I have just written a rather long email to Santander's developers. I poured my heart out in the most professional way. Gave as many facts as I could. Quoted things from the GOS website explaining the benefits of Secure app spawning and other things. I mentioned the other banks that explicitly support GOS. I explained that I wasn't talking on behalf of GrapheneOS devs but rather the community. It took me hours and I believe it's as good as I could I could have done. (I'm sure others could have do a better but, my best anyway...)

If they reply I will give details here. If they don't within a couple of weeks, I send it one more time.

Not having high hopes but I put my heart and soul into the email so finger's crossed I guess...

    I have Secure App Spawning enabled (which is the default) and I don't have any problem with the Santander app version 5.16.1. I see in Aurora Store that an update to version 5.17 is available. Maybe this is where the problem got introduced? The changelog just says "you can now search your transactions and view your personalised product offers".

    For now, I have to wonder what's less insecure - not updating the Santander app or disabling Secure App Spawning.

      Viewpoint0232 My problem came on version 5.17 using playstore and play services in Private spaces using p7a

        Viewpoint0232

        Viewpoint0232 For now, I have to wonder what's less insecure - not updating the Santander app or disabling Secure App Spawning.

        Also IMO lowering your security to make a bank app work is a red flag for me, think it should be the other way round.

            Try this..
            Force stop the Santander app and it should then work.
            Working for me randomly

            Apologise, work once but now its not working again. Shame

            Personally, I just moved all my money to my Starling account, then I turned Secure app spawning back on and restarted. It's an amazing security feature and there is no reason to disable it for one app.

            I doubt they'll reply to my email but I would love to hear their reasoning...

            And yes it's version 5.17.0 that's not working

              roamer4223 Just opened a Starling account tonight.
              Randomly my Santander app though is now working now and again.. Its in a second profile now and if I end the session or force quit (not found the exact cheat code yet) it sometimes works.

                  geni101 By the way, I am not sure if they are actually actively trying to block GrapheneOS with the changes they made in version 5.17.0. It may be unintentional. That's one of the questions I asked in my email. That's why it might occasionally work as the change might not be directed at GOS users.

                  And I have found Starling to be a much better bank app personally

                      roamer4223 Was kinda thinking the same. I'm interested to see if they will reply you, hope so and thanks for taking your time in writing to them.
                      Also cheers for the heads up on Starling.

                        We've seen apps doing this a few times before and have an idea of why it's happening. It's incredibly rare and caused by a misguided and broken attempt at anti-tampering. It will also likely break in future Android releases and with certain OEM variants of Android. They're likely using some debugging functionality to check the initial call stack and are hard-wiring specific permitted call stacks. Secure spawning has a slightly different initial call stack from how it starts differently. It's possible we can make it align or at least fake it so these apps stop banning GrapheneOS when secure spawning is enabled.

                        11 days later

                        Hi all, any update on this? I tried turning off Secure app spawning but its still not working
                        Thanks
                        Dom

                          CoachDom Only thing I've done to date is open a Starling account and move my money over until I see what happens and in the mean time I can log on via the website and have most functions.
                          If roamer4223 does not hear back I will try and contact them also. If no luck I will just move on and close the account with Santander.