Android Java weird UCrop permission issue

Question

So here is something that I am just having a world of trouble understanding the issue with. Let me start by saying that I have the proper permissions settings in the manifest file. I also verify that the user has permission to access files in external storage. So here is the crazy issue. I am using UCrop to make it possible to crop an image in my app. For some reason, I have to copy the file to internal storage before I can use it with UCrop. Here is what I mean

    private void LoadImage( Intent data ) {
    try {
        Uri imageUri = data.getData();
        Uri tempUri = IO.CopyTemporaryBitmap( getApplicationContext(), imageUri );

        StartCrop( tempUri , getFilesDir() + "/tempimage.png" );
    }
    catch ( Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        Toast.makeText(this, "Unable to load picture: ", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
    }
}

IO.CopyTemporaryBitmap

    public static Uri CopyTemporaryBitmap( Context context, Uri src ) {
    Bitmap bmp;
    try {
        InputStream imageStream = context.getContentResolver().openInputStream( src );
        bmp = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(imageStream);
    }
    catch ( Exception e ) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        return null;
    }

    if ( bmp == null ) return null;
    File tempPath = new File( GetTempFolder() );
    File file = new File( GetTempFolder() + "tempImage.png" );

    try {
        boolean b = true;
        if (!tempPath.exists()) b = tempPath.mkdirs();
        if ( !file.exists() && b ) b = file.createNewFile();

        if (b) {
            FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(file);
            bmp.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.PNG, 100, out);
        }

        return Uri.fromFile( file );
    }
    catch ( Exception e ) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return null;
}

If I do that, it works. I have Read/Write access so I am able to copy the image to internal and then crop it but if I just do

    private void LoadImage( Intent data ) {
    try {
        Uri imageUri = data.getData();
        StartCrop( imageUri, getFilesDir() + "/tempimage.png" );
    }
    catch ( Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        Toast.makeText(this, "Unable to load picture: ", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
    }
}

Then I get

E/TransformImageView: onFailure: setImageUri
java.io.FileNotFoundException: open failed: EACCES (Permission denied)
    at android.os.ParcelFileDescriptor.openInternal(ParcelFileDescriptor.java:315)
    at android.os.ParcelFileDescriptor.open(ParcelFileDescriptor.java:220)
    at android.content.ContentResolver.openAssetFileDescriptor(ContentResolver.java:1498)
    at android.content.ContentResolver.openFileDescriptor(ContentResolver.java:1338)
    at android.content.ContentResolver.openFileDescriptor(ContentResolver.java:1286)
    at com.yalantis.ucrop.task.BitmapLoadTask.doInBackground(BitmapLoadTask.java:97)
    at com.yalantis.ucrop.task.BitmapLoadTask.doInBackground(BitmapLoadTask.java:41)
    at android.os.AsyncTask$3.call(AsyncTask.java:378)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
    at android.os.AsyncTask$SerialExecutor$1.run(AsyncTask.java:289)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1167)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:641)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:919)

After quite a lot of debugging I found the culprit to be the setImageUri method in TransformImageView.java class which is part of UCrop and I did not write.

/**
 * This method takes an Uri as a parameter, then calls method to decode it into Bitmap with specified size.
 *
 * @param imageUri - image Uri
 * @throws Exception - can throw exception if having problems with decoding Uri or OOM.
 */
public void setImageUri(@NonNull Uri imageUri, @Nullable Uri outputUri) throws Exception {
    int maxBitmapSize = getMaxBitmapSize();

    BitmapLoadUtils.decodeBitmapInBackground(getContext(), imageUri, outputUri, maxBitmapSize, maxBitmapSize,
            new BitmapLoadCallback() {

                @Override
                public void onBitmapLoaded(@NonNull Bitmap bitmap, @NonNull ExifInfo exifInfo, @NonNull String imageInputPath, @Nullable String imageOutputPath) {
                    mImageInputPath = imageInputPath;
                    mImageOutputPath = imageOutputPath;
                    mExifInfo = exifInfo;

                    mBitmapDecoded = true;
                    setImageBitmap(bitmap);
                }

                @Override
                public void onFailure(@NonNull Exception bitmapWorkerException) {
                    Log.e(TAG, "onFailure: setImageUri", bitmapWorkerException);
                    if (mTransformImageListener != null) {
                        mTransformImageListener.onLoadFailure(bitmapWorkerException);
                    }
                }
            });
}

For whatever reason, "BitmapLoadUtils.decodeBitmapInBackground..." always triggers the "onFailure" option with "Permission Denied." Any clues?

Answer 1

Here is what I found that fixed the issue:

I added

android:requestLegacyExternalStorage="true"

to my manifest under the application section.

It looks like things have changed with storage. For details you can read,

https://commonsware.com/blog/2019/06/07/death-external-storage-end-saga.html

Answer 2

Well, this seems to be an API level issue, Targeting API LEVEL 29 due to a problem in what is so called "scopping mechanism" specially in new Android versions like Android 10

the solution you provided first would be the best for now.