Billing Library crash in com.android.billingclient.api.ProxyBillingActivity

[salami]

• I have updated Purchases SDK to the latest version
• I have read the Contribution Guidelines
• I have searched the Community
• I have read docs.revenuecat.com
• I have searched for existing Github issues

Describe the bug
A clear and concise description of what the bug is. The more detail you can provide the faster our team will be able to triage and resolve the issue. Do not remove any of the steps from the template below. If a step is not applicable to your issue, please leave that step empty.

1. Environment
   1. Platform: Android; Nexus 5X
   2. SDK version: 8.10.2; android targetSdk 35; compileSdk 35
   3. OS version: Android 13
   4. Android Studio version: Android Studio Ladybug | 2024.2.1 Patch 3
   5. How widespread is the issue? Rare issue.
2. Debug logs that reproduce the issue
3. Steps to reproduce, with a description of expected vs. actual behavior
4. Other information (e.g. stacktraces, related issues, suggestions how to fix, links for us to have context, eg. stackoverflow, etc.)

Sadly not able to reproduce. This is the crash log data from Firebase Crashlytics

Fatal Exception: java.lang.RuntimeException
Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.telephonescience.nomorobomax/com.android.billingclient.api.ProxyBillingActivity}: java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to invoke virtual method 'android.content.IntentSender android.app.PendingIntent.getIntentSender()' on a null object reference

Caused by java.lang.NullPointerException
Attempt to invoke virtual method 'android.content.IntentSender android.app.PendingIntent.getIntentSender()' on a null object reference


com.android.billingclient.api.ProxyBillingActivity.onCreate (com.android.billingclient:billing@@7.0.0:14)
android.app.Activity.performCreate (Activity.java:8305)
android.app.Activity.performCreate (Activity.java:8284)
android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate (Instrumentation.java:1417)
android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity (ActivityThread.java:3626)
android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity (ActivityThread.java:3782)
android.app.servertransaction.LaunchActivityItem.execute (LaunchActivityItem.java:101)
android.app.servertransaction.TransactionExecutor.executeCallbacks (TransactionExecutor.java:135)
android.app.servertransaction.TransactionExecutor.execute (TransactionExecutor.java:95)
android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage (ActivityThread.java:2307)
android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage (Handler.java:106)
android.os.Looper.loopOnce (Looper.java:201)
android.os.Looper.loop (Looper.java:288)
android.app.ActivityThread.main (ActivityThread.java:7872)
java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke (Method.java)
com.android.internal.os.RuntimeInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run (RuntimeInit.java:548)
com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main (ZygoteInit.java:936)

Any ideas?

On a somewhat related note, will this SDK upgrade to the latest Google Play Billing Library 7.1.1 soon?

[RCGitBot]

👀 We've just linked this issue to our internal tracker and notified the team. Thank you for reporting, we're checking this out!

[salami]

By the way, this seems to be a rare issue but am wondering if anyone else has encountered it.

[skrugly]

Same here on RC 8.10.7 version.

[JayShortway]

Hi thanks for reporting this!

We've seen this before, and our suspicion is that it's caused by people tampering with the app trying to start the Activities declared in the manifest in unsupported ways. The ProxyBillingActivity is normally launched by the BillingClient, and it expects an Intent extra in the Intent that launched it. This is null if the Activity is started directly, e.g. through adb or Tasker or any other method or app that can send Intents.

On a possibly-related note, this device is running a custom ROM based on Android 13, as the Nexus 5X only got to Android 8.1.

@salami @skrugly Would you be able to share the device and Android version distributions from Crashlytics? That would help us get a better sense of this. If you have absolute numbers on number of crashes that would be great too. Thanks in advance!

[JayShortway]

Oh and you're totally right that we should update to the latest Play Billing Library. Thanks for that, PR coming up!

[Bohdandn]

We see the same suspicious activity. User with Nexus 5X and Android 13 gets crash at ProxyBillingActivity.onCreate (at least its reported as crash by crashlytics). Suspicious indeed.