Cell Broadcast with Fairphone4

/e/OS Devices Fairphone
,
1

Hello folks,

I’m using a fairphone 4 with /e/OS 1.5.1-s-20221102231514-stable.

Today, we had our nationwide (Germany) warning day, where cell broadcast was also used. Following the news, I thought that my phone will receive those cell broadcasts, but nothing happend.

How can I check, if my phone/software can receive cell broadcasts?

Heinrich

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

2

Have you seen this thread?

3

Yes, I have seen this thread,
but underneath ‘Safety & emergency’, there is no entry ‘Wireless emergency alerts’

4

I thought it’s not shown due to developer mode, but I was wrong. The option not showing up doesn’t need to be indication for it not working though. If you go to

Settings → Apps → see all Apps → upper left “Show system” → search for “cell”

do you get the Cell Brodcast Service and cellbroadcastreceiver?

you can also do it with adb

$ adb shell pm list packages | grep cellbroadcast
package:com.android.cellbroadcastreceiver
package:com.android.cellbroadcastservice
package:com.android.cellbroadcastreceiver.module

didn’t have issues with R/Q releases, but didn’t see an alert on a FP3 with Android S. Implementation of cellbroadcast changed between A11 and A12. Could also be due to a country config issue.

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5

Yes, I can see both cellbroadcastservice and cellbroadcastreceiver.
On both, ‘Remove permisions and free up space’ is checked.

Does this mean, that cell broadcast will not work?
And by the way, what is meant with ‘country config issue’ ?

6

Remove permisions and free up space’ is checked

that’s a default with all system Apps. But sure, permissions something to look at. cellbroadcast is itself a permission.

country config issue

just speculating, not worth much.

I know you can’t see the option currently, but if you would, you can subscribe to monthly test alerts until assured in some version X that stuff is working. There was a prior issue that sheds some light on how to test the component with a debug app too at https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/backlog/-/issues/5867

If somebody creates a new issue you probably want to link to that

7

Thanks for the answers.
I will take a look at your link.
So I have to assume that cell broadcast is not working with Android S (at the moment).

Heinrich

8

when looking at logcats today I noticed

W BroadcastQueue: Permission Denial: receiving Intent { act=android.intent.action.SERVICE_STATE flg=0x1000010 (has extras) }
to
  com.android.cellbroadcastreceiver.module/com.android.cellbroadcastreceiver.CellBroadcastReceiver 
requires
  android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE due to sender android (uid 1001)

and looked who else ran into it - FP3-LOS 19.1: System instable after leaving standby - potential problem due to permission problems of system apps like Systemui, Appop (#5317) · Issues · LineageOS / issues / android · GitLab … maybe it’s due to systemapp permissions.

Will test with tests/testapp - platform/packages/apps/CellBroadcastReceiver - Git at Google if it can recreate that due to sender android (uid 1001) condition

9

No, that doesn’t seem to be it.

https://forum.fairphone.com/t/federal-warning-day-germany-bundesweiter-warntag-deutschland/91431/5?u=anotherelk

375×750 31.5 KB

10

@AnotherElk
I 've searched for this setting and I found it. And all settings are enabled.
Now, I have some questions.

  1. Why is this setting hidden?
  2. If it is hidden because the function is not working properly, why make it
    searchable and not hide it at all and communicate this (maybe changelog)?
    At least, it is an emergency function.
  3. As I wrote, all settings were enabled, but I received nothing.

@tcecyk
I highly appreciate your efforts, and would be glad to hear about a solution.
And if it is only to update to the next version.
By the way, when will this version be available?

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