Geolocator.checkPermission() not return LocationPermission.deniedForever

[KirillArtemenko]

🐛 Bug Report

After deny location request.

final checkPermission =  await Geolocator.checkPermission();
// checkPermission == LocationPermission.denied

final requestPermission = await Geolocator.requestPermission();
// requestPermission == LocationPermission.deniedForever

checkPermission != requestPermission

Expected behavior
Method checkPermission must return LocationPermission.deniedForever.
The order and numbers of method calls does not affect the result.

Steps To Reproduce

1. Request permissions
2. Deny (once or twice on android)
3. Run this methods
4. See different PermissionStatus from methods

Tested on:

• iOS, Version 15.5 real device
• Android, Pixel 4a (last Android version)

[mvanbeusekom]

Hi @KirillArtemenko,

Thank you for taking the time and submitting this report. Unfortunately the Android API doesn't allow us to differentiate between denied and deniedForever when checking for permissions. The ContextCompat.checkSelfPermission() method only returns the PERMISSION_GRANTED or PERMISSION_DENIED states (even when the user selected the "Don't ask me again" option). This is documented clearly on the Android documentation. Therefore we cannot make the distinction and always return LocationPermission.denied.

Due to a small work around we are however able to determine this as a direct result of the requestPermission method and will report this accordingly. More information about this behavior can be found on our Wiki.

On iOS however we report the permissions correctly. Denying permissions will directly result in a LocationPermission.deniedForever and the checkPermission method will report this accordingly. I have verified this today (just to be sure) using the following code:

  Future<void> handlePermission() async {
    final requestPermission = await Geolocator.requestPermission();
    print('Requested permission: $requestPermission');

    final checkPermission = await Geolocator.checkPermission();
    print('Checked permission: $checkPermission');
  }

Which resulted in the following output after denying permissions:

flutter: Requested permission: LocationPermission.deniedForever
flutter: Checked permission: LocationPermission.deniedForever

As the geolocator seems to function properly, I will close this issue now. If you have further inquiries please feel free to leave a comment.