Android 8: Cleartext HTTP traffic not permitted

Question

I had reports from users with Android 8 that my app (that uses back-end feed) does not show content. After investigation I found following Exception happening on Android 8:

08-29 12:03:11.246 11285-11285/ E/: [12:03:11.245, main]: Exception: IOException java.io.IOException: Cleartext HTTP traffic to * not permitted
at com.android.okhttp.HttpHandler$CleartextURLFilter.checkURLPermitted(HttpHandler.java:115)
at com.android.okhttp.internal.huc.HttpURLConnectionImpl.execute(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:458)
at com.android.okhttp.internal.huc.HttpURLConnectionImpl.connect(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:127)
at com.deiw.android.generic.tasks.AbstractHttpAsyncTask.doConnection(AbstractHttpAsyncTask.java:207)
at com.deiw.android.generic.tasks.AbstractHttpAsyncTask.extendedDoInBackground(AbstractHttpAsyncTask.java:102)
at com.deiw.android.generic.tasks.AbstractAsyncTask.doInBackground(AbstractAsyncTask.java:88)
at android.os.AsyncTask$2.call(AsyncTask.java:333)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
at android.os.AsyncTask$SerialExecutor$1.run(AsyncTask.java:245)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1162)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:636)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:764)

(I've removed package name, URL and other possible identifiers)

On Android 7 and lower everything works, I do not set android:usesCleartextTraffic in Manifest (and setting it to true does not help, that is the default value anyway), neither do I use Network Security Information. If I call NetworkSecurityPolicy.getInstance().isCleartextTrafficPermitted(), it returns false for Android 8, true for older version, using the same apk file. I tried to find some mention of this on Google info about Android O, but without success.

Answer 1

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<network-security-config>
    <domain-config cleartextTrafficPermitted="true">
        <domain includeSubdomains="true">***Your URL(ex: 127.0.0.1)***</domain>
    </domain-config>
</network-security-config>

In the suggestion provided above I was providing my URL as http://xyz.abc.com/mno/

I changed that to xyz.abc.com then it started working.

Answer 2

It could be useful for someone.

We recently had the same issue for Android 9, but we only needed to display some Urls within WebView, nothing very special. So adding android:usesCleartextTraffic="true" to Manifest worked, but we didn't want to compromise security of the whole app for this. So the fix was in changing links from http to https

Answer 3

Add this property on your application manifests only

<application
 . 
 android:usesCleartextTraffic="true"
 .

 >

 </application>

Answer 4

You might only want to allow cleartext while debugging, but keep the security benefits of rejecting cleartext in production. This is useful for me because I test my app against a development server that does not support https. Here is how to enforce https in production, but allow cleartext in debug mode:

In build.gradle:

// Put this in your buildtypes debug section:
manifestPlaceholders = [usesCleartextTraffic:"true"]

// Put this in your buildtypes release section
manifestPlaceholders = [usesCleartextTraffic:"false"]

In the application tag in AndroidManifest.xml

android:usesCleartextTraffic="${usesCleartextTraffic}"

Answer 5

Change your url's from HTTP to HTTPS;

It works out!!!

Answer 6

In the AndroidManifest I found this parameter:

    android:networkSecurityConfig="@xml/network_security_config"

and @xml/network_security_config is defined in network_security_config.xml as:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<network-security-config>
    <!--Set application-wide security config using base-config tag.-->
    <base-config cleartextTrafficPermitted="false"/>
</network-security-config>  

just I changed cleartextTrafficPermitted to true