Getting Neighboring Cells info

[E3V3A]

There is some issue with some phones in using getNeighboringCells() and getting info. This is apparently especially true for Samsung phones as user @rtreffer states:

Sorry for the noise, it is used by Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector, at least for the Neighboring Cells fragment. This won't work as implemented though, as the call to getNeighboringCells may return an empty result (although it works well on my Nexus 4 after some time). I've created a pull request that calls the getNeighboringCells more aggressively. Note that Samsung devices are known to ignore the call. The pull request makes it possible to see neighboring cells directly after bootup (after a short lag).

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[E3V3A]

@rtreffer Do you also know why Samsungs doesn't provide neighboring cell info properly? Do you have the possibility to investigate?

[rtreffer]

It looks like they never bothered to implement it in their ril. Which is shitty but OKish: getNeighboringCells returns data "if available". It is ok to declare it's never available on your platform.

Replicant does not know how to implement it either, I guess they would be happy if they could get a workaround.

I guess it's likely to improve in future versions of samsung devices as google now uses this API. Which should increase the pressure to implement it.

[E3V3A]

I'm not sure you where here then, but we used @illarionov's multi-ril client, on the Galaxy S2 (GT-I9100) to get neighboring cells, but we haven't gotten this to work on later Galaxies using Qualcomm modems (or on other phones for that matter), although it's possible we didn't give it a proper try. I can't see why it shouldn't work as long as the phone supports the multi-ril concept.

[rtreffer]

@E3V3A do you have some more information on how you did/tried that?

[E3V3A]

Yes, its all in this post and thread. Are you going to try it out for QC phone?

[rtreffer]

@E3V3A I do not have a QC phone... I'll try to get the information on my old galaxy nexus. It would be awesome if this would work with the replicant rild....

[E3V3A]

@rtreffer Did you try it? Any news? What we need to do is trying to modify the multi-client-ril component so that it can handle more XMM based Samsung phones... Should be possible.

Hello. I have the same issue on my Xperia J (Android 4.1.2) - no neighboring cells info.
Here is my logcat:

I/ActivityManager(  901): START {act=android.intent.action.MAIN cat=[android.intent.category.LAUNCHER] flg=0x10200000 cmp=com.SecUpwN.AIMSICD/.AIMSICD u=0} from pid 1131
I/ActivityManager(  901): Start proc com.SecUpwN.AIMSICD for activity com.SecUpwN.AIMSICD/.AIMSICD: pid=4946 uid=10053 gids={1015, 1028, 3003}
W/ActivityThread( 4946): Application com.SecUpwN.AIMSICD can be debugged on port 8100...
I/dalvikvm( 4946): DexOpt: illegal method access (call Landroid/content/res/TypedArray;.<init> (Landroid/content/res/Resources;[I[II)V from Landroid/content/res/XResources$XTypedArray;)
I/dalvikvm( 4946): Could not find method android.content.res.TypedArray.<init>, referenced from method android.content.res.XResources$XTypedArray.<init>
W/dalvikvm( 4946): VFY: unable to resolve direct method 82: Landroid/content/res/TypedArray;.<init> (Landroid/content/res/Resources;[I[II)V
D/dalvikvm( 4946): VFY: replacing opcode 0x70 at 0x0002
E/MultiRil( 4946): Samsung Multiclient RIL not available: Multiclient socket is not available
E/MultiRil( 4946): gsm.version.ril-impl = Qualcomm RIL 1.0
D/PhoneStatusBar(  975): addNotification score=0
I/AIMSICD_Service( 4946): Service launched successfully.
D/SizeAdaptiveLayout(  975): com.android.internal.widget.SizeAdaptiveLayout@411eab88child view android.widget.FrameLayout@41216410 measured out of bounds at 95px clamped to 96px
D/libEGL  ( 4946): loaded /system/lib/egl/libEGL_adreno200.so
D/libEGL  ( 4946): loaded /system/lib/egl/libGLESv1_CM_adreno200.so
D/libEGL  ( 4946): loaded /system/lib/egl/libGLESv2_adreno200.so
I/Adreno200-EGL( 4946): <qeglDrvAPI_eglInitialize:294>: EGL 1.4 QUALCOMM build: AU_LINUX_ANDROID_JB.04.01.01.00.036_msm8960_JB_CL2644550_release_AU (CL2644550)
I/Adreno200-EGL( 4946): Build Date: 07/31/12 Tue
I/Adreno200-EGL( 4946): Local Branch: 
I/Adreno200-EGL( 4946): Remote Branch: quic/master
I/Adreno200-EGL( 4946): Local Patches: NONE
I/Adreno200-EGL( 4946): Reconstruct Branch: AU_LINUX_ANDROID_JB.04.01.01.00.036 +  NOTHING
D/OpenGLRenderer( 4946): Enabling debug mode 0
I/Choreographer( 4946): Skipped 47 frames!  The application may be doing too much work on its main thread.
I/ActivityManager(  901): Displayed com.SecUpwN.AIMSICD/.AIMSICD: +1s734ms
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - start polling
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 0
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 1
D/SizeAdaptiveLayout(  975): com.android.internal.widget.SizeAdaptiveLayout@411eab88child view android.widget.FrameLayout@41216410 measured out of bounds at 95px clamped to 96px
W/InputMethodManagerService(  901): Window already focused, ignoring focus gain of: com.android.internal.view.IInputMethodClient$Stub$Proxy@4124f020 attribute=null
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 2
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 3
D/nav     ( 4946): selected Item Cell Information
D/dalvikvm( 4946): JIT code cache reset in 0 ms (41484 bytes 4/0)
D/dalvikvm( 4946): GC_CONCURRENT freed 1725K, 41% free 6115K/10243K, paused 5ms+14ms, total 98ms
D/dalvikvm( 4946): WAIT_FOR_CONCURRENT_GC blocked 30ms
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 4
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 5
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 6
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 7
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 8
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 9
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo Size - 0
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - start polling
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 0
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 1
D/dalvikvm(  901): GC_CONCURRENT freed 1716K, 35% free 15522K/23815K, paused 4ms+9ms, total 98ms
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 2
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 3
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 4
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 5
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 6
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 7
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 8
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 9
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo Size - 0
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - start polling
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 0
I/CellTracker( 4946): neighbouringCellInfo empty - try 1

[E3V3A]

Thanks @Narengoyn for testing and providing logs. We're aware of this issue and it is probably an AOS issue. Until we find a more reliable method to do this, this issue will remain open.

[E3V3A]

Many phones are not supporting the AOS Neighboring Cells API. Samsungs in particular. Please check your phone on this list.

Thanks, that was very helpful information. Probably, you need to add this list to webpage of your project. But, if I have a smartphone, which does not support the Neighboring Cells API, can your software still determine my security status on my smartphone? Or do I just need a new phone for that?