Network Permission Toggle Side Effects

graphene_noob

I've noticed some apps not playing nicely when their network permission is revoked. Note that these apps run fine when it has network permission but the phone is in airplane mode/wifi turned off (effectively no internet).

The crash reports show that when wifi or mobile data is enabled, the app will attempt to make a network call even if its network permission toggle is off and then crash. Are these apps querying the network state despite permission being revoked? If so seems like querying can't be stopped since its in the code of the application, but can is there a way to spoof the state of the network for specific apps?

I'd appreciate any input, thanks guys!

de0u

graphene_noob The crash reports show that when wifi or mobile data is enabled, the app will attempt to make a network call even if its network permission toggle is off and then crash. Are these apps querying the network state despite permission being revoked?

Revoking network access is a GrapheneOS extension that most apps don't understand.

graphene_noob Is there a way to spoof the state of the network for specific apps?

I guess you could run the app in a secondary profile with a mandatory VPN that is logged out.

But arguably the app author should just handle the exception.

graphene_noob

Thanks for the reply! That's a good idea for a workaround, but of course has a lot of limitations. I wonder if it would be feasible for the OS to spoof network state as part of the network permission toggle. Even if it were, I imagine it would be very low priority since you could just turn on network permissions for the app to get it to work (even though you only need its offline functionality).

de0u

graphene_noob I wonder if it would be feasible for the OS to spoof network state as part of the network permission toggle.

It might well be! Feel free to open an issue on GitHub. Ideally list apps and include stack traces.