Android Settings - Write Access: Internal Only vs External

Hi,

Our game has been using the 'Other Settings' > 'Write Access' > 'Internal Only' option since launch several months ago. We chose this option because selecting the 'External (SDCard)' option was presenting our users with a scary message on app load requesting access to "Files, Photos and Media."



Until recently, 'Internal Only' has worked well for us. A few days ago we launched a major update to our game. Some users that have installed our update reported the game wouldn't start properly. After running some tests and working directly with these users, we've confirmed that the issue is caused because the game fails to load the user's save file from internal storage. Specifically, these are users that have switched the default storage location on their device from Internal Storage to SD Card.

It seems that after these users install our update, the game fails to load the original Internal file and is unable to write a new one to their external storage because our Write Access value is defined as 'Internal Only'.

Since I have no way to prevent users from changing their default install location, it leaves us in a pickle... if we leave our Write Access on 'Internal Only', many users that are using external storage SD cards will not be able to start the game. If we change our Write Access to 'External SD Card' we will reintroduce that scary permission message, and potentially strand the Internal storage save files of our existing players. We haven't done extensive testing on the consequences of switch Write Access to 'External SDCard' yet, but would prefer to leave things on the 'Internal Only' option as it seems like the safer bet.

I'm looking for a recommendation on how to handle these users, and help understanding the Write Access option. Are we missing something obvious that would prevent this problem? Is anyone else encountering this issue?

We're currently using Unity 5.3.6p1.

 

Did you try looking at logcat to see whats going on? I am having the same issue with Unity 5.4.0 here: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/un...ts-not-suppose-to-unity-5-4f3-android.422083/ which is being looked into by the dev team. If its different take a look at logcat and file a bug report. Best of luck to you.

 

I haven't investigated that avenue because I'm not sure what the intended behavior is for the Write Access options. Specifically, how is the 'Internal Only' option to supposed to work if a player has selected the default storage location as their External SD Card? One player for example said this:

Once the player makes this change, our game doesn't have permission to write to that location and fails to start. Telling our players that they must use internal storage isn't good enough since the vast majority of users that encounter this problem will likely never communicate with us, worse they will probably rate us poorly on the App Store and Play Store.

We could definitely use some clarity from Unity on best practices to handle this situation.

 

@Yury-Habets Many of our users have confirmed the following steps to recreate this problem:

1. Have the game installed normally to Internal Storage (everything works fine)
2. Switch the default storage location to the SD Card via Settings > Storage > Default Location
3. Grab ANY future update to our game from the Play Store
4. Game won't start

Our test builds have revealed that the game start fails because it's unable to find a save file, and then when our logic would instruct it to create a new empty save, the app doesn't have permission to create a new one in the external save location since our Write Access is set to 'Internal Only'. The worst part is as you've mentioned, even if we did have permission to write to the SD Card, that's definitely bad since it would create a new save file and the user would think they've lost all their data.

 

Hi, any news about this?

Problem here: Application.persistentDataPath is

/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/bundleIdentifier/files (when the app is built with Unity 5.3.6p1) and

/data/data/bundleIdentifier/files (when the app is built with Unity 5.3.5p6)

Write Access is set to Internal only.

Correction: I only had this problem, because I made 2 apps, that shared one data folder (sharedUserId) and weren't built with the same Unity version (one app was built with Unity5.3.5p6 and the other with 5.3.6p1). Building both apps with the same Unity version solved my problem.

 

We have some problems on Unty 5.4.1f1. Write access set to "Internal Only"? but unity try write to sd card, even when thone have not it.

When i try download asset bundle logcat on device show:

W/Unity (14911): (Filename: ./Runtime/AssetBundles/AssetBundleLoadFromStreamAsyncOperation.cpp Line: 269)
D/Unity (14911): CreateDirectory '/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.******/files' failed:
W/Unity (14911): Failed to create temporary cache directory 'Temp/2dc1eecc7afdd474680306c89933d0fb'

Also UnityEngine.Application.persistentDataPath return empty string

int work fine on Unity 5.3.5 and broked after upgrade to 5.3.6
(sorry for my english)

 

Same here, but the stacktrace is slightly different:

Code (CSharp):

1. 09-15 11:18:26.810: W/Unity(14545): (Filename:  Line: 313)
2. 09-15 11:18:26.810: W/Unity(14545): Failed to create temporary cache directory 'mem:/CAB-9f8ddd7e42604dae8468ba31208e976a380e904707c4047d9a2e90fa3914ede1'

Also there are no missing assets in the game after loading has finished so maybe this message points to a third party SDK which tried to create temp files.

This happened after updating to Unity 5.4.1f1.

 

@Yury-Habets I posted a bug report of this issue but haven't heard anything yet. Curious if you have any updates.

Bug 827622
https://fogbugz.unity3d.com/default.asp?827622_br2g2e3r9v1pdeqf

 

Just to follow up, we're still seeing problems with this issue. Unity Performance Report tools have shed even more light on this issue:

We're seeing a ton of these errors:
UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path "/mnt/internal_sd/Android/data/OUR_SAVE_FILE_PATH" is denied.

Subsequently we're seeing a lot of these errors:

Code (CSharp):

1. System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory (System.String path)
2. ES2DirectoryUtility.CreateDirectory (System.String path)
3. ES2FileStream.CreateStorageStream ()
4. ES2FileStream.Store ()
5. ES2Writer.Save (Boolean checkForOverwrite)
6. ES2Writer.Save ()
7. ES2.Save[Int32] (Int32 param, System.String identifier)
8. SaveManager+<LoadAll>c__Iterator4D.MoveNext ()
9. UnityEngine.SetupCoroutine.InvokeMoveNext (IEnumerator enumerator, IntPtr returnValueAddress)
10. UnityEngine.MonoBehaviour:StartCoroutine(IEnumerator)
11. <StartRoutine>c__Iterator42:MoveNext()
12. UnityEngine.MonoBehaviour:StartCoroutine(IEnumerator)
13. GameManager:Start()

It seems that we just don't have access to the save location and as a result users are getting hung at game start. This is a critical issue for us and has been on going for several releases.

Any updates on this report would be helpful. Our current live version is using the Unity 5.4.1p1

 

So glad I found this thread, as I too am having this issue on Unity 5.4.0f3. Game Performance in analytics is reporting a huge number of errors that take two forms:

UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path "/saveFileName" is denied.

And:

UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path "/storage/sdcard1/Android/data/com.company.appname/files/saveFileName" is denied.

Both are only happening on Android 4.x and 5.x, and I'm not able to reproduce it on my own devices (running Android 7).

In Player Settings, the "Install Location" is set to "Automatic," and "Write Access" is set to "Internal Only." Our manifest file does not contain "WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE", due to both the message it displays to users and Google's review of the game which required us to justify its usage (which for the game itself, is unnecessary).

I'm working through the issue with a very kind player, but other players may not be so patient. A fix or some guidance would be hugely appreciated!

- David

 

I hope to get a repo project going soon, but it will take me some time to recreate the exact scenario in a new project.

 

Do you think forcing internal would fix this? I don't mind forcing it if need be; I just don't want players to get the error.

 

It's very strange but looks like a error gone after upgrading UnityAds to UnityAds 2.0
May be new version add something to android manifest file. Now our application have access to read save file and asset bundle caching work fine too.

 

@Yury-Habets We're starting to learn more about this issue but still have more digging to do. We've discovered that some devices have the option to set a default storage location and other devices do not:

In Unity Performance Tools, we've see loads of write permission errors from 'Huawei' devices and others. What we found was that these devices allow the user to set the default storage location. Unfortunately none of our testing devices in house have this option so it's making it difficult to experiment. (We're looking to get our hands on some)

Huawei with Default Storage Option


Other Devices without Default Storage Option


Bottom-line: It seems that when a user has their default storage location set to SD Card, but we have our game settings set to 'Internal Only' storage, the users experience write permission problems like this:


And this:

Currently this is our strongest theory but as I mentioned since we don't have the device to test on we can't prove it's the cause. We'll do our best to get more details.

 

Hey @Yury-Habets I am another member of the BioBeasts team with @TitanUnity, I created a bug report with a small project here, explaining steps to reproduce the issue we have: https://fogbugz.unity3d.com/default.asp?843273_ve7cigq32aiqsonu.

Let me know if there is any more information I can provide.

 

I have the same problem here :

I got some info from Unity Performance Monitor Report.

1. unique_device_models:["ARMv7 VFPv3 NEON"]
   1. 0:"ARMv7 VFPv3 NEON"
2. unique_graphics_devices:["VideoCore IV HW", "NVIDIA Tegra 3", "PowerVR SGX 540", "GC1000 core"]
   1. 0:"VideoCore IV HW"
   2. 1:"NVIDIA Tegra 3"
   3. 2:"PowerVR SGX 540"
   4. 3:"GC1000 core"
3. unique_platforms:["Android OS 4.2.2 / API-17 (JDQ39/I9082XXUBMK5)",…]
   1. 0:"Android OS 4.2.2 / API-17 (JDQ39/I9082XXUBMK5)"
   2. 1:"Android OS 4.2.1 / API-17 (JOP40D/WW_epad-10.6.1.27.5-20130902)"
   3. 2:"Android OS 4.2.2 / API-17 (JDQ39/P5100XXDMJ2)"
   4. 3:"Android OS 4.2.2 / API-17 (JDQ39/T110XXUANI7)"
   5. 4:"Android OS 4.2.2 / API-17 (JDQ39/T110UEUANK2)"

Please everybody let me know if there is a workaround or fix available.

Thanks

 

On 5.4.3 release notes we have this :

• Android: Return internal temporary cache and persistent data paths when external paths are unavailable. (826201)

It seems this bug was fixed! Anybody knows when this will be ported to 5.5 beta?

 

No it's not fixed!

I updated a old game to Unity 5.4.3 and made a new Android Build and now I have users complaining the game is not working anymore.

In performance reporting I found a lot of
"UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path "/storage/sdcard0/Android/data/com.sevensails.queensgarden2mobile/files/save.sav" is denied."

Why? Please... Anybody have any advice of how to avoid this? Where I can save to fully avoid this error?

 

"/storage/sdcard0/Android/data/" is the defaul internal storage folder, isn't it?

How the access to this could be denied? I added READ_INTERNAL READ_EXTERNAL and WRITE_EXTERNAL permissions to Android Manifest and sent a new build to my user and it still does not works. The game fails to save. The user is using Android 4.1.2 on a Samsung Galaxy Note 2.

Any advice?

 

We're actually very curious to know what the actual change was here. We've been getting reports of lost data from users since we updated to this version, and would love to get more details from a dev on what exactly changed to try and track down if this is the source of our issue.

Paging @Yury-Habets if you're still monitoring this thread.

 

Confirm this bug!

We F***ed up release becouse of this issue.

Unity vers: 5.4.0f3

Device: lenovo tab 2 a10-30, android 5.1

Some adb logs:

After downloading bundle

W/Unity (16718): Failed to create temporary cache directory 'Temp/baa93760e66dd4bf7b8c848a3f091daa'
W/Unity (16718):
W/Unity (16718): (Filename: Line: 313)

Before sharing image

I/Unity (16718): Media Share
I/Unity (16718):
I/Unity (16718): (Filename: ./artifacts/generated/common/runtime/UnityEngineDebugBindings.gen.cpp Line: 42)
I/Unity (16718):
I/Unity (16718): UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path "/SaltanSkazki.png" is denied.
I/Unity (16718): at System.IO.FileStream..ctor (System.String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, Boolean anonymous, FileOptions options) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
I/Unity (16718): at System.IO.FileStream..ctor (System.String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
I/Unity (16718): at System.IO.File.Create (System.String path, Int32 bufferSize) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
I/Unity (16718): at System.IO.File.Create (System.String path) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
I/Unity (16718): at System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes (System.String path, System.Byte[] bytes) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
I/Unity (16718): at btnShare+<SaveAndShare>c__Iterator26.MoveNext () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
I/Unity (16718): at UnityEngine.SetupCoroutine.InvokeMoveNext (IEnumerator enumerator, IntPtr returnValueAddress) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
I/Unity (16718):
I/Unity (16718): (Filename: Line: -1)
I/Unity (16718):


After recors and save sound
I/Unity (23813): (Filename: ./artifacts/generated/common/runtime/UnityEngineDebugBindings.gen.cpp Line: 42)
I/Unity (23813):
I/Unity (23813): ArgumentException: Path is empty
I/Unity (23813): at System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory (System.String path) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
I/Unity (23813): at SavWav.Save (System.String filename, UnityEngine.AudioClip clip) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
I/Unity (23813): at Mic.RecordStopAndSave (System.String nameEnd) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
I/Unity (23813): at SettingsController.btnRecStart (Int32 parentID) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
I/Unity (23813): at UnityEngine.Events.InvokableCall`1[System.Int32].Invoke (System.Object[] args) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
I/Unity (23813): at UnityEngine.Events.CachedInvokableCall`1[System.Int32].Invoke (System.Object[] args) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
I/Unity (23813): at UnityEngine.Events.InvokableCallList.Invoke (System.Object[] parameters) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
I/Unity (23813): at UnityEngine.Events.UnityEventBase.Invoke (System.Object[] parameters) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
I/Unity (23813): at UnityEngine.Events.UnityEvent.Invoke () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
I/Unity (23813): at UnityEngine.UI.Button.Press () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>

Please fix it ASAP.

 

Hi @Yury-Habets
This issue is also related to thread: https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/save-file-gets-deleted-when-updating-on-android.388043/

It's seems to be effecting a lot of people including my self.

Thanks,
Lloyd

 

@Yury-Habets - bug report created.

869140
https://fogbugz.unity3d.com/default.asp?869140_ubgf7jh2881lr0ir

If you need more info let me know, it is a pretty straight forward test case.

Thanks!

 

Hi @Yury-Habets , I had put some details in the report but here are more on the device I used:

Tested using a: Samsung Galaxy S5 (SM-G900I)

Not sure how to update the report with this.

 

Thanks, yes, talking to someone now from QA about the issue.

It is looking like Unity is meant to automatically move your files to the new location, but that is not happening.

 

I released update to my app and am coming across the same problem as the OP. Last release was working fine.
Build settings are Install Location: 'Prefer External'
Write Access: 'Internal Only'

How did the OP resolve this issue?

UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path "/mnt/internal_sd/Android/data/blackjack.allin1.com/files/bj_allin1_data.dat" is denied.

I am unable to recreate this on my device and I haven't had any users contact me about it yet but have a hundred or so logs of this error.

 

Hi @CoopOwnz

They wont be fixing it:

https://fogbugz.unity3d.com/default.asp?869140_ubgf7jh2881lr0ir

 

I never updated from 5.2 to 5.5.. I still have 5.4 and always had since the app was made.

 

We are still getting issues with 5.5.1p3 and reports of savegames not working, with this in the game performance portal:

UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path "/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/<packagename>/files/PersistentData.dat" is denied.

We have the WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission in the manifest to avoid past issues with people forcing install to SDCard, and have always had install location set to 'prefer external'.

Currently we've had the report from the following device:

Android OS 4.4.2 / API-19 (KOT49H/1436345823)

 

Im having the same problem with a tablet with Android 4.4.2, the app works fine on a samsung s7 with android 6.0.1

Unity: 5.5.0.f3
Setup of the player:
Install location: Force Internal
Write permission: Internal

App is installed in disk device

The code executed its related to a file opening:

BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();
FileStream file = File.Create(Application.persistentDataPath + "/partidas.dat");
Partidas partida = new Partidas();
partida.totalPartidas = totalPartidas;
bf.Serialize(file, partida);
file.Close();

 

I'd like to thank everyone in this thread (especially @TitanUnity ) for their efforts in debugging this issue, everything I read here was very helpful.
I think there are two issues here:

1. I can confirm that one issue is related to Huawei storage setting, I just debugged it with a very helpful player of our game and his Huawei device has default storage location to the SD Card (via Settings > Storage > Default Location), this setting is turned on as soon as you plug in an SD Card. This causes our app to be unable to save the generated database and the savegame, thus preventing him from being able to play. In our game version currently in production, I always use Application.persistentDataPath to access data directory, I think that simply this Huawei customization makes Unity return the path on SDCard, which is unaccessible because our game doesn't ask for "Write External" permission. I am trying to fix this issue (with a release today or Tomorrow, I hope) by using a different approach by calling internal directories and testing them for write permission. More info here: http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/998752/unauthorizedaccessexception-access-to-the-path-is-1.html , there is also an example script here: https://gist.github.com/gering/f37082d8dd45a3ae4f2c . Many thanks to @TheGering for this.
2. The second issue is related to the "usual" Application.persistentDataPath ( /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/[bundleIdentifier]/files/ ) which on some devices seems to have not write permission. I don't think it's strictly related to Unity version updates as we never went from Unity 5.2 to Unity 5.5 (we did all the "middle" steps during last months, updating to Unity 5.5 with last week release), also because that's an issue about losing savegames and not about having troubles with write permission. I think this issue is pretty bad and dangerous, as no developer should be instructed by documentation to call a Unity method (Application.persistentDataPath) which can instead have unexpected behavior on some devices. I am trying to fix this issue with the same fix I am implementing in the previous case, as the savegame directory will be tested for write permission.

As soon as I'll have our new version in production I'll post here the results.

I hope this helps, if anyone has further question feel free to ask, I spent the last 2 days debugging this and I found few detailed info online, so I decided to reply here with my discoveries (and also to thank you all ).

 

I can confirm that the above solution works for both the issues I outlined: we are in production from this morning and both cases are solved.

To recap even more:

• a Huawei device with the UnauthorizedAccessException because of the Application.persistentDataPath was hijacked by the "default storage location" setting
  AND
  
• a device with a custom ROM which was getting unexplainable UnauthorizedAccessException on internal directory even though using Application.persistentDataPath

are now running without problems our game, thanks to the above implementation (which of course replaces all the Application.persistentDataPath calls in my code).

PS: of course I still believe those issues could, and should, be tackled from Unity, I don't think it's a wise idea to have an Application.persistentDataPath that maybe works on Android.

 

@Tanek If I am only using playerprefs for saving does this issue still present a problem? Thanks

 

@stevenatunity I am sorry but I don't know if playerPrefs can be affected by this issue: those are handled internally by Unity and you don't have to (and can not) explicitly call Application.persistentDataPath to declare where to save them.

 

@Tanek thank you. Great work on this problem!

 

@Tanek The example github script you posted I think may be what I need. However, I'm a bit confused about something. Since my app does not have permissions to write external then all of the external storage paths that are returned in the script will always fail. Does this mean that if the user has the app on external storage that it may still be able to find an internal path to store the file?

 

@CoopOwnz don't worry, the script checks each directory by trying to write 1 byte on it, that means that the external paths will always be null from the getter of "persistentDataPathExternal" and they will never be returned nor used if you follow the script logic (using the getter for the "best" persistent data path available).

Our game in production does not have permission to write on external and currently we have no issues with this workaround.

 

Thank you so much for helping to clear some of this up. HOWEVER, my last release was with Unity 5.4 and I am still getting exceptions like this daily:

I have my write access set to internal. Now I understand why the persistentDataPath is sometimes returning an external path still because of what you said above. However, it should not return an external path in some of these situations since their device is obviously not allowing access to that path. Here is the simple code I use:

Code (CSharp):

1. FileStream file;
2.         if (File.Exists(Application.persistentDataPath + Path.DirectorySeparatorChar + "bj_allin1_data.dat"))
3.         {
4.             file = File.Open(Application.persistentDataPath + Path.DirectorySeparatorChar + "bj_allin1_data.dat", FileMode.Open);
5.         }
6.         else
7.         {
8.             file = File.Create(Application.persistentDataPath + Path.DirectorySeparatorChar + "bj_allin1_data.dat");
9.         }

My next release is about to be with Unity 5.5. PLEASE if you can help in any way with this exception I would very much appreciate it. I've been searching for answers for a while.

 

It's good to hear that.
But according to the articles of @sevensails and @CoopOwnz, it still happens with the newer versions.
I'm using Unity 5.3 for my game but I want to solve this problem. Should I update Unity to 5.4.x or not?