EBen wrote:Hi Martin,
I have problems writing to my external SD Card (employed in portable Mode) due to the new access rights policy of Marshmallow. The problem occurs when I try to use, e.g., the "write to file" action with a target file on the external Sd card. As far as I understand, this would require the app (automagic in this case) to request the write access right from the user, as described e.g. here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3313 ... to-sd-card
As a workaround, I use the "execute command as root" action with the respective Shell command to achieve my goal. However, it would be nice to get write Access also for the other actions that would require the rights.
Best regards,
Erik
Martin wrote:Hi Erik,
Maybe it's not a problem of the permission but about the external SD card in general.
Automagic should request the permission to write to external storage, otherwise it should not even start respectively show a special 'Grant access' screen. You can also check system settings->apps->Automagic Premium->Permissions: Storage should be turned on.
Writing to a real external SD card should not work since Android ~4.4 (when I recall correctly) since Google does not like apps to write data there (only to a few special directories for each app that are deleted automatically when the app is uninstalled. (I'm aware about SAF but don't like it yet)).
On a rooted device you could use an app like SDFix to allow access to the external SD card.
Regards,
Martin
Hi Martin,
thanks for your answer. However, it contradicts some of my understanding and experiences of external SD card access on Marshmallow, so please excuse my insistence even if based on a kind of half knowledge. I just see a good potential to improve ext SD card access with automagic.
1) system settings->apps->Automagic Premium->Permissions:
Storage is granted, but this only concerns the access to the app-dedicated space on the ext SD card, which I also verified with other apps.
2) SDFix doesn't work on Marshmallow, at least not on my cm13: Error "Platform permission file is invalid, no WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE entry found." Other apps which used to get extSD write access in Lollipop also do not get the access in Marshmallow anymore.
3) As far as I understand, google changed its mind about external SD card access. The new method seems to require user interaction by explicitly selecting a folder via a DocumentProvider.
In my first post, I thought this had been introduced with the runtime access rights of Marshmallow, but as I learnt now it was already introduced with Lollipop, as you can read here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2674 ... r-lollipop
However, it seems that only few app developers had made use of this feature before Marshmallow, but now on Marshmallow the mehod used by SDFix doesn't seem to work any more and app devs are more pushed to use the new SD card access API.
4) Examples for an app which uses that method (I tested and it works on my device) is Titanium Backup, if you select a non-standard location where the backups are stored.
I hope this helps to improve the full extSD card read & write access in Automagic.
Best regards,
Erik