Hello. I'm working on a custom device that is not on the market yet, and I am having issues getting it to work with Google Play. I have root access, so I was able to sideload GooglePlay.apk and GoogleServicesFramework.apk. However, I am forced to use Market Helper in order to download apps. I would like to bake in compatibility to the ROM itself, but am having issues.
I've tried modifying the build.prop to have dummy values for ro.product.{model,device,manufacturer}, as well as ro.hardware and ro.com.google.clientidbase. I feel like I'm close, but the device still fails to be accepted by Play without marker helper.
Any hints or advice are tremendously appreciated!
Sorry, can't help you with the problem.
But I am really interested in your custom device. Could you please tell us more about it?
Cool.
For those who encounter a similar problem, I will post the answer. Credit to (xkcd: Wisdom of the Ancients) for the idea.
edit: the policy of not posting outside links is really annoying. All links have the base: http: slash slash developer dot android dotcom , just add the relevant url and glue it together.
Anyway, here goes. Turns out the build.prop was not the limiting factor.
Explanation of the overall process:
- Developers create an app, and list certain features it depends on in the manifest.xml file located in the root of the apk. ( /guide/topics/manifest/uses-feature-element.html)
- When the Play Store is opened, a call is made to getSystemAvailableFeatures()
- This call is handled by an internal app called PackageManager - (/reference/android/content/pm/PackageManager.html)
-This app looks in /system/etc/permissions and parses the xml files to determine what hardware and software features the phone has. it then sends this list back to the play store. - see( /guide/practices/compatibility.html) and ( /google/play/filters.html )
- The play store then filters the apps, as per the links above.
How to modify this:
- What I’ve done is taken the files from /system/etc/permissions on a galaxy S2 Skyrocket (my personal device), and copied in all of them, without overwriting the already existing files. Now, google play works and allows the download of the same subset of apps as on the Skyrocket.
For those wondering how to include these files at compile time, here is the answer:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2356046
Version Alpha 0.6.0 is now available
I'm back! Not dead yet, I promise. This is actually a relatively small update in terms of user-facing features, with only one really big new thing - support for file uploading - but that's a lot bigger than it might sound. It's the first write support I've implemented in the server, and it also required some fairly massive updates to the HttpServer component (support for binary requests, for POST parameters, for MIME multipart parsing). These will be built upon in forthcoming versions to add support for things like registry editing, in-browser file viewing (possibly editing), and so on. There are also a large number of small fixes and improvements that I've made over the last two-weeks-shy-of-a-year, which should make the server faster, more robust, better able to support concurrent connections, and lighter on device resources. Finally, while the app still targets WP8.0 and should run on 8.0, it now is designed for 8.1 compatibility (especially the AllCapabilities version).
Previous update (0.5.6): This version is mostly bug fixes and UI changes. The biggest changes are: clearer display of weird registry data types, the server now consumes fewer threads (it used to spawn them with wild abandon) and does faster string compares, the app version is now shown on the phone, error pages are now better, if you launch the app without a WiFi IP address it'll offer to take you to the WiFi settings page, connections are no longer closed as soon as the app starts sending a response, and the server now defaults to using the Connection: keep-alive header, with a two-minute timeout. The last change, combined with the second-to-last, should hopefully both do away with the tendency to have the app fail to display a page. However, I shouldn't have *needed* to switch it to "keep-alive" - using "close" should have worked - but it still veeeery occasionally would kill the connection early. Agh. Anyhow, this is better in the meantime.
DevDB offers me a support / Q&A thread. Please use that thread to ask questions; don't PM me unless it needs to be kept private for some reason!
ISSUES ON WP8.1:
It *should* work to deploy the app with "Application Deployment", but if you have a problem try deploying with "Windows Phone Application Deployment 8.1" instead.
Problems have been reported in the past when the app is installed to the SD card. It's small, though; putting it on internal storage shouldn't be a problem.
RESOLVED The AllCapabilities version included a few capabilities that were present in 8.0 but removed in 8.1. Those capabilities have been removed; the AllCapabilities version now deploys and runs on capability-unlocked WP8.1 phones.
IN CASE OF OTHER ISSUES: Please provide a *detailed* error report - what phone and OS version you have, what hacks you've installed, what Webserver version you're running, what you do to get the error to occur, and exactly *what* occurs - and I'll fix it as soon as I can! There's a DevDB section for posting bug reports, and you can also use CodePlex if you want.
I finally implemented file upload! I'll work on getting more stuff like that (file delete, possibly file rename/move/copy, various registry edits), hopefully soon! I also hope to add support for different areas, like an "Applications" path, a "Processes" path, a "Services" path... eventually. Many of those are really hard without good privileges. I'm also looking at moving the server to a background process and making the app just a control UI for it, adding support for authentication and/or HTTPS, adding some stylesheets to the web UI, adding caching, and much more. I did finally implement Connection header support.
Once again, the XAP is published twice. One is a fairly standard XAP that any phone can sideload, and the second has many exotic capabilities to enable viewing of (and writing to) slightly more of the file system and registry. The standard XAP has had its list of capabilities expanded to pretty much all of them that can be used without interop-unlock. The high-capability variant requires not just interop-unlock, but the additional capability-unlock hack available in the interop-unlock thread. The AllCapabilities version now works with WP8.1; sorry for the long delay on that!
An item of note: the AllCapabilities version (or either version, on WP8.1) can open other drives in the file system. On phones with an SD card, it is mounted at D: and you can browse it as normal. Credit to @hjc4869 for this discovery!
DESCRIPTION: This is a simple webserver app which can enumerate those files that are in folders readable from the sandbox, can download and upload (access permitting) files, can browse the registry, and can display the contents of registry values of any type. It runs on WP8.x (not yet tested on W10M). It is a spiritual successor to the Functional Webserver / WebServer (Mango) projects from WP7. This version is still missing a lot of functionality as I decided to implement it from scratch, but it is advancing swiftly. Note that there's no access controls implemented; use it on a public network only at your own risk!
Instructions are simple: sideload the XAP, connect to WiFi (required), run the app (called "WebServer Native Access"), point a web browser (on a PC or phone that is also on that local network) to the URL that the app displays. You should get a basic index page. Click on a Filesystem or Registry link to begin browsing the phone. There's a textbox near the top of all filesystem pages, type in a path there (for example, "C:windows" with no quotes) and hit Enter or click Get Files. You'll see a list of the contents of that folder. Click on a file to download it or a directory to open it. There's also a box for uploading files, one at a time, to the current directory. Navigating the registry is similar, except you'll need to specify the registry hive and then the path from that hive (or no path, to access the root of the hive).
As of v0.6.0, uploading files is finally supported! Other modifications (editing files, creating, deleting, or changing registry keys or values) are currently not supported. They will be "soon" although my personal testing suggests that basically the whole registry, and most of the file system, is off-limits for writing unless you use restricted capabilities.
You might see an error code (error 5 is "ACCESS_DENIED", you'll see it a lot; I should replace it with an appropriate 403 or whatever). Or you might see a status 500 message because of an exception in the server. Or the server may just crash (hopefully not so often anymore...). I'm making it more resilient, but there are still bugs. Please report any previously-unreported issues you find, including how to reproduce them, and I'll fix them if possible.
Also feel free to request features or changes; I'll implement them if reasonably possible. The app is a mixture of C++ and C# code; I could probably have done it all in one or the other but wanted to have a C++ component in case I ran into something that wasn't available in C#, and although it probably would have saved some time, I decided that hacking up a web server in C++ was maybe not the best idea.
The source code is on Codeplex, at the following projects: https://wp8webserver.codeplex.com/ for the server and the app (C#) and https://wp8nativeaccess.codeplex.com/ for the native access wrappers (C++). You may have to fix up the reference paths to get the C# component to see the C++ component correctly. The code is reasonably well documented, but let me know if you have any questions. Permission to re-use the code or components is granted under the MS-PL (Microsoft Permissive License) as posted on Codeplex.
Go forth and find cool stuff!
Version history (see the git commit logs for more detail:
07 July 2013 - 0.2.0: Initial release, FS only, 920 downloads (source: 652 downloads)
14 July 2013 - 0.3.2: initial registry, HTTP server and web app encapsulation, source on Codeplex, 225 downloads
0.3.3: bugfixes, 454 downloads
0.4.2: basic registry values display, 86 downloads
0.4.3: bugfixes, 326 downloads
0.4.6: multistring registry values, bugfixes, updated libraries, first AllCapabilities version (950 downloads), 453 downloads
25 Oct 2013 - 0.4.8: binary and long registry values, formatting and bugfixes, 451 downloads AllCaps, 201 normal
22 Dec 2013 - 0.4.9: all registry value types, better threading, proper resume, remembers port, 97 downloads AllCaps, 53 normal
24 Dec 2013 - 0.5.0: background operation using Location APIs. Downloads: 1011 AllCaps, 963 Normal
20 Jul 2014 - 0.5.1: More capabilities, better navigation. Downloads: 358 AllCaps, 352 normal
07 Aug 2014 - 0.5.3: .REG export, better traversal, bugfixes. Downloads as of 0.5.5 release: 260 AllCaps, 164 normal
10 Oct 2014 - 0.5.5: Bugfixes and back-end work. Downloads as of 0.6.0 release: 140 AllCaps, 113 normal
25 Oct 2014 - 0.5.6: Bugfixes and UI tweaks. Downloads as of 0.6.0 release: 1720 AllCaps, 1334 normal
12 Oct 2015 - 0.6.0: Binary requests, file uploads, bugfixes.
XDA:DevDB Information
WebServer Native Access, Tool/Utility for the Windows Phone 8 General
Contributors
GoodDayToDie
Source Code: https://wp8webserver.codeplex.com/
Version Information
Status: Alpha
Created 2014-10-17
Last Updated 2015-10-12
I'm going to use this space to mention something that's pretty cool:
J. Arturo of http://www.komodosoft.net is using a modified version of the HTTP server that powers this app in the ShareFolder app (http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=e2b9c82e-eaa1-4a3b-9d4a-8a2933a8bdb4) to support opening video files directly from Windows network shares! This was done to work around a limitation of the WP8 media control: it can only source from an isolated storage file or a HTTP URL. By running a server in the background and streaming the video file through it, and pointing the video player control at the localhost URL, it becomes possible to play the file on the phone without first copying it to the app's isolated storage. A very cool way to solve the problem! Also, reviewing the changes that were made to the network code of the server pointed me toward those threading fixes I made that have hopefully much improved version 0.4.9.
Please note that the updated version of ShareFolder with this feature may not yet be available, although it should be soon. It is a commercial (paid) app, but the author sought and received permission to use my code (although the license does not require such permission be received).
What exactly is the problem with sockets? I am battling myself with sockets atm too, maybe we can share knowledge?
Strictly speaking, the problem was with the phone's limited subset of the Sockets API forcing me to access it through functions I wouldn't normally use (asynchronous everything, SocketAsyncEventArgs and lambdas and AutoResetEvents and so on everywhere...) but I've got a pretty good handle on it now, at least for the System.Net.Sockets.Socket and its friends. The new .NET 4.x ones (using the async keyword and all) are in a different namespace; I didn't mess with them. They are more abstracted from the Bekeley sockets interface that I'm used to from C, but they are also (supposedly) more user-friendly, especially if you don't feel like writing all your own thread management code (and in fairness, I should re-write the webserver's threading to use threadpools; they're better for this type of work).
If you want to ask questions about the topic, I suggest starting a new thread (possibly in the Q&A subforum, although it's also dev related...) and I'll answer if I can.
GoodDayToDie, just an idea: how about sharing your source code via CodePlex or GitHub?
Oh man, this is pretty nice! GoodDayToDie does it again!
So far, I can read \Windows, the current install folder which you access just by typing "." with no quotes and the current application folder by typing ".." I can access the .dlls, .winmd and AppManifest.xml from the current install, but from everywhere else, it goes boom. This is a great step towards something awesome though!
EDIT:
I was wrong. For some reason, when you click on a folder it's trying to "download" it, rather than chdir. I can get pretty far into the Windows directory.
THAT's what you meant by "Click on a file (note: there's no current way to tell the difference between files and folders) to download it.
You might see an error code (error 5 is "ACCESS_DENIED", you'll see it a lot). Or you might see a status 500 message because of an exception in the server. It's getting a lot more resilient but there are surely still some bugs. ".
If you see a folder, just type the full path to it instead of clicking on it and you will be able to read the contents.
ANOTHER EDIT:
I just found a file inside of the \Windows\System32 directory named [guid].devicemetadata-ms (It's easier to just search for "devicemetadata-ms"). It's a cab file with some metadata about WP8 with a sign.cat and packagesign.cat file in the archive. I don't know what these files could potentially be useful for.
New version in a day or two (busy tonight). Features I plan to implement (not necessarily in the next version or at any particular time):
File upload (IsoStore and, of all crazy things, install directory are writable. I think I'll put a flag on each FS page that says whether the current dir is writable...).
File deletion (where possible, of course).
File and Directory distinction in the listing (clicking a dir should open it, not error out).
Filesystem index page with links to folders that can be accessed successfully (since the root isn't readable).
Some more file info (size, probably attributes, possibly permissions).
Possibly an option to preview a file (as plain text) without downloading it.
Some kind of background mode (the server uses minimal resources when not actively servicing a request, so I'll see if I can get it to work in the background, perhaps by abusing the music transfer agent...)
Some kind of offline mode (at least basic file browsing within the app, as an alternative to using the web interface, though I might just make a second app for that).
Source code changes: separate the server code from the webapp / phone app code (move it into its own project).
Source code changes: move to a hosted version control service, probably CodePlex (good suggestion sensboston).
Maybe add an icon and such...
Any other suggestions?
I also want to try experimenting with various non-standard capabilities and see if I can get access to more of the system . I've already added the ability to access removable storage, but I've also found a bunch of really weird and frequently undocumented capabilities in the OS's policy configuration files, and I need to look into those... The interesting (and possibly the uninteresting) ones are probably blocked for unsigned sideloaded apps, but it's worth checking on anyhow.
Yeah sorry, I should have been more explicit about clicking on dirs. not working in 0.2.0. Also, it's "unofficial" but if you check the URL bar you'll see a URL parameter called something like "pattern" (by default, it's *) and if you change that, you can filter the results. For example, "foo*.exe" (note: no quotes!) will search for EXE files whose names start with "foo". Among other uses, this makes it a lot faster to load large dirs like System32. This will be added to the UI at some point. Also note that URL decoding is applied correctly to querystring parameters (Probably already noticed with the path sometimes written using %5C for \) so you can add special characters that way if needed, though currently any of them but \ will probably just cause an exception.
...
Actually, does this filesystem support Alternate Data Streams? If so, you should be able to download them by appending a : and the ADS name to the filename in the download URL...
OK, so that was a new version in five days. Sorry, stuff takes time.
The source code is now on Codeplex. The native access portion is at https://wp8nativeaccess.codeplex.com/, and the web server portion is at https://wp8webserver.codeplex.com/. Both are licensed MS-PL and use Git for version control. The full XAP is also available for download from the Webserver project on Codeplex.
GoodDayToDie said:
OK, so that was a new version in five days. Sorry, stuff takes time.
The source code is now on Codeplex. The native access portion is at https://wp8nativeaccess.codeplex.com/, and the web server portion is at https://wp8webserver.codeplex.com/. Both are licensed MS-PL and use Git for version control. The full XAP is also available for download from the Webserver project on Codeplex.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are a god. I'll be sure to post my findings .
Hmm. When I first load up WebServer File Access then access from my laptop, I get the main page then the program crashes on my phone. It seems to hold a lock on to the socket as i can no longer access port 9999 from any other device when re-opening the app. I can access it again when I reboot, but the same thing happens.
EDIT: I think it may be due to the WiFi at work... it's junky. I'll try again when I get home. I was just able to browse some directories.
Wow, that's completely unexpected... I can beef up the error chacking and handling around the listener port though. That part of the code is really straightforward, so I actually haven't hardened it very much. I can also put in a Finally block to close the socket and/or mark the socket as re-usable so that other apps (or the same one again) can listen on it in the future.
I also plan to add support for setting your own port, but that doesn't solve the underlying problem. I'll put in more error reporting as well, to enable better debugging. Thanks for the report! Always good to have users report problems so I know where to prioritize fixes.
GoodDayToDie said:
Wow, that's completely unexpected... I can beef up the error chacking and handling around the listener port though. That part of the code is really straightforward, so I actually haven't hardened it very much. I can also put in a Finally block to close the socket and/or mark the socket as re-usable so that other apps (or the same one again) can listen on it in the future.
I also plan to add support for setting your own port, but that doesn't solve the underlying problem. I'll put in more error reporting as well, to enable better debugging. Thanks for the report! Always good to have users report problems so I know where to prioritize fixes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried the app at home and it DOES crash on the first hit of the home page, but I'm able to open it up again and it works fine.
The new version 0.3.3 should be more rebust; try it and let me know if you still have issues. If you do, let me know what the exception message is (and any other info you can provide) and I'll try to track it down.
Downloading really big files should also work now. The app will read and push files in smaller chunks (the code to do this existed in the NativeAccess library before, but wasn't used).
a simple SDK?
Dear Sir
Will it be possible for you to make some sort of SDK from this so other developers can integrate this into their apps and enable browsing isolatedstorage?
Sorry if it is a stupid question.
Bruce_X_Lee said:
Dear Sir
Will it be possible for you to make some sort of SDK from this so other developers can integrate this into their apps and enable browsing isolatedstorage?
Sorry if it is a stupid question.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With the restrictions in permissions, this app only allows browsing of the app's isolatedstorage locally. You are able to use the IsolatedStorage API within your app to browse files and directories already.
snickler said:
With the restrictions in permissions, this app only allows browsing of the app's isolatedstorage locally. You are able to use the IsolatedStorage API within your app to browse files and directories already.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's right. What I want is to allow the end user to be able to browse the isolatedstorage. Imagine I have a video download app, I want the user to be able to transfer those downloaded videos from the app's isolated storage to, say, a PC.
One can do this by integrating the webserver code into the said app.
Bruce_X_Lee said:
That's right. What I want is to allow the end user to be able to browse the isolatedstorage. Imagine I have a video download app, I want the user to be able to transfer those downloaded videos from the app's isolated storage to, say, a PC.
One can do this by integrating the webserver code into the said app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahh I see what you mean now. That sounds like a pretty nice idea. I think more research needs to be done to see whether it would even be allowed in the marketplace.
The webserver portion is stand-alone (builds to its own .NET DLL with no dependencies on the other parts) and has a pretty clean interface. You'd need to implement the web application portion of it yourself - the thing that generates the response pages for a given request - but the HttpResponse class in the server does a lot of the work of that for you; you basically just specify the content you want to send (as a String or byte array) and it sends it.
I had high hopes (very high!) that I could get tasker to run on the ouya, unfortunately I have not had any luck as of yet.
Maps was installed, as was a few files that needed to be manually installed in /system, but unfortunately neither seemed to work.
Has anybody had any luck? Please let me know if you did, I had big plans for this little system and tasker was a key piece to it.
Thanks.
Well, apparently I'm batting 1000 tonight on threads.
A reboot allowed instillation of the tasker trial version.
It looks like everything works, or as much as you would expect for the ouya. I did two test tasks. First was just a screen popup, which obviously worked great. The other was a reboot to test root access, and this also worked perfect (say hello to automated weekly reboots!).
Now, to see if autoremote can be made to work, and then on to autovoice or utter! and the inherently difficult prospect that will be.
Snoman002 said:
Well, apparently I'm batting 1000 tonight on threads.
A reboot allowed instillation of the tasker trial version.
It looks like everything works, or as much as you would expect for the ouya. I did two test tasks. First was just a screen popup, which obviously worked great. The other was a reboot to test root access, and this also worked perfect (say hello to automated weekly reboots!).
Now, to see if autoremote can be made to work, and then on to autovoice or utter! and the inherently difficult prospect that will be.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please periodically update this thread with your progress? Curious to follow suit, though don't have the time to help in the investigations
A few issues with tasker itself, such as I can't download from Google play, it won't recognize my original order #, i can't find 'my' .apk, basically can't get my purchased version working and am stuck on the 7 day trial version. As for functionality it works great.
Current main task is to start XBMC if Autoremote received a certain message, as well as sending a message when xbmc is open and a different one when it closes.
On my tablet when I fire up the Yatse app, Tasker checks to see if XBMC is running, if not it displays a popup asking if I want to start xbmc. If I say yes it sends a command through autoremote which is what triggers tasker to start xbmc.
OK, a few things I have found.
Originally I could not download Tasker through the Play Store as the Ouya showed up as 'incompatible', however after a Play Store crash that removed it from my system, and subsequent reinstall, I can now download it from Google Play. I don't know why this was, but when I first did the play store mod I didn't have busybox installed, I did for the reinstall. I don't need the play version however as I was able to get the 'Trial' version validated, which is good as the direct download has added functionality (that I will never use). To validate the trial version you need to find the 15 digit order number (not the 16 digit Google provides in the email). This is best accomplished by using the 'Contact Crafty Apps' link in the email, and then finding Tasker, the 15 digit order number should then be visible. This only works if you bought Tasker before March 2013 though, otherwise you will need the Play store version (thanks Google :/)
To get Tasker to run you need to be Rooted and move two Google files to the proper location on the Ouya. Tasker will not run without the Google maps framework and oddly enough installing Google maps doesn't install the full framework. You can get these files by flashing the gapps package with CWM, or just install the two files themselves. To get the files unzip the gapps package, I think in the 'framework' folder. You need to move com.Google.android.maps.XML to /system/etc/permissions, and move com.Google.android.maps.jar to /system/framework. This WILL require you to remount /system as writeable. ES File Explorer worked for me (download an old version, 3.0.4 maybe, as the newest Play store version crashes), it was the only free root access file manager to work for me. Remount /system back to the way it was. BTW, I did all of this without adb, it was all done on the system itself with some help from dropbox (unzipped on my nexus, it was easier).
Tasker itself works great and I currently have it sending messages through autoremote to update variables on my other devices, this triggers a popup that asks if I want to start XBMC when I start my XBMC remote app (only if XBMC isn't running). If I select yes then it sends an Autoremote message that triggers a Tasker profile that starts XBMC. I also have Utter! setup to trigger the 'Start XBMC' Auto remote message on my Nexus
My next two tasks will be for an automatic nightly reboot, and a task that sends the Ouya into sleep mode when I start my alarm clock app on my nexus. I'm still trying to think of good ideas to implement. I hope to get a microphone working to use voice commands directly on the Ouya, and my dream is for an IR blaster to work so the Ouya could turn on my TV with voice commands (old TV)
Snoman002 said:
OK, a few things I have found.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow! I really commend you for your perseverance and willingness to share your experience and findings...people don't realize how much this helps others.
Scenes Working
Hey Snoman002,
I have my Ouya rooted and found a Tasker that can be used to mount and unmount NFS mounts. I have the two google maps files installed and have version 4.2 of Tasker installed. When i try to open the scene or even create a new one Tasker closes and goes back to the Make Menu. Have you seen a similar thing with the version you have been using ?
Thanks
Techhhead33
Techhead33 said:
Hey Snoman002,
I have my Ouya rooted and found a Tasker that can be used to mount and unmount NFS mounts. I have the two google maps files installed and have version 4.2 of Tasker installed. When i try to open the scene or even create a new one Tasker closes and goes back to the Make Menu. Have you seen a similar thing with the version you have been using ?
Thanks
Techhhead33
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sadly, other than getting it running initially I have done nothing more with Tasked on my ouya.
Your trying to make a scene in tasked? Scenes are really only for overlays and custom menus (drastic oversimplification I know). I fail to see the need for the complication of a scene just for mounting and unmounting. Perhaps you could change the tasker task to a simple popup menu (which now that I think about it may be a scene...). Popups worked for me, but that's all I can say about it.
Sorry, I'm not here much anymore as my ouya just runs xbmc now. I will try and check in more often.