As many people have noted, my Android application alogcat does not work correctly on Jellybean devices. The reason is that applications can no longer read log entries created by other applications. They can still read log entries created by themselves, but obviously that doesn’t help alogcat.

The logic makes sense I suppose. A poorly written application may log sensitive information. Allowing other applications to read this is a bad thing.

For alogcat, there is a workaround. You must explicitly grant alogcat the READ_LOGS permission from the command line. From the Android shell,

shell@android:/ $ pm grant org.jtb.alogcat android.permission.READ_LOGS    

Or if you have ADB installed, from your computer’s terminal with your device connected,

$ adb shell pm grant org.jtb.alogcat android.permission.READ_LOGS    

This of course requires that you install an Android terminal emulator, or have ADB installed on your computer. Android Terminal Emulator is a good choice for an Android terminal. The Android SDK, which includes ADB can be downloaded here.

aLogcat – Android Logcat Application

aLogcat market barcode

There are several “log view” applications on the market. All of them provide a means to send your log file contents, typically via email. This is one good approach, but it doesn’t handle the use case where you don’t have immediate access to a PC email client to view the results. aLogcat is an Android application that allows you to view your Android device log from the device itself. It provides a scrolling, color-coded log that is filterable by keyword and log level. It also supports output in various log formats. aLogcat also covers the send log use case by allowing a snapshot of the log to be sent off to another device.

This is mainly an app for developers, but it is also useful for power users that are willing to get involved with developers to help them find problems in their applications. Most Android developers are small scale hobbyists and can’t devote full-time effort and money to rigorous testing across multiple devices. I hope this app lowers the barrier for involvement of the average user in the development cycle.

aLogcat