Error updating advertising ID declaration in Google Play Console for a Unity app

Question

How can I solve the following problem?

When I try to update my Unity app on Google Play Console, an error appears saying: In the Play Console declaration, it is stated that your app uses an advertising ID. The manifest file does not include the com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID permission.

If you do not include that permission in the manifest, the advertising identifier will become a string of zeros. This can cause advertising and statistics use cases to stop working, and generate revenue losses.

To remove these errors, update your advertising ID declaration. The advertising identifier for apps targeting Android 13 (API 33) without the AD_ID permission will become a string of zeros. This can affect advertising and statistics use cases.

However, in my manifest file I am including the com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID permission. And when I update my advertising ID declaration by selecting the No option and removing the <uses-permission android:name=“com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID”/> line from my manifest, the opposite happens, that is, an error appears saying that in my manifest I am including the <uses-permission android:name=“com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID”/> line and since I indicated that my application does NOT use an advertising ID, then I must remove that line from my manifest.

What could I do to solve this problem, thank you in advance for your help?

I tried updating my advertising ID declaration in Google Play Console by selecting the ‘No’ option and removing the <uses-permission android:name=“com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID”/> line from my manifest file. I expected this to solve the problem, but instead I received an error saying that I was still including the <uses-permission android:name=“com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID”/> line in my manifest and that I should remove it.

Answer 1

If anyone is still having these problems, I bashed my head against the keyboard for a day until I finally solved it. I had another release that didn't have this permission and used an older build, and somehow this error was presented for my new release without any mention of the older one. So try update/remove any old active builds that don't have this permission.

Answer 2

I just solved this problem by adding in my custom manifest this line:

< uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID" tools:node="remove" />

just before the closing line </ manifest >

The explanation of what is happening to you is because your custom manifest is not the final manifest at build. There are some packages that have their own manifest and all of those are merged. So there must be anything in your packages adding the AD_ID permission.

Unity's custom manifest has the advantage of having the "final decision" at merge time. Anything you write there will overwrite anything from other packages, that's why tools:node="remove" will help in our task.