSupervisor.java:2144)
	at com.android.server.am.ActivityStarter.startActivity(ActivityStarter.java:905)
	at com.android.server.am.ActivityStarter.startActivity(ActivityStarter.java:668)
	at com.android.server.am.ActivityStarter.startActivityMayWait(ActivityStarter.java:1534)
	at com.android.server.am.ActivityStarter.execute(ActivityStarter.java:610)

Comment 1

[Julien Cristau [:jcristau]]

All crashes seem to be from android 9 (API 28).

Comment 2

[[:philipp]]

the volume of submitted crash reports is spiking up in the last few days. user comments say they can generally reproduce the crash when they go to the menu > share > copy to clipboard.

Comment 3

[[:philipp]]

i am able to reproduce the crash on android 9 with those steps as well

Comment 4

[Julien Cristau [:jcristau]]

Petru, Andrei, can you take a look?

Comment 6

[Marcia Knous [:marcia]]

Bug 1578796 is the Android 10 version of this crash.

Comment 7

[Julien Cristau [:jcristau]]

Vlad, can you provide an update on your status here?

Comment 8

[Marcia Knous [:marcia]]

Not surprisingly, the spike for Android 10 coincides with when Google pushed it out on Tuesday, 9-3: https://mzl.la/2lzh2tk. The other signature shows a spike starting around 8-26 according to the crash stats graph: https://mzl.la/2m1V828.

Comment 9

[Vlad Baicu]

I am currently working on the sign in buttons feature and this is next in line in my queue. If we need to move faster we can rearrange by assisgning someone else from the team

Comment 10

[Julien Cristau [:jcristau]]

I would argue a new topcrash should take precedence over new feature work...

Comment 11

[Vlad Baicu]

At best we can pick this up on Monday. However please NI Stefan regarding the prioritisation of these bugs. Currently we have quite a few in our hands (most of which P1s), and we cannnot be aware of their urgency at all times

Comment 12

[[:philipp]]

the volume of this signature is now declining again in the past couple of days - i also don't have the "copy to clipboard" option available in the share menu of my android 9 device anymore. maybe google rolled out an update changing the behaviour that fixed the issue as suddenly as it started?

Comment 13

[Petru-Mugurel Lingurar [:petru]]

This seems to be indeed a recent issue introduced externally from our app.
There are applications, most notably Google Maps, that would also offer a "copy to clipboard" sharing action but then would not know how to parse the sent data and crash, issue that exists also on Fenix - https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/3371

A more helpful stack trace from our app:

java.lang.SecurityException: Permission Denial:
starting Intent { act=android.intent.action.SEND typ=text/plain flg=0x80001
cmp=com.google.android.apps.maps/com.google.android.apps.gmm.sharing.SendTextToClipboardActivity
clip={text/plain T:https://m.youtube.com/} (has extras) }
from ProcessRecord{909d292 8032:org.mozilla.firefox/u0a415} (pid=8032, uid=10415)
not exported from uid 10128

com.google.android.apps.maps/com.google.android.apps.gmm.sharing.SendTextToClipboardActivity relatively recent started to support ACTION_SEND which we also use to query all of the installed apps to build our share to list. The SendTextToClipboardActivity is not exported though - not available for outside callers and so whenever we try to share something to Maps we get that SecurityException.

Recent versions of Google Maps (10.23.4 was problematic, 10.24.4 is not anymore) do not declare an intent-filter for ACTION_SEND anymore so this bug should not be reproducible anymore for users who update their Google Maps application to the latest version. I suspect Google Maps was the most notable offender.

As a future-proof fix though, all we can do is prevent crashes in the event that sharing fails.
And then maybe show a Toast message informing users that sharing failed.

Comment 14

[Petru-Mugurel Lingurar [:petru]]

(In reply to [:philipp] from comment #12)

i also don't have the "copy to clipboard" option available in the share menu of my android 9 device anymore.

Firefox does not insert it's own "Copy to clipboard" option.
All options the users see in the sharing menu are options offered by the currently installed applications.
On my device I see Google Drive offering such an option com.google.android.apps.docs/.drive.clipboard.SendTextToClipboardActivity which seems to work great.

Comment 15

[Petru-Mugurel Lingurar [:petru]]

Attachment: Bug 1573479 - Show Toast, not crash when sharing fails; r?VladBaicu

Comment 16

[Petru-Mugurel Lingurar [:petru]]

Try build for the above patch - https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=64376429781367cf2fe00f66a3a89bb4c0bc7ff7

Comment 17

[Diana Rus]

Hi, I verified with the provided try build(Comment16) with Google Pixel 3a XL (Android 9) and Samsung Galaxy Note9 (Android 9)

• https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-inc/maps/maps-10-23-4-release/google-maps-navigate-explore-10-23-4-4-android-apk-download/ - Google Maps (Version 10.23.4)
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.adobe.cc - Adobe Creative Cloud (Version 4.5.0) - with the last version from playstore

NOTES:
Tested Through "Menu"/"Share"/"Copy to clipboard" option - For "Google Maps" application the "Copy to clipboard" option was not present.
Tested through "Menu"/"Share"/"Copy to clipboard" option - For "Adobe Creative Cloud" a toast notificaton at the bottom of the device is displayed "Unable to share to the indicated app" - implementation as per Comment13 - last line.
Tested through Long tapping on a link/"Share"/"Copy to clipboard" option - For "Adobe Creative Cloud" a toast notificaton at the bottom of the device is displayed "Unable to share to the indicated app" - implementation as per Comment13 - last line.

I will leave the ticket with this status, until it is uplifted to ESR.

Thanks

Comment 18

[Petru-Mugurel Lingurar [:petru]]

Comment on attachment 9092367 [details]
Bug 1573479 - Show Toast, not crash when sharing fails; r?VladBaicu

ESR Uplift Approval Request

• If this is not a sec:{high,crit} bug, please state case for ESR consideration: Prevent crashes if a share option fails.
• User impact if declined: The app may crash if a share target does not properly handle data sent from our app.
• Fix Landed on Version:
• Risk to taking this patch: Low
• Why is the change risky/not risky? (and alternatives if risky): Simple try-catch with a Toast shown in case of error.
• String or UUID changes made by this patch: share_error_toast_message

Comment 19

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

Comment on attachment 9092367 [details]
Bug 1573479 - Show Toast, not crash when sharing fails; r?VladBaicu

Approved for Fennec 68.2b4.

Comment 20

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-esr68/rev/3f76f9600f36

Comment 21

[Laurentiu Apahidean]

I tried to reproduce the issue on Beta 68.2b4 on a Pixel 3 XL (Android 9) following the repro steps from comment 17 but was unable to, I will mark this issue as VERIFIED.