App Lounge, app interaction not working

Using /e/OS Applications
1

Hi!

I’m using 0.23-r on FP3. I now have two apps that require to interact, but one app doesn’t recognise that the other is already installed.

Long story: One app is a wallet for a blockchain - “Helium” (currency HNT, a real-world wireless network with proof-of-coverage). It used to manage both your balance and the physical hotspots that generate HNT.

Recently, this has been split up. The Helium app only manages the wallet, and separate apps from hotspot vendors manage the physical hardware. For me that’s an app called “Nebra”.

I have installed both. But when launching “Nebra” it says I first need to install “Helium” so it can deep-link with my wallet details. When I click on the app’s corresponding link, it takes me to the Helium app page inside App Lounge. There, App Lounge tells me correctly that it’s installed. There is no way to continue with the Nebra setup because it “doesn’t get it” that Helium is already installed.

So I’m stuck and can’t link the Nebra app to Helium. I imagine there is usually some kind of API in the OS or App Lounge that would tell one app that the other is installed already. And that this API call doesn’t work?

I guess this should be reproducible: install Helium (maybe need to create a wallet inside), then install Nebra, then open Nebra.

Greetings,

Stefan Winter

Regain your privacy! Adopt /e/ the unGoogled mobile OS and online servicesphone

2

I don’t know, but the app devs would be able to tell you whether they actually use some Google networking to achieve this !

3

Aurora Store (alternative access to free-of-charge Google Play Store Apps) lists “Helium HNT Wallet” and “Nebra Hotspot” as GSF-dependent, which means both need Google services, which means both could well fail on /e/OS.

I imagine the App in question tries to query the Play Store for the presence of the other App, but the Play Store of course isn’t there in /e/OS.

4

I use Helium on /e/OS since 0.19-r and it works perfectly fine. If it needs GSF for something, I didn’t notice yet.
And the Nebra app - well it doesn’t crash, and takes me to the Welcome screen. Without the linkage, I don’t get any further.
Nebra also takes me to App Lounge as the obvious replacement for Play Store, and detecting whether an app is installed is kinda the job of App Lounge and not something Google-specific.

Well, I take the advice from aibd and will check with the app devs how exactly they try to find out whether Helium is installed.

5
6

Never mind, their 1.0.1 version which I got via App Lounge today fixed the problem.

2 Likes