Timeline for PT_GNU_RELRO hard block and removal of 16KB fallback
Sangryel Do
Hi everyone,
I’m looking for some insights regarding the 16KB page size migration, specifically around the PT_GNU_RELRO misalignment issue (RELRO is not a suffix and its end is not 16 KB aligned).
We have already fixed our .so files to align properly at the 0x8000 boundary using the latest toolchains. However, I noticed two things about the ecosystem's current state:
Android 15 uses a fallback mechanism (bionic.linker.16kb.app_compat.enabled) to run these misaligned apps by sacrificing RELRO security instead of crashing them.
Google Play Console currently warns about this issue but does not seem to hard-block the release like it does for LOAD segment misalignments.
Since the extended Play Store deadline is approaching (May 31, 2026), I am curious about the timeline for when the "grace period" ends:
Play Store Policy: Does anyone know if/when Google Play will start hard-rejecting AABs purely for this RELRO padding issue?
Android OS: Is there any roadmap indicating when Android will drop the Bionic linker fallback and start crashing these apps (e.g., Android 16)?
We want to make sure our ecosystem understanding is correct. Any insights from the NDK team or community members who have navigated this would be great!
enh
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/500536156 to the relevant
person.)
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