Firebase AUTHENTICATION_FAILED on Huawei devices

[fgnm]

I use Firebase Cloud Messaging to receive notifications from my own server through firebase token [Ref. https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging/android/client]. The system works well but I've noticed (using Crashlytics) that on some devices Firebase SDK is unable to generate the token and returns AUTHENTICATION_FAILED.

To be clear, I can be quite sure that the device is connected to internet (because the app performs some network operations before request Firebase token), so unless negligible probability, internet is not the cause of the problem. I can notice that this happens only on some Huawei devices (not all however). Could be this a consequence of recent Google/Huawei news? (Users that has this problem regularly use Google Play store and download my app)

Is there a way to identify prior the problem and present to user that error? Can be this fixed in some way or it's a system failure that cannot be fixed?

The code to reproduce the issue is exactly the same provided in this example, however in order to reproduce the bug you need an appropriate device.

[google-oss-bot]

This issue does not seem to follow the issue template. Make sure you provide all the required information.

[jehadmashhour]

@google-oss-bot

Yes I have the same issue right now on some devices , check the following report:

com.google.firebase.remoteconfig.FirebaseRemoteConfigClientException: Failed to get Firebase Instance ID token for fetch. at c.i.c.r.a.m.a(com.google.firebase:firebase-config@@19.1.1:30) at c.i.c.r.a.j.then(Unknown Source:4) at com.google.android.gms.tasks.zzf.run(Unknown Source:3) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1162) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:636) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:784)
Caused by: java.io.IOException: AUTHENTICATION_FAILED at c.i.c.m.P.then(com.google.firebase:firebase-iid@@20.0.2:7) at com.google.android.gms.tasks.zzd.run(Unknown Source:7) ... 3 more

Notes :

• Some of devices have the same issue -> Huawei DUB-LX1 , HUAWEI JKM-LX1 , Samsung SM-A750F , Samsung SM-J700H
• Let me know if you need my google api key .

[samtstern]

@jehadmashhour I apologize for my very delayed response here, I missed this issue. As you know many Huawei devices run modified operating systems that often don't work properly with Google services.

However if you can reproduce this reliably please file a bug here:
https://github.com/firebase/firebase-android-sdk

[jeffdcamp]

I'm seeing this on a bunch of devices including Huawei, Samsung, and Kindle devices. This was working before for us (we were not getting errors and remote config worked great) on these devices, but something changed in one of the newer releases of the Firebase libraries to cause this error.

[fgnm]

Agree, @samtstern this is not a bug only on Huawei devices. Huawei is the major, but I've received many reports from: Samsung, Xiaomi, Wiko and OnePlus

[samtstern]

Thanks @jeffdcamp and @fgnm for the clarification. Please file an issue on the Firebase Android SDK repo with as much info as you have so that our SDK engineers can look into this. It's outside my expertise.

[jaanmurumets-sk]

We have reported issue to google https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/143413382 and there is acknowledge by Google of problem:

"We got information from Firebase support that this AUTHENTICATION_FAILED error is caused by GPS (Google Play Services) but fix date is not clear yet."

[samtstern]

@jaanmurumets-sk let's keep the discussion over here:
firebase/firebase-android-sdk#1286 (comment)