Avoid SecurityException because of "No active admin owned by"

Question

How to avoid this Exception

E/AndroidRuntime(26113): Caused by: java.lang.SecurityException: No active admin owned by uid XXXX for policy #3

when calling this:

public static void lockScreen(Context context) {
    Log.d(TAG, "lockScreen");
    ComponentName mDeviceAdminSample = null;
    DevicePolicyManager dpm = (DevicePolicyManager) context.getSystemService(Context.DEVICE_POLICY_SERVICE);
    Intent intent = new Intent(DevicePolicyManager.ACTION_ADD_DEVICE_ADMIN);
    intent.putExtra(DevicePolicyManager.EXTRA_DEVICE_ADMIN, mDeviceAdminSample);
    dpm.lockNow();
}

VadimK · Answer 1 · 2018-04-13T21:44:17.170

I got the same error as OP. Since only combination of other answers helped me, here is my walk through to make the OP code sample work:

Make sure you have created device admin receiver and xml policy file as described in https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/admin/device-admin.html
Add admin receiver with xml policy file reference to Manifest.
Install your app
Enable app as admin in Setting>Security>Device administrators>"Your app admin receiver label value"

or do [4] programmatically

mDeviceAdminSample = new ComponentName(this,DeviceAdminSampleReceiver.class);
Intent intent = new Intent(DevicePolicyManager.ACTION_ADD_DEVICE_ADMIN);
intent.putExtra(DevicePolicyManager.EXTRA_DEVICE_ADMIN, mDeviceAdminSample);
currActivity.startActivityForResult(intent, 0);

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 06 '12 at 02:40

5

You have to install and enable a device administrator as described in the reference docs: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/admin/device-admin.html

answered Jun 06 '12 at 02:40

Nikolay Elenkov

52,576
10
84
84

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered May 29 '15 at 12:00

3

you are missing this below line.

mDeviceAdminSample = new ComponentName(this, DeviceAdminSampleReceiver.class);

answered May 29 '15 at 12:00

FanosOs

94
6

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 10 '17 at 14:11

Notice how the lines:

        Intent it = new         Intent(DevicePolicyManager.ACTION_ADD_DEVICE_ADMIN);
        it.putExtra(DevicePolicyManager.EXTRA_DEVICE_ADMIN, new ComponentName(this, YourAdminReceiver.class));
        startActivityForResult(it, 0);

can be skipped. If you do not want your users to allow the app to lock the screen there is the alternative way:

adb shell dpm set-device-owner com.package/.YourAdminReceiver

Now what does this have to do with the SecurityException the OP was encountering ?

Well, I already had the device owner set to com.package/.YourAdminReceiver via the adb shell way, but for different purposes than screen locking. When I have added the <force-lock> tag to my device-admin.xml:

<uses-policies>
        <limit-password />
        <reset-password />
        <force-lock />
    </uses-policies>

I was naturally expecting my locknow() API call to work, but instead it hasn't. I got the SecurityException just as OP did. Strange, given that my app was already the admin and owner of the device. I have made it work by unsetting from the device owner role, uninstalling it and then reinstalling it. Be advised that once set as a device owner via adb shell, an app can only be unset from that role from code:

//        mDpm.clearDeviceOwnerApp(getPackageName());
//        mDpm.removeActiveAdmin(deviceAdmin);

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 27 '20 at 12:34

In my case, the device admin was part of an instrumentation tests rather than my app itself. Turned out to be a bug in the way Android handles permissions. The fix was to move the device admin class, manifest and policies into the target app. Certainly not ideal, but I can't see a way around it.

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 03 '21 at 06:04

You would need 3 thing to do :

add <receiver> to AndroidManifest
make new xml file for <device-admin>
make new .kt file for DeviceAdminReceiver

Here is a link from an answer I already did (with example code) : stackoverflow.com

A reference from developer.android.com

Avoid SecurityException because of "No active admin owned by"

6 Answers6