App crashes after granting it permissions [stock Pixel 8a]

[petrroll]

Hi, I'd love to use the Android app but it crashes consistently as soon as I give it permissions. Reinstalling, deleting data, etc. doesn't help. It crashes few seconds after giving it permissions and it loading dashboard / overview screen.

Happens for Google Play as well as direct APK version.
Doesn't happen in default emulator.

Android 16 but happened on 15 as well.
Pixel 8a, stock everything, no root.

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I'd get better logs but I don't have access to a device that is capable of ADB bridge (I only use a lockdown laptop with devbox and it seems USB connection for ADB aren't proxied well).

[petrroll]

So I managed to get logcat (I don't want to upload it becaues it's not from my device and I'm not sure it's not full of privacy stuff), but GPT-5 analysed it for me and found following:

I'll open and scan the logcat file in large chunks to locate any FATAL EXCEPTION or errors related to ActivityWatch and identify the crash cause. I'll continue scanning the remainder of the logcat file to locate any FATAL EXCEPTION or process death for net.activitywatch.android and extract the crash reason. Continuing to scan the log for any FATAL EXCEPTION or process death messages related to net.activitywatch.android to pinpoint the crash cause. Summarized conversation historyI found the crash point and root cause; here’s the concise why and evidence, plus next steps.

## why it crashed

- Native abort (SIGABRT) inside ActivityWatch’s Rust JNI layer during a heartbeat call.
- The crashing thread is “AsyncTask #1” running UsageStatsWatcher’s SendHeartbeatsTask, which calls into JNI: Java_net_activitywatch_android_RustInterface_heartbeat.
- This indicates a Rust panic/abort in the heartbeat implementation (likely an unwrap/assertion failing or similar), not an ANR or WebView issue.

## evidence (from your log)

- signal: ASSERT crash_dump64 → “signal 6 (SIGABRT)” for process net.activitywatch.android
- thread: “pid: 31666, tid: 31738, name: AsyncTask #1”
- backtrace:
  - #00 libc.so abort
  - …
  - #10 split_config.arm64_v8a.apk (Java_net_activitywatch_android_RustInterface_heartbeat+44)
  - #12 UsageStatsWatcher$SendHeartbeatsTask.doInBackground
- system reactions:
  - “Tombstone written to: tombstone_12”
  - “Showing crash dialog for package net.activitywatch.android u0”
  - “Process net.activitywatch.android (pid 31666) has died: fg TOP”
  - “Process 31666 exited due to signal 6 (Aborted)”

## what’s next

- Try latest ActivityWatch Android build (and bundled aw-server-rust); this looks like a fixed-in-code panic pattern.
- As a temporary mitigation, pause/disable Usage Stats heartbeats in-app if there’s a toggle (the crash is in SendHeartbeatsTask).
- Collect the tombstone for developers: /data/tombstones/tombstone_12 (may require root/bugreport) to see the Rust panic message and symbols.
- If building yourself, enable detailed Rust panic logs/backtraces (panic hook + backtrace) in the JNI layer to pinpoint the failing unwrap/assert.

This leads me to believe it could be similar maybe to ActivityWatch/aw-server-rust#542

If it was possible to fix it, it'd be amazing.
No idea why it doesn't crash in emulator tho.

[petrroll]

Might also be connected to #110

[0xbrayo]

Try this apk from my fork, with the fix in ActivityWatch/aw-server-rust#542 Let me know if it fixes your issue

[petrroll]

Yep that seems to work. Would be amazing to get that merged and released :).

Btw any chance to make work mode work?

[0xbrayo]

I don't know what "work mode" is referring to here.

[0xbrayo]

Yep that seems to work. Would be amazing to get that merged and released :)

We will try to get it merged soon :)

[petrroll]

Let me close this issue and create a separate one for the work profile.
#135