Signal android App is failing

General
1

I have been using the Signal android app on my Xperia X with SFOS3.4 for some years now. It was working mostly OK so fare until the last update a few days ago.

The latest update stopped working after restarting the device. Trying to start the signal app takes some time but eventually it will just disappear without opening.

I am now looking for a way forward without loosing my signal message history.

One options is to reinstall an older apk. but trying that from the file browser fails with the message “App not installed”. I guess it does not like to downgrade as I never had an issue installing a newer version.

  • Does anyone know how to downgrade the APK from the command line?
  • Does anyone know how to save/backup my data without being able to run the app?
  • Does anyone have a solution to recover without data loss?

Any help, to recover is appreciated.

Thank you

2

Maybe it has to do with rights.

Please replace nemo with $USER. Now it refers to defaultuser. $USER will always give the correct reference.

/edit When you change file permissions, you have to restart your device to activate it. I unfortunately do not know of an easier way to achieve that.

3

Thanks for the response.

I check the permission of android_storage and found that it and all subfolder had nemo:nemo . So I changed it and restarted the phone.

Still no luck, with Signal though.

4

I made some progress on this issue after trying to get an a error message from ‘/system/bin/logcat -v time’ and ‘journalctl --follow’ → no luck, not a single related message.

By chance I turned my mobile data off and left home. Shortly after leaving I get a Signal message.
Trying around a bit I found that Signal will start when there is no Internet connection available.

So the workaround to get Signal (version 6.0.6) going is:

  • Turn off WiFi and Mobile Data.
  • Open the signal app or wait for SFOS to trigger starting the background service automatically
  • The signal app will now open
  • Wait 10 to 15 second
  • Turn the desired network service back on.

I assume that the issue is in the Signal background service as the app seems to crash in the instance when the message background service enabled is shown. I hope the Signal team will fix this issue in the near future.

May this be help full to other.

5

At least on Xperia X, Signal 6.1.4 is working again. This is most probably related to the following commit: Hopeful fix for crash on API 19. · signalapp/Signal-Android@f241a51 · GitHub