ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE permission being mandatory since 2.10.0

[tibbi]

[REQUIRED] Issue description

The library requires the android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE permission since version 2.10.0, it crashes at initialization via ExoPlayerFactory.newSimpleInstance(context), if not granted. I'm using the library only for playing locally stored offline videos, so is there any way I can tell ExoPlayer to just ignore everything internet related and work offline? IMHO that should be the default behaviour. Wrapping whole ExoPlayerFactory.newSimpleInstance(context) in a try/catch block will catch the exception, but then I won't receive a usable ExoPlayer instance.

Crashdump:

Process: com.simplemobiletools.gallery.pro.debug, PID: 5873
java.lang.SecurityException: ConnectivityService: Neither user 10901 nor current process has android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE.
    at android.os.Parcel.createException(Parcel.java:1950)
    at android.os.Parcel.readException(Parcel.java:1918)
    at android.os.Parcel.readException(Parcel.java:1868)
    at android.net.IConnectivityManager$Stub$Proxy.getActiveNetworkInfo(IConnectivityManager.java:1216)
    at android.net.ConnectivityManager.getActiveNetworkInfo(ConnectivityManager.java:924)
    at com.google.android.exoplayer2.util.Util.getNetworkType(Util.java:1716)
    at com.google.android.exoplayer2.upstream.DefaultBandwidthMeter.<init>(DefaultBandwidthMeter.java:263)
    at com.google.android.exoplayer2.upstream.DefaultBandwidthMeter.<init>(DefaultBandwidthMeter.java:48)
    at com.google.android.exoplayer2.upstream.DefaultBandwidthMeter$Builder.build(DefaultBandwidthMeter.java:189)
    at com.google.android.exoplayer2.ExoPlayerFactory.getDefaultBandwidthMeter(ExoPlayerFactory.java:446)
    at com.google.android.exoplayer2.ExoPlayerFactory.newSimpleInstance(ExoPlayerFactory.java:337)
    at com.google.android.exoplayer2.ExoPlayerFactory.newSimpleInstance(ExoPlayerFactory.java:299)
    at com.google.android.exoplayer2.ExoPlayerFactory.newSimpleInstance(ExoPlayerFactory.java:193)
    at com.google.android.exoplayer2.ExoPlayerFactory.newSimpleInstance(ExoPlayerFactory.java:127)
    at com.google.android.exoplayer2.ExoPlayerFactory.newSimpleInstance(ExoPlayerFactory.java:115)
    at com.google.android.exoplayer2.ExoPlayerFactory.newSimpleInstance(ExoPlayerFactory.java:105)
    at com.simplemobiletools.gallery.pro.fragments.VideoFragment.setupPlayer(VideoFragment.kt:280)
    ...

[REQUIRED] Reproduction steps

The library itself has the required permission declared in the manifest file, but my app is offline and I don't want to request it, so I'm removing the permission with <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" tools:node="remove"/> in my apps manifest file.

[REQUIRED] Version of ExoPlayer being used

It is broken at com.google.android.exoplayer:exoplayer-core:2.10.1 (also 2.10.0), it used to work just fine with 2.9.6. I'm not using any other modules.

[REQUIRED] Device(s) and version(s) of Android being used

Testing on Android 9, but it doesn't matter in this case.

[tonihei]

That's an interesting use case. Our assumption was that this permission is a normal (i.e not dangerous) permission and thus is automatically granted without user interaction and cannot be revoked by the user. We didn't expect that someone would remove the permission via the manifest as done here. Can you explain why this is needed or how this makes a difference?

We would rather keep the permission by default because it's not clear if an app requests this permission automatically as it may not know that it needs it. However, we could catch the permission exception in the few places where we use the permission.

[tibbi]

Well, I have a suite of apps used by millions of people. Some of the most important properties are apps being offline and having no unnecessary permissions, so I obviously want to avoid that redundant permission. I think that keeping it in your manifest file and catching all related exceptions would be a perfectly acceptable solution. Thanks