“tel”, “sms”, and “mailto” no longer working in Android after upgrading to cordova 3.6.3

Question

I recently upgraded my cordova based Android app from 3.5.0 to 3.6.3. The special links "tel", "sms", and "mailto" stopped working. When clicked, nothing happens. Is there anything I can do in the AndroidManifest.xml, or Confix.xml or anything else to get them back working?

I built two identical and very simple android apps to prove my suspicion, one with cordova 3.5.0 and one with 3.6.3. Both of them have a simple link:

<a href="tel:1(858)xxx-xxxx">Call</a>

The first one works, the second one doesn't work.

I think they added a security feature that blocks intents somehow.

PS: both apps built like this:

cordova create app com.tmp.app "App"
cordova platform add android

and in index.html, I added the telephone link above on the device ready block.

Please help.

Answer 1

I finally found the answer. All you have to do is add the following to config.xml:

<access origin="tel:*" launch-external="yes"/>
<access origin="geo:*" launch-external="yes"/>
<access origin="mailto:*" launch-external="yes"/>
<access origin="sms:*" launch-external="yes"/>
<access origin="market:*" launch-external="yes"/>

I hope this helps everyone.

It all started by IBM!!!

IBM Cordova Security Issues