Storage Access Framework, Missing in Action

Google has been using carrots (e.g., sample code) and sticks (e.g., ban on the file Uri scheme) to get developers to work with content over files. Part of that is using the Storage Access Framework, which is dominated by three Intent actions: ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT, ACTION_CREATE_DOCUMENT, and ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT_TREE. Google wants us to be using those for requesting content from the user, rather than working solely with the device filesystem.

Hence, it would be really helpful if activities existed for those Intent actions on all relevant devices (Android 4.4+, except for ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT_TREE, which is Android 5.0+). For example, they might have part of Compatibility Test Suite test these actions, so that devices would not ship with broken implementations.

Alas, this does not appear to be the case.

In particular, it is a mixed bag on Android TV. Some devices, like the NVIDIA Shield TV, support the Storage Access Framework. Others, such as the Xiaomi Mi Box, do not. Michael Sotnikov, who brought this to my attention, indicates that other Android TV devices behave like the Mi Box.

That’s bad.

What’s worse is that it is difficult for us to determine which devices are affected. That’s because, technically, ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT and ACTION_CREATE_DOCUMENT are supported… by activities that do nothing other than show a “You don’t have an app that can do this” Toast.

So, not only does the documentation provide no hint that these activities are optional, but our standard detection mechanisms — such as calling resolveActivity() on PackageManager and seeing if it returns null — do not work.

At least for the Mi Box, ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT_TREE is not supported in the traditional way, by simply not having an activity for it. Hence, you can check to see if that Intent resolves and take steps to work around the problem. For ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT and ACTION_CREATE_DOCUMENT, you can check to see if resolveActivity() returns a ResolveInfo pointing at an activity whose ComponentName is… com.google.android.tv.frameworkpackagestubs/.Stubs$DocumentsStub

The com.google.android.tv.frameworkpackagestubs package seems to be a stock Google package — bundled into a FrameworkStubs.apk file — that provides these fake implementations. It seems like a variety of Android TV devices ship with this, perhaps lining up with the devices that Mr. Sotnikov tested.

So, Google decided to not support the Storage Access Framework on some Android TV devices, and failed to document this.

I filed an issue to try to argue that things should move in the other direction, with the CTS confirming the existence of working Storage Access Framework activities, lest we find ourselves with a growing fleet of devices with broken implementations.

Regardless, at least if you are supporting Android TV, have a fallback plan for devices lacking the Storage Access Framework. For example, there are many file chooser libraries for Android; one or more of them may offer a reasonable user experience on a TV.