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Surf 14.2 and app permissions

LN
Laurent, NACHBAUER
Solutys Technologies

Our environment is using TC56 devices (Nougat) and Android Enterprise.

Since the AE agent upgraded to 13.6, we had to upgrade Surf to 14.2 version for it to continue working, but there's a catch.

When surf is upgraded to 14.2, or even installed as new on a factory reset device, it won't ask for all the authorizations it needs, it will ask for 2 of them, but when you launch surf (from surf:// in kiosk mode) you will get a flashing strobe mess and the app will remain stuck that way.

Manually granting the other permissions in app settings fixes it and surf works fine after that, but I think SOTI should be aware of that, since something's not right in that version.

Of course using Zebra devices we can (and will) use the appmgr to grant all the permissions on install, but this should be addressed imho.

Surf config is as basic as it can be : Fullscreen mode with no address bar and no startup menu, then kiosk is used to access chosen websites.

6 years ago
SOTI surf
ANSWERS
RM
Rob Morrison
6 years ago

I don't have an answer for this problem, but I have this same problem with the latest version. 

JA
John Aiston
6 years ago (edited 6 years ago)

Hi, I had the same problem on Android Enterprise devices since allow devices to update to the current version of SOTI Surf.

After a while and working with SOTI support, I finally found a combination of SOTI script commands that set the permissions needed.

To send the script to the devices, I created a package and added that to a profile for AFW devices with a filter where SOTI Surf was installed.

afw_set_permission_grant_state net.soti.surf net.soti.mobicontrol.permission.DEVICE_INFO allow
afw_set_permission_grant_state net.soti.surf net.soti.mobicontrol.permission.DEVICE_INFO_ELM allow
afw_set_permission_grant_state net.soti.surf net.soti.mobicontrol.permission.DEVICE_INFO_AFW allow
afw_set_permission_grant_state net.soti.surf net.soti.mobicontrol.permission.GET_DATA allow
afw_set_permission_grant_state net.soti.surf net.soti.mobicontrol.permission.GET_DATA_ELM allow
afw_set_permission_grant_state net.soti.surf net.soti.mobicontrol.permission.GET_DATA_AFW allow

I did try other commands for the standard permissions as I thought might be useful to help against customers answering incorrectly when 1st opening SOTIsurf.

afw_set_permission_grant_state net.soti.surf android.permission.CAMERA allow

afw_set_permission_grant_state net.soti.surf android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO allow

afw_set_permission_grant_state net.soti.surf android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE allow
afw_set_permission_grant_state net.soti.surf android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE allow

afw_set_permission_grant_state net.soti.surf android.permission.CALL_PHONE allow

afw_set_permission_grant_state net.soti.surf android.permission.ACCESS_COURSE_LOCATION allow
afw_set_permission_grant_state net.soti.surf android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION allow

Just change the 'allow' to 'default' or 'deny' if you need different options.

I am still testing everything but looking good so far.

RC
Raymond Chan Diamond Contributor
6 years ago (edited 6 years ago)

What is the build numbers of your v13.6.0 device agent?    If your Android Enterprise device agent is v13.6.0.1662+,  all required app permissions for any managed apps should have been granted automatically by default.

From my previous tests, it's found that the default may not be honored for an app if some of its permissions have previously been changed (in device's Settings or with :afw_set_permission_grant_state" command).  Hence,  if your Soti Surf is installed before your device agent gets upgraded to v13.6.0.1662+, there might be a need to first uninstall Soti Surf and then have it re-installed. 

JA
John Aiston
6 years ago (edited 6 years ago)

Cheers for the heads up :)

SOTI support haven't mentioned that when we worked on the fault so hopefully the issue has been resolved.

When I checked, most devices are not yet on v13.6.0.1662+

LN
Laurent, NACHBAUER
6 years ago (edited 6 years ago)

Thanks for the update, I found this and used it successfully before, I forgot to update the post here.

The needed permissions are the additional ones that grant mobitonctrol agent access. The android permissions are now automatically granted, but still, the mobicontrol ones need to be set manually. My last test on that was last week, with latest 13.6 agent and latest Surf + fresh factory reset device.

RC
Raymond Chan Diamond Contributor
6 years ago

You are right that app permission of the device agent itself currently cannot be managed with the afw_set_permission_grant_state  script command.  I have actually mentioned about this limitation earlier in another post at 

    https://discussions.soti.net/thread/usage-stats-permission-for-mobicontrol/

LN
Laurent, NACHBAUER
6 years ago

I'm not talking about the permission of the agent itself, but the permissions that are under additional permissions for the soti surf app. The two of them are permissions to discuss with the mobicontrol agent, something like that.

These two are the ones needed to get surf working.

And I can confirm grant them with the script works fine.

But they are not granted by default when pushing surf, which it should, so the script is needed (but obviously shouldn't be)

JA
John Aiston
6 years ago (edited 6 years ago)

Hi all,

Has anyone tested SOTI surf 14.3.1 Build 2 (April 02, 2019) yet?

If so, have SOTI fixed the additional 2 permissions that have to be agreed to stop SOTI surf crashing?

John.

MD
Matt Dermody Diamond Contributor
6 years ago

I don't believe the issue is with the Surf app itself but rather with how the new AE SOTI agents are attempting to auto-grant permissions silently. If you include a post-install script along with your APK installer package to set all of the required permissions using the scripts that you've already provided then you should be all set. 

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