[MediaElement] on Android : do we really need all those permissions ?

[Skarzag]

Hi,

I've implemented MediaElement on our app to play local video files.
Everything work as expected by following the documentation.

But with Android 14, Google ask us why do we need FOREGROUND_SERVICE_MEDIA_PLAYBACK.
So i'm asking myself, yes... why do we need that ?

We just want to play the video when the user is watching it, nothing more.

Do we need all those lines in our manifest to handle a simple video playing ?

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.FOREGROUND_SERVICE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.POST_NOTIFICATIONS" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.MEDIA_CONTENT_CONTROL" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.FOREGROUND_SERVICE_MEDIA_PLAYBACK" />
<application android:allowBackup="false" android:label="Me&amp;MyTBM" android:icon="@mipmap/android_appicon">
	<service android:name="communityToolkit.maui.media.services" android:exported="false" android:enabled="true" android:foregroundServiceType="mediaPlayback">
		<intent-filter>
			<action android:name="android.intent.action.MEDIA_BUTTON" />
		</intent-filter>
		<intent-filter>
			<action android:name="androidx.media3.session.MediaSessionService" />
		</intent-filter>
	</service>

I know that i can simply deactivate those permissions and test it (doing it right now)... but i want to know why this seems mandatory in the tutorial. Also, this can help some other people with the same problem so let's make it public !

Thanks and sorry if my english is clunky

[pictos]

@Skarzag Docs are meant to instruct devs to use all the features. We expect devs to be able to judge which one they need for their app proposals.

[ne0rrmatrix]

@pictos I have figured out how to remove any need for developers to add permissions. We can generate it automatically by injecting xml fragments into the manifest ourselves. The only question that remains is do we want to automate this and not require users to do this themselves? This would lessen the number of bug reports I imagine. We have had a few in the last couple of weeks that were solved by just pointing this out.

[pictos]

The attribute that I pasted before does that. But I presume you're talking about some clever way of doing that, what do you have in mind?

[ne0rrmatrix]

I needed to add service and intent filter too. I realized I had already done everything I needed except for fragment. Your post was the final thing I needed to actually put everything together. #2500

[ne0rrmatrix]

I would not describe what I did as clever. I wish it was. It was a simple realization after seeing your post that this was all that was required. I did not know that you could it this way. I give you credit for providing a ready made answer. The only thing I did was implement the solution.

[pictos]

The way you did, is what I had in mind. I just didn't figure what you mean by intent-filters - at first glance - so I was presuming you would do another kind of solution.

The credit is ours, team work (;

[Pmr-precure]

I have a question for this aswell. Now when we updated the MediaElement we had to add the MediaPlayBack Foreground service. That results in rejection on Google play, because we need to fill out why we use this service. Eventhough we only use it for playing some tutorial videos. Other than that. After users has gone through the tutorials. They still see the "Video player notification". No way for opting out?

[bijington]

It will mean that we will have to revert the changes in this PR #2500 but it would be nice to consider how we could still automatically set the permissions when they are used

[ne0rrmatrix]

I added needs discussion to #2225. We can discuss adding it at the next meeting.

[JoacimWall]

Hi

We have an app that plays a video without sound that loops on a page. In previous versions it stopped playing when the user leaves the app but now it continues. Since Media elements do not use caching on Android, the app continues to download the same video all the time without the user seeing this and consuming data. A change of this type should been opt in. On Android API 34 it becomes foreground service without even adding the right properties in the manifest. On API 35 you get build errors.

Is there any solution to opt out from this?
Right now we can't use the video player in the app the cost will be too high.
Is there any plans on add cache support for android?
We can download the video locally and stream from that to save data but there is no way to opt out from the foreground service.

[ne0rrmatrix]

We talked about this today on our monthly meeting and I am planning to add a discussion to start the process of adding it as an opt out with a per instance option. I will be opening a discussion and then after it is approved I will open a PR to start the process. This is a great idea.

[narciszait]

Hi - following the discussion here as well.
Any news/updates since March 7 about this?