Andoid KIVY python permissions READ Issue. PLEASE HELP

[Jason Watkins]

Hi, I've having an issue reading from external storage after I manually modify the text file I've save there. I'm writing to 'Dowload' directory. I'm able to read the file back from this location before it is modified say from connecting my phone to my linux laptop and making the changes. It appears to be a permission issue.

Thanks

My python program has the following set 

from android.permissions import request_permissions, Permission   ####needed for Android cammera permission
request_permissions([Permission.CAMERA,Permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE, Permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE])

and my buildozer.spec file has

android.permissions = READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE,WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE,MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE,CAMERA

[Robert]

On modern Android devices files in Download are owned by the app that downloaded (wrote) them.
There may be a way round this, but I don't know.

[Jason Watkins]

Hi, Does anyone know of a solution to this issue?

Many Thanks

[Robert]

There really is no issue in the sense that anything in the OS or the tools are broken.
The issue is the programmer is trying to do desktop style programming on a mobile device.

Turn your head around.

The app needs to get the file rather than be given the file by an external source. Which if you think about it being given the file is a security risk.

[Jason Watkins]

Robert, so how do other programs like Adobe Acrobat are able to read/load user's pdf files?

Thanks

[Robert]

You have to ask them.

[Holger B]

I do not know whether this helps here, but to append to  a log.txt log file and then copy it to the shared "Documents" folder from kivy I previously used SharedStorage (https://github.com/Android-for-Python/androidstorage4kivy) :

### first step: write to app-private storage

if kivy.utils.platform == 'android':
   sdpath = App.get_running_app().user_data_dir
   fname = os.path.join(sdpath, logfilename)
   self.log = open(fname, "a")
   self.log.write(my_text)
   self.log.close()

### second step: copying the log file from the app-private storage to shared storage

if kivy.utils.platform == 'android':
    from androidstorage4kivy import SharedStorage
    ss = SharedStorage()
    share0 = ss.copy_to_shared(os.path.join(App.get_running_app().user_data_dir, 'log.txt'))
    print(f"python: copy result {share0}", file=sys.stderr)

... fwiw / there might be more elegant ways
Best, Holger