Is it possible to make my application work in safe mode?

Devu Soman picture Devu Soman · May 24, 2013 · Viewed 43.4k times · Source

I have an android application which lists installed and system applications separately. When the user tries to reboot the device from my application it will open my application instead of default home launcher.

But when the device is rebooted to 'safe mode' all logic crashes .ie, the device rebooted to my application in safe mode but it does not list any installed applications and stops its working.

  1. Is it possible to make my application work in 'Safe mode' also?

  2. Is there any way to prevent the device from going to 'safe mode' while running my application like using a RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED broadcastreceiver?

  3. What is device admin applications? Is it helpfull in this situation?

  4. Is it possible to detect safe mode programmatically?

Thanks in advance

Answer

Robyer picture Robyer · Jul 20, 2017

I know this question is old, but perhaps this will help someone. If your application is Device Owner or Profile Owner on the primary user, you can disable safe mode completely (it works without root):

DevicePolicyManager manager = (DevicePolicyManager) getSystemService(Context.DEVICE_POLICY_SERVICE);
ComponentName admin = new ComponentName(getApplicationContext(), DeviceAdminReceiver.class);
// To disable safe boot
manager.addUserRestriction(admin, UserManager.DISALLOW_SAFE_BOOT);
// To enable safe boot again
// manager.clearUserRestriction(admin, UserManager.DISALLOW_SAFE_BOOT);

EDIT: You can set Device Owner or Profile Owner simply via ADB: https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/adb#dpm

adb shell dpm set-device-owner com.example.deviceownerapp/.DeviceAdminReceiver

Note that you must have no accounts added when activating device owner (you don't have to do system reset though, just remove all account from settings). After device owner is set, you can add any accounts again.