I need to upload an attachment chosen by the user through our app. The upload works when it is called within the Activity that accepted the URI selected by user. But when I pass the URI to an IntentService so that a huge attachment could be uploaded in the background, I get a "Permission Denial" exception in the IntentService in the following line -
final Uri uri = intent.getData();
//This line works within Activity but throws "Permission Denial" exception in IntentService
ParcelFileDescriptor inputPFD = getContentResolver().openFileDescriptor(uri, "r");
FileDescriptor fd = inputPFD.getFileDescriptor();
final FileInputStream fileInputStream = new FileInputStream(fd);
int bytesAvailable = fileInputStream.available();
Stacktrace
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java.lang.SecurityException: Permission Denial: opening provider com.android.externalstorage.ExternalStorageProvider from ProcessRecord{6148698 8180:com.<package name>/u0a140} (pid=8180, uid=10140) requires that you obtain access using ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT or related APIs
at android.os.Parcel.createException(Parcel.java:2071)
at android.os.Parcel.readException(Parcel.java:2039)
at android.os.Parcel.readException(Parcel.java:1987)
at android.app.IActivityManager$Stub$Proxy.getContentProvider(IActivityManager.java:5054)
at android.app.ActivityThread.acquireProvider(ActivityThread.java:6561)
at android.app.ContextImpl$ApplicationContentResolver.acquireUnstableProvider(ContextImpl.java:2725)
at android.content.ContentResolver.acquireUnstableProvider(ContentResolver.java:2117)
at android.content.ContentResolver.openTypedAssetFileDescriptor(ContentResolver.java:1671)
at android.content.ContentResolver.openAssetFileDescriptor(ContentResolver.java:1503)
at android.content.ContentResolver.openFileDescriptor(ContentResolver.java:1338)
at android.content.ContentResolver.openFileDescriptor(ContentResolver.java:1286)
Please let me know what I might be doing wrong. If openFileDescriptor cannot be used on a URI that was not received by the original Activity, please suggest a good approach to upload huge attachment in the background as the user might move out of the activity after choosing the file to upload. Appreciate your help.
Solved it. The fix is what @CommonsWare suggested - Include FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION on the Intent that you use to launch the IntentService. By default, only your activity has access to the content identified by the Uri