the app suggests that the Huawei WebView is too old and should be updated, although evidently it is the latest version

[imz]

Describe the bug

Whenever we start the lichess app version 7.5.0, it suggests that the Huawei WebView is outdated and should be updated:

If we press OK to update it, the corresponding app can't be found, but the lichess app seems to continue working fine.

Smartphone:

• Device: tablet Huawei Matepad T (KOB2-L09)
• OS: android (modified by Huawei)

Additional context

Huawei is not friends with Google, so they are not shipped with Google Play market, nor the system Google apps can be installed there easily. They might have their own versioning of the WebView component. The current version is 10.0.0.312:

and this must be the latest version, since it is not updatable in the Huawei App Gallery (no such updates are listed).

Perhaps, the version check mentioned in #1137 (comment) should be customized to assess the version of the WebView component differently if it comes from Huawei.

[veloce]

Thanks for reporting this. I'll fix it.

[veloce]

I tested on a Huawei P10 running on android 9 and I cannot reproduce with this phone. Major chrome version is detected as 87.
So I can't really fix your issue sorry.

[imz]

Thanks for looking into it. I can send you additional info about this device or the result of running some commands which would help. What would be useful?

[veloce]

What I need is not that easy depending on whether you know how to use android studio. If you are able to launch the app in android studio with your tablet and log some information, basically I'd need something to discriminate this webview from the google webview. Perhaps the pInfo.packageName is enough, but I'm not sure.

[imz]

It's not that I have ever used android studio...

Are there perhaps more primitive commands from android-tools I could run and log something?

Or do I need to rebuild the app?

[havenzhong]

Has this issue fixed or yet？This problem only occurs on Huawei's latest devices because Google framework is not used.

[Andy853]

Hi to everyone!
The same problem.
It seems that Huawei Webview works fine, Just application Lichess recognize a mistake there just because it's NOT from Google. I've tryed all older versions until 6, but it's the same trouble every time.
Is it possible to fix it?
Also the app probably automaticly is corresponding to Google play, but there are devices without Google servises, that's why it says "unavalable anymore" .
Is it possible at least switch off this corresponding?

[Andy853]

Anyone reeds here?

[Andy853]

Death silence...

[veloce]

I already explained that I cannot fix it because I don't have a huawei phone. I even borrowed one and I still couldn't reproduce the issue.
I added the proper tags to track this issue. Now, complaining isn't going to be useful here. This is an open source project: what we need is someone with a huawei phone who can reproduce the issue, and who is willing to take the time to fix it.
I added the "help wanted" tag for this reason.

[Andy853]

Dear Vincent!
Thank you for your answer.
I hoped that maybe something changed since the first issue was opened.
Last question: do you think there is a chance that soon it will be fixed, or it's better to think about another phone?

[huawei40]

I already explained that I cannot fix it because I don't have a huawei phone. I even borrowed one and I still couldn't reproduce the issue. I added the proper tags to track this issue. Now, complaining isn't going to be useful here. This is an open source project: what we need is someone with a huawei phone who can reproduce the issue, and who is willing to take the time to fix it. I added the "help wanted" tag for this reason.

It's been about three years in huawei App Gallery, we've been waiting, please add it as soon as possible, don't make us suffer
please forward this to the lichess application unit

[maningame]

Hi to everyone!

@veloce I have the same issue while working on my app. And while googling got there. The problem with Huawei webview is different versioning for webview package which is differs from Android system webview. For testing purpose I have
downloaded webview to my Honor device and set it as default webview. Its show 12.1.3.371 version of webview package. Im using Capacitor framework in my app. Webview version checking done there by WebView.getCurrentWebViewPackage()
which return versionName = 12.1.3.371. So i made quick workaround for my app by additional checking for huawei webview:

if (info.packageName.equals("com.huawei.webview")) {
  return true;
}

As far as im understand from the lichess code, checking for webview version is done in MainActivity.java > onCreate. The min version set to 69 which was released in september 2018. Huawei webview first release was around 2020, so i think its safe to add additional check (like code above) for huawei and allow app to launch.

Hope this was helpfull.