android - getInstallerPackageName returns null

Question

In my Android app I wanted to check the source of app installation. I looked at the Android documentation and found the following API as part of the PackageManager class:

abstract String getInstallerPackageName(String packageName) 

Retrieve the package name of the application that installed a package.

Then I used the following code in the onCreate method of MyActivity:

if(Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= 11) 
{
    PackageManager myapp= this.getPackageManager(); 
    String installer = myapp.getInstallerPackageName("com.MyPackage");
    if(installer == null)
    {
        Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), MyActivity.this.getString(R.string.invalidsource), Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
        MyActivity.this.finish();
    }
}

But it looks like this API returns null on a real device.

Please let me know if we have any other means of getting the source of app installation.

Answer 1

if you want to test this the way is to store the apk on the device by using the

adb push 'test.apk' '/sdcard/Download'

then go to the adb shell by typing in 'adb shell' and hitting enter in the terminal then install using the following command

pm install -i 'installernameyouwant' /sdcard/Download/test.apk

when installing the app in above method the call to getInstallerPackageName() returns the installer name you gave in the above command