Trouble getting the privileged extension to work

[truenicoco]

Hi all,

I am having trouble installing the privileged extension on (non-rooted) linageos 19.1 (unofficial because official support for my device was discontinued unfortunately )

I flashed the fdroid privileged extension .zip OTA just after flashing the lineageos ROM from TWRP (adb sideload) before rebooting to system. I then installed fdroid’s APK, but it did not ‘see’ the privileged extension somehow.
To try and fix this:

• I downloaded the OTA .zip privileged extension from fdroid and installed it with TWRP from /data/data/… (logs seemed OK)
• It did not seem to work, so I also tried installing the rooted device version from fdroid (which was probably stupid, since my device is not rooted)
• I uninstalled it, still from fdroid…
• I now can check ‘use privileged extension’ in the settings, but I am getting ‘Error installing RandomAppFromFdroid. Privileged permissions have not been given to the app. Please report this bug’

So my questions are:

• Is it possible to get the privileged version to work on this unofficial lineageos rom?
• Did I mess up my fdroid install and if yes, how could I fix it?

My workaround was to uncheck the ‘use privileged extension’ from fdroid’s settings, which is fine, but I like the background auto update of froid installed apps…

Thanks for any tip or direction about what to try next!

[Morgoth]

Android 12 is not supported

[SkewedZeppelin]

It should work fine on 12.

[truenicoco]

Well these are interesting answers.

Any idea why it doesn’t not work on my device @SkewedZeppelin?

[SkewedZeppelin]

Logcat during install will say.

[truenicoco]

Took me some time, but here’s a logcat during a failed install:

05-09 10:02:09.888 14367 14381 D PrivilegedExtension: Checking if package is allowed to access privileged extension: org.fdroid.fdroid
05-09 10:02:09.890 14367 14381 D PrivilegedExtension: Allowed cert hash: 43238d512c1e5eb2d6569f4a3afbf5523418b82e0a3ed1552770abb9a9c9ccab
05-09 10:02:09.891 14367 14381 D PrivilegedExtension: Package cert hash: 43238d512c1e5eb2d6569f4a3afbf5523418b82e0a3ed1552770abb9a9c9ccab
05-09 10:02:09.891 14367 14381 D PrivilegedExtension: Package is allowed to access the privileged extension!
05-09 10:02:09.895 14346 14346 E AppDetailsActivity: install aborted with errorMessage: Les autorisations privilégiées n’ont pas été accordées à l’application. Veuillez signaler ce bogue.

I don’t know if this helps. I’m willing to try things out if it can help me and others to get this to work. I have no clue what to try next

[SkewedZeppelin]

The PrivExt apk needs the permission whitelist too.
Try installing via the OTA again or use an OS with the PrivExt included.

[truenicoco]

Thanks for your reply!

The PrivExt apk needs the permission whitelist too.

It never requested these unfortunately. In android settings I can see the app but cannot change anything about its permissions:

There is a “special permissions” dialog but the privileged extension is not listed there:

Try installing via the OTA again

Just did it again, and it did not change anything. TWRP reports ‘f-droid successfully installed’ and ‘f-droid priv ext successfully installed’ though…

use an OS with the PrivExt included

Oh I wish I could but LineageOS discontinued official support for my device unfortunately. But the unofficial build from xda-developers is quite good so far, except for not providing fdroid and fdroid’s priv ext by default…

I guess I will go the ‘root the device’ way to get the privileged extension to work then…

[SkewedZeppelin]

Such special permissions can only be granted by a permission whitelist file in
/etc/permissions.

[truenicoco]

Interesting! I didn’t come across this piece of info before you mentioned. (I’m pretty lost when it comes to android…)

I did this:

> adb shell
mido:/ $ ls -l /etc/permissions/                                                                                                                                                                                                           
total 136
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   846 2009-01-01 01:00 android.hardware.biometrics.face.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  1050 2009-01-01 01:00 android.software.live_wallpaper.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   748 2009-01-01 01:00 android.software.webview.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   777 2009-01-01 01:00 android.test.base.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   777 2009-01-01 01:00 android.test.mock.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   781 2009-01-01 01:00 android.test.runner.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  1306 2009-01-01 01:00 com.android.documentsui.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   807 2009-01-01 01:00 com.android.future.usb.accessory.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   801 2009-01-01 01:00 com.android.location.provider.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   805 2009-01-01 01:00 com.android.media.remotedisplay.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   797 2009-01-01 01:00 com.android.mediadrm.signer.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  1277 2009-01-01 01:00 com.android.networkstack.tethering.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2003 2009-01-01 01:00 com.android.networkstack.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   541 2009-01-01 01:00 com.qti.snapdragon.sdk.display.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   763 2009-01-01 01:00 javax.obex.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   787 2009-01-01 01:00 org.apache.http.legacy.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   232 2022-05-10 22:13 org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 14960 2009-01-01 01:00 platform.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   295 2009-01-01 01:00 privapp-permissions-org.pixelexperience.faceunlock.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 34087 2009-01-01 01:00 privapp-permissions-platform.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5153 2009-01-01 01:00 privapp-permissions-qti.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   158 2009-01-01 01:00 qcom.fmradio.xml
mido:/ $ cat /etc/permissions/org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged.xml                                                                                                                                                                             
<permissions>
 <privapp-permissions package="org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged">
  <permission name="android.permission.DELETE_PACKAGES"/>
  <permission name="android.permission.INSTALL_PACKAGES"/>
 </privapp-permissions>
</permissions>

but no change, even after “successfully” flashing the priv ext OTA in TWRP again. Did I do something wrong? Or does this ROM somehow prevents the priv ext to work? (according to a reply from their telegram group, priv ext was not tested but should work)