pm/cmd is broken in Android 10

[joshcangit]

Problem description

The pm command doesn't work.

Steps to reproduce

$ pm
cmd: Failure calling service package: Failed transaction (2147483646)

Additional information

• Packages CPU architecture:
  aarch64
• Android version:
  10
• Kernel build information:
  Linux localhost 4.14.113-18242812 #​1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Mar 20 18:30:04 KST 2020 aarch64 Android
• Device manufacturer:
  samsung
• Device model:
  SM-G973F

[5c0tt1]

@joshcangit
The pm command has been deprecated in newer versions of Android in favour of cmd.
Example: pm install is now cmd package install.
Please close this issue.

[joshcangit]

@joshcangit
The pm command has been deprecated in newer versions of Android in favour of cmd.
Example: pm install is now cmd package install.
Please close this issue.

I'm not sure if this is fixed because I can still invoke pm, and only output the error. Also the cmd command you talked about is not there yet.

$ cmd
No command cmd found, did you mean:
 Command cmp in package diffutils
 Command mmd in package mtools
 Command icmd in package renameutils

[Grimler91]

@joshcangit run /system/bin/cmd instead of just cmd until we've added a wrapper, or just use pm package install, seems pm is already a symlink to cmd on your device

[joshcangit]

@joshcangit run /system/bin/cmd instead of just cmd until we've added a wrapper, or just use pm package install, seems pm is already a symlink to cmd on your device

Still getting the same error after testing it.

$ /system/bin/cmd package path com.android.chrome
cmd: Failure calling service package: Failed transaction (2147483646)

[ghost]

termux/termux-app#1616 (comment)

[joshcangit]

As I wrote, you should create a request for similar functionality not filing a bug report for /system/bin/pm or /system/bin/cmd.

These utilities are not managed by Termux, instead they are part of Android OS and we simply can't fix them. These utilities are intended to be used only with ADB for debugging purposes and their usage may get disabled for non-privileged shells.

What we can do is only to create an API for getting info about installed applications, nothing more.

Upgrade: termux-tools:aarch64 (0.82, 0.83-1)

After a full-upgrade, I just tried both pm and cmd package. Also still seeing the same error message again.

$ pm path com.android.chrome
cmd: Failure calling service package: Failed transaction (2147483646)
$ cmd package path com.android.chrome
cmd: Failure calling service package: Failed transaction (2147483646)

[ghost]

Also still seeing the same error message again.

You seeing it because it was not fixed. Everything what was done is just a new script was added to termux-tools.

~ $ cat $PREFIX/bin/cmd
#!/data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin/sh
unset LD_LIBRARY_PATH LD_PRELOAD
PATH=$PATH:/system/bin exec /system/bin/cmd "$@"

[ghost]

Upcoming Android 11 introduced a package visibility which restricts the access to the list of installed applications.

That means no workarounds will be possible for non-root users if Android OS version >=11. For Android <=9.0 this is not needed and pm list should work. Implementing API for Android 10 only is kinda pointless.

[amsitlab]

@xeffyr still error

[twaik]

What if we just add QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES to AndroidManifest.xml of termux-app? Anyway Termux is not being updated in Google Play.

[agnostic-apollo]

What if we just add QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES to AndroidManifest.xml of termux-app?

That is planned to be added but issue is not related to it. The error is from some binder selinux denial since like Android 8 or something. I haven't been able to figure out which exactly since its not logged, may need to compile android to figure it out since android source is not being helpful to me.

[Rudxain]

Is it possible to define a wrapper function ("decorator") that runs pm in a subshell?

I've tried this

function pm() {
    printf '%s' "$(pm "$@" 2>&1 < /dev/null)"
}

But it doesn't work

[sylirre]

Is it possible to define a wrapper function ("decorator") that runs pm in a subshell?

If stuck in loop, then:

function pm() {
    printf '%s' "$(command pm "$@" 2>&1 < /dev/null)"
}