Android links won't open

Questions
1

I know this has been addressed before, but those solutions are not solving my problem. I have two links in my Android app to our company website. In the “release” version the links will not open, but in the “debug” version they open just fine.

I’ve played with several iterations of the CSP in index.htm as well as access and allow-intent directives in the config.xml file. Here is my CSP currently:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Security-Policy" content="default-src 'self' https:* mailto:* tel:* data: gap: 'unsafe-inline' https://ssl.gstatic.com; style-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline'; media-src *" />

and here are my current access and allow-intent directives:

 <access origin="mailto:*" launch-external="yes" />
  <access origin="tel:*" launch-external="yes" />
  <access origin="*" launch-external="yes" />
  <access origin="https:*" launch-external="yes" />
  <allow-intent href="https:*"/>
  <allow-intent href="tel:*" launch-external="yes"/>
  <allow-intent href="mailto:*" launch-external="yes"/>
  <allow-navigation	href="*"/>
  <platform name="android">
    <allow-intent href="market:*"/>
  </platform>

I’ve tried everything I can find in the voltbuilder and cordova documents but nothing works. The app released fine through the play store and the log file didn’t show any errors.

2

I may have figured this out. I noticed in one of the myriad of documents I researched that it spoke about the keystore file. So I used keytool to look at my keystore file for any anomalies and at the very end received a warning, "Warning:
The JKS keystore uses a proprietary format. It is recommended to migrate to PKCS12 which is an industry standard format using “keytool …” and it gave the command to convert it.

So I used the keytool using the suggested command and converted the keystore to the PKCS12 format and then rebuilt my app as “release” using the new keystore file. The APK is now working on my test phone. next step is to create yet another release in the Play store and see if that works.

3

Did you try creating the keystore with VoltSigner?

4

No, I created this keystore file back in 2016.

5

The play store version released and I tested it this morning before going to work. It worked perfectly and opened the links as expected. Then I tested it again when I got to work and it wouldn’t open the links. I did some experiments with turning off Wi-Fi and connecting to our guest Wi-Fi and it turns out our corporate Wi-Fi appears to be blocking the links! It makes no sense because I can open them in Chrome, just not from my app. I feel I’ve been spinning my wheels for the past week trying to resolve this and it turns out my own company has been sabotaging me! At least now I have a version that satisfies Google’s new policies and works for my users and I learned a bunch along the way.

6

I would not have expected that either. Good detective work!