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I have recently changed from adMob 6.4.1 to Google Play Services rev 15 and have just received notice of a new crash report that I do not understand:

java.lang.SecurityException: attempting to read gservices without permission: Neither user 10158 nor current process has com.google.android.providers.gsf.permission.READ_GSERVICES.
at android.os.Parcel.readException(Parcel.java:1425)
at android.os.Parcel.readException(Parcel.java:1379)
at xs.a(SourceFile:133)
at xo.a(SourceFile:133)
at xo.a(SourceFile:118)
at ud.d(SourceFile:88)
at ud.b(SourceFile:129)
at ua.a(SourceFile:239)
at ua.a(SourceFile:176)
at aas.a(SourceFile:118)
at abz.run(SourceFile:14)
at acb.run(SourceFile:30)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1080)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:573)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:856)

I did some research, and all the results are either outdated, or are related to Google+ / Google Maps, neither of which I use in the app.

I've never read anywhere in the GPS Developer guide for adMob that I needed to add the READ GSERVICES permission...

Anyone know what this is about?

kablu
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Werner
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  • So I updated from rev 15 to 16 of GPS, and did the required ADT updates. Posted the updated app yesterday, no repeats of the crash yet... will post another comment if it happens again. – Werner Mar 27 '14 at 15:01
  • Hi Werner, if the upgrade to version 16 solves your problem it's common stack overflow practice to post your own solution as an answer and accept it. – Johan Berg Nilsson Mar 31 '14 at 08:20
  • I have GPS rev 16 in my app, and see the crashlog with the same exception... – Prizoff Mar 31 '14 at 11:23
  • I still haven't seen it recur, but then again, my user base is relatively small, so I do not have that much data to go by! Not quite ready to consider the update as a definite answer. – Werner Mar 31 '14 at 14:12
  • The update has NOT fixed this problem, the same error has been reported again. – Werner Apr 02 '14 at 13:26
  • Can also confirm that the upgrade to v16 does not solve this issue. – Johan Berg Nilsson Apr 03 '14 at 07:03
  • From the reported crashes we can see this crash is introduced March 25th, which is also the date when Google Play Services apk was updated on Google Play. Can anyone else confirm this from their crash analytics? – Johan Berg Nilsson Apr 03 '14 at 07:32
  • Confirmed on my end - 1st occurrence of crash took place same day I posted this thread (March 26) – Werner Apr 03 '14 at 13:37
  • GPS is one buggy piece of an SDK. We've seen this in their Admob implementation, google +1 was broken for weeks over weeks. Its just low-quality souce code :( – Guy Apr 07 '14 at 07:37
  • @Werner Did this ever get solved for you? I'm still getting these error reports in my app as of today. – you786 Nov 18 '14 at 18:33
  • @you786 Unfortunately not. My guess is that there is nothing really to do about this on our end... We'll just have to wait for the big G to sort this one out. – Werner Nov 18 '14 at 22:05

2 Answers2

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This issue was introduced with the latest release of the Google Play Services (v4.3) on the android devices. Google is aware about it and it will be fixed in a future version (not the next one...)

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/google-admob-ads-sdk/sePctoDJbRg%5B101-125-false%5D

user1026605
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    The problem is still present in 2019 on lower API devices. It seems that many devices are stuck with older GPS versions so this permission must be requested to avoid the security exception. – Ray Li Sep 14 '19 at 21:55
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I'm not going to claim this is the answer, because I also stopped (completely) and re-started Android Studio after I installed it, and THAT might be the real solution, but Ads were running fine on the emulator and a USB-attached 7" tablet, then I started getting this error. Checking my SDK packages, I noted the Google Web Driver was not installed (this had not been an issue previously) - all other components were (except the USB driver, which is not needed on a Mac). I installed this component, stopped (completely) and re-started Android Studio and the ads started running without error again. It's something to try, anyway.

StephenDonaldHuffPhD
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