Please don't deny needed permissions to the android app ;-)

Hi ya’ll,

Someone out there is apparently frustrated because the app keeps popping up a toast saying it needs location permissions to work properly and they keep clicking the “report bug” problem.


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07:36:52.536 PM
com.geeksville.mesh.MainActivity: Checking permissions
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07:36:52.541 PM
com.geeksville.mesh.MainActivity: Still missing needed bluetooth permissions
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07:36:52.545 PM
com.geeksville.mesh.MainActivity: Detected our bluetooth access=false
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07:36:52.604 PM
com.geeksville.mesh.MainActivity: Denied permissions: android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION

Alas - there is nothing we can do about this ;-). Because scanning for bluetooth devices can inadvertently leak location information to apps the android OS will not allow us to to a BLE scan without this permission.

And I get that some of ya’ll are very privacy conscious. If this limitation bothers you please chat with Google. Really - really - you can trust we don’t do anything creepy with your location info and we are super careful even avoid leaking macaddrs into our crash reports (and certainly no location or user ID data). You can even check the source yourself.

But please - whoever you are, stop clicking that report bug button :wink:

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Clicked the ‘Report a Bug’ button just now and saw the confirmation query ‘Are you sure you want to report a bug?’

After clicking ‘Report’ I expected a character-limited text field to appear allowing users to provide context behind why they were certain they wanted to report a bug. When it didn’t, I was very tempted to click it again, on the assumption that my phone was buggy and just didn’t show an input field. This might be what the user you referenced above was thinking when they sent in a couple bug reports. Thinking back now, I may still have clicked that report button multiple times myself. Sorry for the spam!

I didn’t want to actually report a bug, but did want to familiarize myself with the workflow of doing so, up to the point just before actually submitting the bug.

With that being said, it may be helpful to warn the average user (like myself) that hitting the ‘Report’ button on the confirmation screen will immediately send only the main activity of the app at the time of reporting-- While context for the bug report should be provided on this site.

Thanks for all your hard work on this project!

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Three of these arrived today, aliexpress took forever! LILYGO® TTGO Meshtastic T Beam V1.1 ESP32 433/868/915/923Mhz WiFi Bluetooth ESP32 GPS NEO 6M SMA 18650 Battery Holder With OLED|Circuits| - AliExpress

I’ve got Meshtastic beta 1.2.6, firmware updated OTA from 1.0.0 to 1.2.6. App keeps complaining that a required permission is missing but Android seems to disagree. This is a stock pixel 3a xl on android 11 plus Feb updates.

Location: Allow always

App will run on background and without this it will be not able to get your location. “Only while app is in use” means only when it is currently active in foreground.

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Resolved, thank you. Why does the app even use location? Doesn’t the t-beam have it’s own gps?

The stock antenna really sucks. I’ve upgraded all my GPS antennas to bigger ones. if youre using it indoors it might not be able to get a signal at all.

Speaking of antenna, I wish it could rotate 90 degrees for case reasons. If adding a different one, do I use the press connection on the board or the sma screw on one?

Android doesn’t allow apps access to BLE devices unless the app has location permission. Because the ability to ‘see/scan’ BLE devices implicitly ‘leaks’ location information to apps.

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