SMS receiver stops working after sometime

Question

I have a requirement of reading incoming SMS from a few of the e-commerce apps. For that, I added BroadcastReceiver for receiving SMS and reading that. Also added runtime permission of READ_SMS for that, done setting a priority of 1000 for that receiver. I tested it for a few days sending a few dummy messages, along with the eCommerce app messages similar to -

Delivered: Your package with Macbook Air ... has been successfully delivered. More info at http://amzn.in/bAieP6f

Your SnapDeal order AWB:12791911327207 is delivered on 19-02-2020 at 16:20 by Xpressbees received by Username. You may contact us on 020-49116100.

Delivered: Gillette Sensitive Ski... from flipkart.com was delivered. Click here to give feedback: http://fkrt.it/u33XFQHHHH

And so on.

But after testing for a few days, around 3-4 days, the app suddenly stopped working to read those and any other messages.

Note: The device I am using is - MI A1, with the Android 9 (Pie) version.

The code for the same, I used is as follows -

1. SmsListener.java (Broadcast Receiver class)

   public class SmsListener extends BroadcastReceiver {
   
     @Override
     public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
   
        Log.d("TAG","msg receiver entered");
   
   
            if (Telephony.Sms.Intents.SMS_RECEIVED_ACTION.equals(intent.getAction())) {
                String messageBody = "";
                String msg_from = "";
                for (SmsMessage smsMessage : Telephony.Sms.Intents.getMessagesFromIntent(intent)) {
   
                    msg_from = smsMessage.getServiceCenterAddress();
                        Log.d("TAG","msg_from = "+msg_from);
                        Log.d("TAG","msgBody = "+messageBody);
   
   
                }
            }
        }
   

   }

2. AndroidManifest.xml

a) necessary permissions

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECEIVE_SMS" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_SMS" />

b) receiver entry

    <receiver android:name=".receiver.SmsListener"
        >
        <intent-filter android:priority="1000">
            <action android:name="android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED" />
        </intent-filter>

    </receiver>

I also tried to modify the priority to 999, as suggested in a few other StackOverflow answers to a similar query, but no luck.

Though, the same code is still working in the demo app, but unluckily not in my app.

I also tried using EventBus referring here. That too worked for some time, unless I again tried testing using

Your SnapDeal order AWB:12791911327207 is delivered on 19-02-2020 at 16:20 by Xpressbees received by Username. You may contact us on 020-49116100.

Don't know what's wrong, as the code looks fine, and was working fine in the same app, also the same code working fine in another demo app.

I also found a suggestion to whitelist the App in this answer. Though, don't know how to do that or whether its the perfect solution.

Please suggest how to achieve reading incoming SMS, or what I am missing or going wrong. Thanks.

Answer 1

Finally, made it working in higher versions too, just by adding

android:permission="android.permission.BROADCAST_SMS"

in the receiver tag in AndroidManifest.xml

and made it something like -

        <receiver android:name=".receiver.SmsListener"
            android:permission="android.permission.BROADCAST_SMS"
            >
            <intent-filter android:priority="999">
                <action android:name="android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED" />
            </intent-filter>

        </receiver>