Unity Android IAP keeps adding READ_PHONE_STATE permission, and I just can't remove it

I'm almost finishing a simple arcade game I've been developing for Android, and I'm currently trying to add a "Remove Ads" feature, which you pay $0,99 to remove the advertisements that occasionaly appear after you lose the game. The ads were pretty easy to implement, but the Unity In App Purchase is really giving me headaches.

The problem is that, no matter what I do, every damn time I import the Unity IAP to the project and build the APK file, the READ_PHONE_STATE permission will be added in there. I don't want this permission in there because, firstly, it's unneccessary for the purchases to work, and secondly, it may make users distrust my game: "If it's just a simple game, why is it asking for allowance to make and manage phone calls??" — And I wouldn't blame them, it's a very reasonable suspicion.

I've been googling around this issue during the entire day and I tried all the solutions I found in the Forums and Answers pages (changing AndroidManifest.xml files, changing target/minimum SDKs, downloading different versions of Unity IAP plugin, etc.), but unfortunately I had no success. So I'm opening a new thread here in order to see if I can get some new information that may help me out. The only way I found to remove it is to delete the entire IAP plugin for my project and then build the APK, but that's obviously not a valid solution and misses my initial purposes entirely.

How can I remove READ_PHONE_STATE permission from my game? Why isn't there a feature that allows me to manage permissions?

 

Also try steps 2 and 3 here: https://answers.unity.com/questions...state.html?childToView=1474277#answer-1474277

 

Step 2 didn't work.

And I can't export the project to Gradle, all tutorials talk about the "Build System" option in the Build Settings window, but it's not in there.

 

Which Unity version are you using?

 

5.3.1f1

 

Then Gradle should be the "Google Android Project" tick, AFAIK.

 

Yeah, I already tried using that and it does create the project. But I'm unable to build an APK with Android Studio or even directly with Gradle on the command prompt.

The furthest I reached was creating a JAR file that dosen't even run in my computer.

 

Hmm, if upgrading your project to at least Unity 5.6 is not an option (for Gradle Build System), then I'm out of ideas. I hope someone can point you in the right direction.

 

Did you manage to remove the permission? I'm facing the same issue.

 

@Yury-Habets got the same issue after upgrading from IAP version 1.12 to 1.17. Nothing else was changed. Move back to previous commit with IAP 1.12 - everything is fine, but after upgrade to 1.17 got READ_PHONE_STATE permission in my manifest.

But version 1.16 doesn't add READ_PHONE_STATE permission.

 

Please test with IAP 1.20, we made some changes in this area.

 

I'm using latest Unity and latest IAP plugin and I can't remove Phone permission. I don't want to upload to Xiomi store then why do I need UnityChannel folder???

 

Please see the previous post by Yury-Habets. I suspect that although IAP itself does not require the permission, it may be triggering a scan of the project and finding assets that have not set the targetSdkVersion.

 

@JeffDUnity3D Hi, it was coming from Chartboost SDK in the project. Thanks for your help.

 

Since upgrading to Unity IAP v1.21.0 and the UDP addition our APK is being injected with the READ_PHONE_STATE permission. I've just unzipped the file udp.aar file and found the permission listed in the manifest file. How can we stop this infecting our main apps manifest file??

 

Do you need the UDP feature?

 

No I don't even know what it is to be honest. We haven't used it and haven't changed any settings to use it. I've simply updated the Unity IAP package from the asset store.

 

To temporarily get around the issue I've had to manually extract the udp.aar file, remove the READ_PHONE_STATE from the manifest and then rezip the aar file. Will this be fixed in an update, or another suggested way to fix it perhaps? thanks.

 

As mentioned, there was no need for you to update to this package. My understanding is that READ_PHONE_STATE is required in China markets (UDP). The suggested way to fix it is to not use this version in your app. You can download previous versions here:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-iap-previous-versions.527432/

 

I'm not sure how else I would have known this. There's no possible way I can be across every message posted on the forum. Unity prompted me to install an update for the Unity IAP package and common practise for most software development is to grab the latest version. Presumably when v1.22.0 or newer versions come out that I do need I will still have the same issue about the UDP manifest infecting my build. It's like the advise about what we should do when new versions come out, generally go trawling though every forum post we can find to see if there's some comment that we should not use the latest version and ignore all prompts to upgrade from the editor because maybe it's a version we don't need. It's a very confusing workflow.

 

Agreed, we are working on this to make it more clear and ease the upgrade process.

 

Thank you. I appreciate you taking this on board. Is there any advise about how to safely downgrade versions? All I can think of is to install the v1.21.0 package in an empty project, take note of what files are added to the project. Manually remove these and then install the v.1.20.0 package.... OR.... do you have to know can I simply import the v1.20.0 package over the top of v1.21.0 and everything will be ok? or some other more official way of uninstalling the Unity IAP package. I guess in the future when the Unity IAP package is located and managed entirely in the new package manger this kind of issue will be easier to address given that the package assets will be nicely organised and not spread in many places around the assets folder.

 

This should help https://forum.unity.com/threads/iap-troubleshooting-remove-and-reinstall-unity-iap.511747/

One note, after you remove the plugin folders, confirm that your game still compiles. If you have any purchasing references in scripts located in another location, you may need to remove the files or comment out the code. The import process currently requires the project to be able to compile during the process.

 

Perfect, thanks.

 

jason_yak
Thanks for resolving. >> udp.aar <<

 

I have ran into this issue too. Just deleted the UDP folder from Assets/Plugins, and got rid of the PHONE_STATE permission. The game seems to compile and work fine.

Apparently i didn't need it at all. (Unity iap added it automatically for some reason)

 

@mtozsahin Please see the previous messages on this thread regarding "for some reason". Also 1.20.1 has been released which is the version that you want.

 

After updating my project (to Unity 2017.4.11f1) and Unity IAP plugin I also had this problem.
I've managed to get rid of this perrmision. Unfortunately I'm unsure which one of the below steps worked:
1. I've downgraded the SDK tools to 25 as per the point 2 in this posts answer: https://answers.unity.com/questions/1433115/android-how-to-remove-read-phone-state.html
This alone did NOT do the trick.
2. I've removed the IAP plugin completely (UDP, UnityChannel and UnityPurchasing folders in the Plugins folder). Later I made sure the project compiles witout it (this required quite a bit of refactoring) and reinstalled the Unity IAP 1.20.1
3. I've added `<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="16" android:targetSdkVersion="25"/>` to the manifest file of UnityChannel (it did not specyfy the target sdk). I made sure the changes are saved to the UnityChannel.aar archive.

Thanks to all the above steps my game is no longer asking the users for unthinkable things.

 

@YD_JMysior Were you using 1.21 previously? If so, that would explain it.

 

Jeff, I also updated from 1.19 to 1.20.1

and get additional unwanted permission - READ_PHONE_STATE

Am I right that now UDP removed from Unity IAP and I should just remove previous version of plug-in and import new one?

Also I should not remove generated tangle files)

 

@Lesha-VH Please see the previous post with instructions regarding reinstall https://forum.unity.com/threads/iap-troubleshooting-remove-and-reinstall-unity-iap.511747/ . As a test, please try adding IAP to an empty project and see if the permission requirement is still present.

 

This did it for me.