Feature Request A way to stop unity for adding unwanted permissions when building for android

I am requesting a switch or something to tell unity when it makes the manifest, to not include the Record_Audio and Microphone permissions. When creating an Oculus Quest app, and uploading it to the Oculus App store, it lists those permissions as not needed and fails to accept it. Anytime a routine references a Microphone, or Recording, Unity automatically adds those permissions to the android manifest. I have done a lot of searching, and to remove those permissions is very hard. This would make it much easier to get a Unity app on the Oculus App store.
Thanks

 

How about removing the parts of your code referencing the microphone, or recording?

 

I guess that would work, but it is not my code that includes it. It is in the Oculus code. And removing that might work, but each time Oculus is updated, it would be back. That has to be a better way. How many people create games for Oculus Quest?

 

Watch this video and you can see how hard it is to do.

There really should be a better way!

 

Come on people that create Quest 2 Games. Back me up!

 

Thanks so much.

 

Any update?

 

Did you know that you can use a custom AndroidManifest and other custom stuff?

 

No.

 

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/android-manifest.html

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/overriding-android-manifest.html

Solved

 

Will this also exclude the Microphone Permissions?

 

Ok, so basically there "is no fix" but there is a hack. After building your program, download Apktool, decompress the APK, modify de manifest, and recompress to apk. After that, you will need to use zipalign to align the apk. Then finally, sign the apk with apksigner. zipalign and apksigner are on the unity editor instalation SDK\build-tools\30.0.3\

I managed to publish my app yesterday with Oculus Integration 50 and Unity 2022.2.16f1.

 

You can add extra lines within the android manifest in Unity that removes permissions.
Take a look at the UPDATE 2021.04.08 section near the end of this article that provides an example.
https://skarredghost.com/2021/03/24/unity-unwanted-audio-permissions-app-lab/

 

Thanks so much. I did not notice that the video had been updated. That worked GREAT!

 

long time after this question posted but still this problem may be annoying for someone!
I had a similar problem ,one plugin was adding some unwanted permissions and found an easy way to remove them,it may work in your case too.
A brief explaination:
Enable the custom Android Manifest option in player settings
Open the created android manifest file and add permissions you dont want with property of tools:node="remove" and it will override it! no decompile or any tricky method needed!
like this:
(add these tags before starting of application tag in manifest file)

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" tools:node="remove" />

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" tools:node="remove" />

i explained it on another topic too check it out if you need

hope it helps

 

What condition removes this?

So I can't get BLUETOOTH to remove with line

Code (CSharp):

1. <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH" tools:node="remove" />

And yes the manifest is including tools

Code (CSharp):

1. xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"

This is preventing publishing

 

try this:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH" tools:node="remove" />

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH_ADMIN" tools:node="remove"  />

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH_SCAN" tools:node="remove" />

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH_ADVERTISE" tools:node="remove" />

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH_CONNECT" tools:node="remove" />

if it still didn't fix the problem,I recommend you to check your code to see which component or plugin needs Bluetooth ,if didn't find anything check manifest merger report and see what exactly is adding that permission(because hopefuly the source of it will be mentioned there) , and if that didn't help too,you may need to try the hard way,something like decompiling and editing manifest and resigning.(check this)

 

Older versions of Unity allowed us to just specify what permissions we wanted (if I remember correctly). Not sure why this was removed. (current approach is over engineered).

Also Unity's build process breaks and doesn't export AndroidManifest.xml for AndroidStudio project so I can't edit the merged manifest file. And "tools:node="remove"" doesn't work for BLUETOOTH. Logs tell me nothing useful.
So I'm left with micro-removing code trying to figure out what is breaking Unity.

The underlining build system in Unity for Android has been very problematic over the years for plugins, manifest etc.
AndroidManifest settings should always be explicit. This implicit stuff just causes a nightmare of problems & waists huge amounts of time.
Also the UnityActivity should never need to be overwritten for handling common Android events etc. You need a Java callback interface system which can be hooked for UnityActivity events that also get propagated to C# delegate events. (this has been needed since I've been using Unity 3)

 

Problem is this ""tools:node="remove"" doesn't work for BLUETOOTH".

Unity is already programmatically modifying even a custom AndroidManifest.xml file. (this is whats over-engineered)
Instead we should just have requirements for specific features documented we need to enable like it was a long time ago.

Sadly the AndroidManifest file itself is a pretty bad design. (so I blame Google mostly).

 

@jdscogin I just ran into the same issue with my builds and can confirm I was able to fix it using a custom AndroidManifest.xml file, so my builds now upload to the App Lab Alpha channel without errors. This is without having to remove any code or the complicated steps mentioned in the video above. Some past posts referenced this method, but I wanted to share the step-by-step process that worked or me in this thread in case others missed it. @zezba9000 I haven't tested this with the BLUETOOTH permission, so I'm not sure if the same process will work for you :/

Note: I'm using Unity 2021.2.8f1 and targeting Android version 32. @Chris-Mxx it'd be great if Unity added check boxes in Player Settings> Publishing Settings> Build to automate the steps below (if it isn't already in newer versions)!

Here's the steps I followed:

1. In the Unity Editor, go to Oculus>Tools> Create store-compatible AndroidManifest.xml
2. In Player Settings> Publishing Settings> Build, make sure Custom Main Manifest checkbox is checked
3. In Assets, search for AndroidManifest.xml and open it up in your code editor
4. Add this after <manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" :

xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"​

5. Add these two lines after <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.vr.headtracking" android:version="1" android:required="true" />:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO" tools:node="remove" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.MODIFY_AUDIO_SETTINGS" tools:node="remove" />​

6. Increment your Version/Bundle Version Code and enter in your Keystore/Project Key passwords under Player Settings> Publishing Settings, then make a build as usual
7. Upload your build to desired channel using Meta Quest Developer Hub

​

​

 

For others. Here is a PowerShell script to remove permissions. (originally from Oculus dev but fixed)
NOTE: Look at "#TODO: Configure" parts in .ps1 file
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B5uKY_dbdZD9Ffh2fZvJqkAaSiMPgOn4/view?usp=sharing

 

But that's exactly the issue, even with a custom manifest unity overwriting the permission (for unclear reasons). Meaning the bluetooth permission is kept and there is no evident way to remove it.

We currently have only 2 options:

1. Remove Vivox as our VoiP solution
2. Post-build hack the apk manifest

We most likely will remove Vivox as it is preventing us to publish on the official store.

Is there any solution planned for this issue?

 

This doesn't seem to work in Unity 2022.3. Even after updating to 4.4.0, the AndroidManifest file still doesn't get exported. Is this bug not planned to be fixed in Unity 2022.3?

 

Unity is removing the internet access permission when using only built in unity packages and building for XR. this is really getting annoying - why cant we just edit the manifest ourselves, why would you remove internet access of all things? Overriding custom manifest doesnt work, as others have said

 

Yep I'm now running into this with Quest build. What a nightmare. Please guys... let us manually edit what permission get added and keep this simple. This is now getting ridicules to the point of wasting entire days trying to hack around the most basic build things in Unity for Android.

 

Agreed, this is insane just let us control the manifest, why have black box systems affect it like this?

 

@Chris-Mxx @jj-unity @Tanya_Li

 

@MadeFromPolygons FWIW, if you export to Android Studio (implying you need to run the final build there, which can be a pain), there you will have full control over the final AndroidManifest.xml, and Unity won't be able to interfere

☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)

 

The solution by @ohskaren works, but I also had to create a custom launcher manifest as well, following the same steps.

 

I had the same problem but different cause, I'll explain what worked in my case.

Background: In my case I was making a game with ads integrated, then we decided to remove them entirely so the package was removed from the Package Manager, the Ads service was disabled from the project settings, and then updated the App Content section on Google Play Console to state that we're not using ads.

Problem: When pushing to production it gave an error that you are using Ads but not declaring so on App Content section, if I revert the changes on App Content, it gives the opposite error where the it says permission is not declared whereas I am saying we are using ads now, the error is suppressible if you wish to do so, it may solve it but that is not what we tried.

Cause: In this case we had an Internal Testing track still live with Ads in it, suspecting it is the cause of the second error (Permission not declared, App Content says game has ads), that is what turned out to be true.

Solution: I updated the Internal Test track with a new release that does not have the AD_ID permission, suppressed the error and published the update. Now when I went to create a new release back in Production track it did not throw an error, so the permission is not declared and the App Content states that we don't use ads, which is the correct state.

Hope this helps if someone gets into the same case as ours.

 

this is fixed in latest packages