Like earlier releases, Android 14 includes behavior changes that may affect your app. The following behavior changes apply exclusively to apps that are targeting Android 14 or higher. If your app is targeting Android 14 or higher, you should modify your app to support these behaviors properly, where applicable.
Be sure to also review the list of
behavior changes that affect all apps running on Android 14
regardless of the app's
targetSdkVersion
.
Core functionality
Foreground service types are required
If your app targets Android 14, it must specify at least one foreground service type for each foreground service within your app. You should choose a foreground service type that represents your app's use case. The system expects foreground services that have a particular type to satisfy a particular use case.
If a use case in your app isn't associated with any of these types, it's strongly recommended that you migrate your logic to use WorkManager or user-initiated data transfer jobs.
Enforcement of BLUETOOTH_CONNECT permission in BluetoothAdapter
Android 14 enforces the BLUETOOTH_CONNECT
permission when calling the
BluetoothAdapter getProfileConnectionState()
method for apps targeting
Android 14 (API level 34).
This method already required the BLUETOOTH_CONNECT
permission, but it was not
enforced. Make sure your app declares BLUETOOTH_CONNECT
in your app's
AndroidManifest.xml
file as shown in the following snippet and check that
a user has granted the permission before calling getProfileConnectionState
.
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH_CONNECT" />
OpenJDK 17 updates
Android 14 continues the work of refreshing Android's core libraries to align with the features in the latest OpenJDK LTS releases, including both library updates and Java 17 language support for app and platform developers.
A few of these changes can affect app compatibility:
- Changes to regular expressions: Invalid group references are now
disallowed to more closely follow the semantics of OpenJDK. You might see
new cases where an
IllegalArgumentException
is thrown by thejava.util.regex.Matcher
class, so make sure to test your app for areas that use regular expressions. To enable or disable this change while testing, toggle theDISALLOW_INVALID_GROUP_REFERENCE
flag using the compatibility framework tools. - UUID handling: The
java.util.UUID.fromString()
method now does more strict checks when validating the input argument, so you might see anIllegalArgumentException
during deserialization. To enable or disable this change while testing, toggle theENABLE_STRICT_VALIDATION
flag using the compatibility framework tools. - ProGuard issues: In some cases, the addition of the
java.lang.ClassValue
class causes an issue if you try to shrink, obfuscate, and optimize your app using ProGuard. The problem originates with a Kotlin library that changes runtime behaviour based on whetherClass.forName("java.lang.ClassValue")
returns a class or not. If your app was developed against an older version of the runtime without thejava.lang.ClassValue
class available, then these optimizations might remove thecomputeValue
method from classes derived fromjava.lang.ClassValue
.
JobScheduler reinforces callback and network behavior
Since its introduction, JobScheduler expects your app to return from onStartJob
or onStopJob
within a few seconds. Prior to Android 14, if a job runs too long,
it stops and fails silently. If your app targets Android 14 or higher and exceeds
the granted time on the main thread, the app triggers an ANR with the error message "No response
to onStartJob
" or "No response to onStopJob
". Consider migrating to
WorkManager, which provides support for asynchronous processing or
migrating any heavy work into a background thread.
JobScheduler
also introduces a requirement to declare the ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE
permission if using
setRequiredNetworkType
or setRequiredNetwork
constraint. If your app does not declare the
ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE
permission when scheduling the job and is targeting
Android 14 or higher, it will result in a SecurityException
.
Security
Restrictions to implicit and pending intents
For apps targeting Android 14, Android restricts apps from sending implicit intents to internal app components in the following ways:
- Implicit intents are only delivered to exported components. Apps must either use an explicit intent to deliver to unexported components, or mark the component as exported.
- If an app creates a mutable pending intent with an intent that doesn't specify a component or package, the system now throws an exception.
These changes prevent malicious apps from intercepting implicit intents that are intended for use by an app's internal components.
For example, here is an intent filter that could be declared in your app's manifest file:
<activity
android:name=".AppActivity"
android:exported="false">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="com.example.action.APP_ACTION" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
If your app tried to launch this activity using an implicit intent, an exception would be thrown:
Kotlin
// Throws an exception when targeting Android 14. context.startActivity(Intent("com.example.action.APP_ACTION"))
Java
// Throws an exception when targeting Android 14. context.startActivity(new Intent("com.example.action.APP_ACTION"));
To launch the non-exported activity, your app should use an explicit intent instead:
Kotlin
// This makes the intent explicit. val explicitIntent = Intent("com.example.action.APP_ACTION") explicitIntent.apply { package = context.packageName } context.startActivity(explicitIntent)
Java
// This makes the intent explicit. Intent explicitIntent = new Intent("com.example.action.APP_ACTION") explicitIntent.setPackage(context.getPackageName()); context.startActivity(explicitIntent);
Runtime-registered broadcasts receivers must specify export behavior
Apps and services that target Android 14 and use context-registered
receivers are
required to specify a flag to indicate whether or not the receiver should be
exported to all other apps on the device: either RECEIVER_EXPORTED
or
RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED
, respectively. This requirement helps protect apps
from security vulnerabilities by leveraging the features for these receivers
introduced in Android 13.
Exception for receivers that receive only system broadcasts
If your app is registering a receiver only for system
broadcasts through
Context#registerReceiver
methods, such as
Context#registerReceiver()
,
then it shouldn't specify a flag when registering the receiver.
Safer dynamic code loading
If your app targets Android 14 and uses Dynamic Code Loading (DCL), all dynamically-loaded files must be marked as read-only. Otherwise, the system throws an exception. We recommend that apps avoid dynamically loading code whenever possible, as doing so greatly increases the risk that an app can be compromised by code injection or code tampering.
If you must dynamically load code, use the following approach to set the dynamically-loaded file (such as a DEX, JAR, or APK file) as read-only as soon as the file is opened and before any content is written:
Kotlin
val jar = File("DYNAMICALLY_LOADED_FILE.jar") val os = FileOutputStream(jar) os.use { // Set the file to read-only first to prevent race conditions jar.setReadOnly() // Then write the actual file content } val cl = PathClassLoader(jar, parentClassLoader)
Java
File jar = new File("DYNAMICALLY_LOADED_FILE.jar"); try (FileOutputStream os = new FileOutputStream(jar)) { // Set the file to read-only first to prevent race conditions jar.setReadOnly(); // Then write the actual file content } catch (IOException e) { ... } PathClassLoader cl = new PathClassLoader(jar, parentClassLoader);
Handle dynamically-loaded files that already exist
To prevent exceptions from being thrown for existing dynamically-loaded files, we recommend deleting and recreating the files before you try to dynamically load them again in your app. As you recreate the files, follow the preceding guidance for marking the files read-only at write time. Alternatively, you can re-label the existing files as read-only, but in this case, we strongly recommend that you verify the integrity of the files first (for example, by checking the file's signature against a trusted value), to help protect your app from malicious actions.
Additional restrictions on starting activities from the background
For apps targeting Android 14, the system further restricts when apps are allowed to start activities from the background:
- When an app sends a
PendingIntent
usingPendingIntent#send()
or similar methods, the app must now opt in if it wants to grant its own background activity launch privileges to start the pending intent. To opt in, the app should pass anActivityOptions
bundle withsetPendingIntentBackgroundActivityStartMode(MODE_BACKGROUND_ACTIVITY_START_ALLOWED)
. - When a visible app binds a service of another app that's in the background
using the
bindService()
method, the visible app must now opt in if it wants to grant its own background activity launch privileges to the bound service. To opt in, the app should include theBIND_ALLOW_ACTIVITY_STARTS
flag when calling thebindService()
method.
These changes expand the existing set of restrictions to protect users by preventing malicious apps from abusing APIs to start disruptive activities from the background.
Zip path traversal
For apps targeting Android 14, Android prevents the Zip Path Traversal Vulnerability
in the following way: ZipFile(String)
and ZipInputStream.getNextEntry()
throws a ZipException
if zip file entry names contain ".." or start with "/".
Apps can opt-out from this validation by calling dalvik.system.ZipPathValidator.clearCallback()
.
Updated non-SDK restrictions
Android 14 includes updated lists of restricted non-SDK interfaces based on collaboration with Android developers and the latest internal testing. Whenever possible, we make sure that public alternatives are available before we restrict non-SDK interfaces.
If your app does not target Android 14, some of these changes might not immediately affect you. However, while you can currently use some non-SDK interfaces (depending on your app's target API level), using any non-SDK method or field always carries a high risk of breaking your app.
If you are unsure if your app uses non-SDK interfaces, you can test your app to find out. If your app relies on non-SDK interfaces, you should begin planning a migration to SDK alternatives. Nevertheless, we understand that some apps have valid use cases for using non-SDK interfaces. If you cannot find an alternative to using a non-SDK interface for a feature in your app, you should request a new public API.
To learn more about the changes in this release of Android, see Updates to non-SDK interface restrictions in Android 14. To learn more about non-SDK interfaces generally, see Restrictions on non-SDK interfaces.