hello, sudokai!

how can I help you today?

Hi Mark!

I'm using Android Studio and can't access my app's internal storage directory

Using the Device File Explorer

Has this ever happened to you?

are you building a debug or a release build?

I think it's a debug build

you can't view internal storage for release builds on hardware, which is why I asked

is this on a device or emulator that you are having trouble?

Real device

I'm getting a permissions error

run-as: /data has wrong owner: 0/1000, not 1000

are you able to see any of internal storage? or, what specifically are you doing that is triggering that error?

I'm going through the Explore Android book and I just wanted to take a peek inside the directory

But I'm not able to

OK, but, what did you click on (or right-click on, or something) that caused that error to display?

For apps that I installed through Play Store, I get "run-as: package not debuggable: com.discord"

right, and that's a release build

But for the todo app, I get "run-as: /data has wrong owner: 0/1000, not 1000"

So, I get to see data/data

and the list of apps

Then I double click on com.commonsware.todo

And I see this error

OK, that's new

it shows up in the same place as the "run-as: package not debuggable" message?

I've tried both Android studio 3.6.2 and 4.0 beta, same thing on both IDEs

Yes, exactly!

Red text

what is the device?

A Huawei Mate 20 (Android 10)

I know, one of the worst OEM manufacturers

yeah, I was going to say something like that

Maybe it's related to some update of theirs

if I had to guess, it's a device issue

they also used to have this screwy system where you needed to get an account on one of their servers to be able to enable USB debugging

if that's still the case, it may be that this problem is a side-effect of that system

I used to be able to see the files when connecting the same device to a Linux workstation

that's interesting -- what OS are you trying now?

But now everyone is quarantined and from my home macbook, it doesn't work

hmmm... I would have expected similar results there

had you said "Windows", there might be a driver issue

Again, they might have changed the behavior in a recent OS update, but I'm not really sure because they update the phone overnight and sometimes you don't see any update notifications

yuck

It's all done transparently

there's a difference between "transparently" and "behind your back" :-)

I saw a single Stackoverflow questions with the exact problem

But no answers

from February 2020

You've never seen this before, have you?

no

now, I happen to run Linux

Well, I'll definitely check again with Linux when I get to go to the office

and I don't test on Huawei hardware other than Nexus models they made (6P, IIRC)

I did manage to get WiFi debugging working on this device though :)

well, that's a plus

though that does raise a question: have you tried your scenario with a USB cable, or only over WiFi?

I tried it with a USB cable

Yes, because the new modern phones don't have a headphone jack, only the usb c connector

OK -- the WiFi debugging was just unusual enough that I figured it was worth checking

So it was annoying not being able to use your headphones when your phone was plugged in for debugging

in my case, I've acquired a lot of hardware, so my "daily driver" device isn't the one I usually test with

(unless I need a test with that specific model)

What kind of devices do you test on usually?

Manufacturers? Android versions?

usually a Pixel for day-to-day stuff

and I have a lineup of Samsungs, LGs, and Nokia when I want to try other scenarios (OS version, screen dimensions, etc.)

but, overall, I have ~60 devices

Anything unusual you've seen? Like oh, I always need to test with a Samsung phone because of X

Oh wow

That's a looot!

I can't say that I have categories of problems that I need to test on certain manufacturers' hardware

but, for example, one of my Nokia devices is an Android One device

and a couple have notches or pinholes for the front-facing camera

You must have spent a fortune acquiring them

yes, but they are business expenses, so...

Oh, notches!

it used to be that I was acquiring hardware specifically to test cameras, back when I maintained camera libraries

since I got out of that, more of my purchases have been for those specific sorts of hardware things, in case I needed them

so, a recent purchase was a Samsung Galaxy A50, as it has an in-screen fingerprint reader

So before releasing an app, you go through all those devices?

well, I don't release apps personally too much -- my client has that job

(for whoever my consulting client is at the time)

most of the testing is actually for the books and blog posts and stuff

but, I will try my clients' apps on different hardware where I anticipate problems

or, for variety

I finished Explore Android. Very nice book.

thanks!

I like your iterative style.

that book (and its predecessors) is a pain to maintain

Also, I don't CTRL C and CTRL V. Rather I type the code in.

Old school.

:)

perfectly reasonable

I find that it really helps

I've looked for different learning materials

and books like Explore Android are the ones that suit me best. Iterate and then incrementally understand the process, while doing something end to end.

I find most video lessons very slow and not even well explained.

I've had that sort of step-by-step materials for a long time, mostly stemming from when I teach Android app development live

I'm all the time like, just show me an example. I can read code!

on the other hand, there are lots of developers today who would not dream of reading a programming book

different people have different approaches that they prefer

I also like the fact that you use the latest libraries and techniques

yeah, I'm updating *Exploring Android* now for Android Studio 3.6

There's nothing more offputting imo, than getting the sample and spending at least 30 min trying to fix all the compilation problems

I saw that Udacity is still teaching RecyclerView with the Android Support Library

All Java, no Kotlin

those sorts of training videos are *really* a pain to maintain

which is why a lot of places don't do it

That's something that really irks me. Like, I'm learning and what I'm learning is already deprecated.

Did you see they are changing the onActivityResult stuff?

you mean with the ActivityResult class (or whatever it's called -- I forget the name)

no the callback

there's a new way to do it, but it hasn't made it into stable yet

there's a whole family of ActivityResult* classes

but the docs have been changed

"While the underlying startActivityForResult() and onActivityResult() APIs are available on the Activity class on all API levels, it is strongly recommended to use the Activity Result APIs introduced in AndroidX Activity 1.2.0-alpha02 and Fragment 1.3.0-alpha02."

yeah, Gogole advocating alpha libraries grates on my nerves

(er, "Google", not "Gogole")

Well, I like the new way :)

oh, it's almost certainly an improvement

at the same time, newcomers shouldn't be using alpha-grade Google code

Yeah, they are also promoting the heck out of the Firebase beta libraries

Even sent a newsletter

Btw, back to the topic of phone manufacturers for a moment, you know these manufacturers, like Huawei, that kill background apps... Anything you can do about it as a developer?

It seems like there's nothing you can do.

other than drown your sorrows in your beverage of choice, AFAIK, there is little that you can do

I've gotten to the point of trying to steer developers away from background processing

They kill your app when the screen is off for a few minutes

Foreground services, whatever

They don't care.

yeah, they got on a serious battery-savings kick ~3 years ago

and that's when all those sorts of things started in

based on all the reports I've seen

I really wish Google would do something about this.

Because users always blame the app makers.

I wouldn't rule out Google trying to constrain how bad this gets, but I wouldn't count on it, either

I know it's a lot of work to maintain the books, but man, The Busy Coder's Guide is a life-saver

it has a lot of depth, though for core stuff it's starting to show its age

Do you plan to migrate more stuff over there to Elements of Jetpack?

not much

I want *Elements of Android Jetpack* to remain a reasonable size

so, there's lots of things in *The Busy Coder's Guide* that are unlikely to get revisited

I mean, I really like the fact that you can find almost anything there

part of the problem is that I can't spend time on the books the way that I used to

Oh that's a shame!

writing *The Busy Coder's Guide* and teaching classes was literally my full time (plus) job

however, book sales have fallen off, and corporate training has as well

so, I do more consulting and similar sorts of contract work

which leaves less time for the books

I'm sorry to hear that. As I said before, maybe charge more?

I see all sorts of subscription sites that charge 20 dollars per month

For those video lessons we talked about before. Udacity's nanodegrees? Way more expensive.

at this point, particularly for a book-centric offering, I don't think I can charge anywhere near those prices

the difference between the early years and now is partly the change in format (more videos) and partly the fact that Android has matured a lot so there's a ton of blog posts and stuff

I mean, take any Manning book, they are not even updated or mantained once released

They charge you 50 bucks

Same with OReilly

Few video courses are worth it

I took the beginner Android course on RayWenderlich. 2.5h of videos and they teach you to make a single activity with one button and onRestoreInstanceState for rotations.

that's... slow

Well, the Udacity courses are not any better

Tbh, I think there's a big hole in the Android training market

I see way more quality stuff for web development

yes, though I haven't figured out a pricing and delivery model that I like, other than classic corporate on-site training

and that particular segment may take ages to recover from COVID-19

In webdev, the golden standard of video training is Laracasts by Jeffrey Way.

Jeffrey Way absolutely nails it and he has years and years of content.

But nothing even close to that for Android.

That's how I actually ended up finding your books.

through Laracasts?

No no, I mean

I exhausted my search and still couldn't find anything

Then I saw your books and I thought, well, who knows if they are okay, but 20 dollars is really cheap so what the hell

:D

Turned out to be top quality

thanks!

tell your friends!

:-)

Okay, sure!

I think people are afraid of books

Because 1. there are a lot of words

2. A lot of them, if not most, are outdated

I've been burned so many times by Manning and OReilly

Elasticsearch in Action. The day the book came out, none of the sample code worked.

Because weeks before, a major version of Elasticsearch had been relesed.

classic print publishing lead times are a problem

I think Explore Android is the sweet spot.

For learning.

Then The Busy Guide for reference.

Like I need to work with NFC. Okay, I got a chapter on that.

that chapter hopefully holds up, but I probably have not touched it in 5 years

Well, I don't mind sending you emails if I find anything out of date.

on the whole, consider *The Busy Coder's Guide* to be something to set you in a direction to go, but there may be some adjustments needed

though in NFC, the only thing I can think of is that Android Beam got dropped

so the APIs that I discuss should still be fairly relevant

btw, I think there's another instance of the same errata I sent you a while back

Towards the end of Explore Android

viewLifecycleOwner

Do you remember?

I remember you pointing out a bug where I missed using it

I'll try to find the exact page

Yes, so there's another place

Where instead of using viewLifecycleOwner, you use this

OK, I'll keep an eye out for it as I go through the current round of revisions

the problem is that "this" compiles so nicely... :-)

Well, I get a nice red lint error

Anyway, I think I gtg. Talk to you next time Mark! I'll try to find this page on the book.

thanks!

and have a pleasant day!

You too!