How to disable animations in code when running Esp

Question

Has anybody managed to disable animations through code when running Espresso tests? I've been trying to follow the instructions in this webpage (linked to from here):
https://code.google.com/p/android-test-kit/wiki/DisablingAnimations

Unfortunately it does not appear to be working, as I keep seeing this permissions error:

04-27 15:48:28.694      303-342/system_process W/PackageManager﹕ Not granting permission android.permission.SET_ANIMATION_SCALE to package com.cookbrite.dev (protectionLevel=50 flags=0x18be46)

I was really hoping to avoid reconfiguring my device/emulators. We frequently run individual tests locally and it will annoy me if I have to keep toggling settings.

I noticed some other developers complaining that this doesn't work, so I might not be alone:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/android-test-kit-discuss/TCil7kMQRTM/QK1qCjzM6KQJ

Answer 1

I'm executing these three commands for each animation type and they are working for me:

adb shell settings put global window_animation_scale 0.0
adb shell settings put global transition_animation_scale 0.0
adb shell settings put global animator_duration_scale 0.0

More information here - prepare android emulator for UI test automation.

Answer 2

I finally got this to work. Here is a Gist listing the required steps:
https://gist.github.com/daj/7b48f1b8a92abf960e7b

The key step that I had missed was running adb to grant the permission:

adb shell pm grant com.mypackage android.permission.SET_ANIMATION_SCALE    

Adding the permission to the manifest and running the reflection steps did not seem to be enough on their own.

Answer 3

Well, this is a workaround I came into... my app only has one animation which only stops a few tests.

So I prefered to set a SharedPreference, PREFS_ANIMATIONS_DISABLED_FOR_TESTING...

I set it true before my method starts and to false before ends.

@Test
public void startingAnimationTest() {
     mSettings.edit().putBoolean("PREFS_ANIMATIONS_DISABLED_FOR_TESTING", true).apply();

    //Actual testing

    mSettings.edit().putBoolean("PREFS_ANIMATIONS_DISABLED_FOR_TESTING", false).apply();
}

I simply ask for it before starting the animation.

And that's it, surely not the best solution because I know tests shouldn't affect real code but it's been enough for me.