Generating content URI for files in external sdcard or removable storages

Question

Suppose I downloaded a video to /storage/9C33-6BBD/Downloads/video.mp4. How can I open this video from my app? SDK 23+

I tried:

                File file = new File("/storage/9C33-6BBD/Downloads/video.mp4");
                String packageName = context.getApplicationContext().getPackageName();
                Uri uri = FileProvider.getUriForFile(context, myprovider,
                        file);
                Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, uri);
                intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION);
                context.startActivity(intent);

But that fails with the following crash. What am I doing wrong?

04-10 02:55:49.889 28144-28144/com.example.one E/AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
                                                                  Process: com.example.one, PID: 28144
                                                                  java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Failed to find configured root that contains /storage/9C33-6BBD/Downloads/video.mp4
                                                                      at android.support.v4.content.FileProvider$SimplePathStrategy.getUriForFile(FileProvider.java:738)
                                                                      at android.support.v4.content.FileProvider.getUriForFile(FileProvider.java:417)
                                                                      at com.example.DownloadAdapter$ViewHolder.onClick(DownloadAdapter.java:385)
                                                                      at android.view.View.performClick(View.java:5612)
                                                                      at android.view.View$PerformClick.run(View.java:22285)
                                                                      at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:751)
                                                                      at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:95)
                                                                      at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:154)
                                                                      at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:6123)
                                                                      at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
                                                                      at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:867)
                                                                      at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:757)

Answer 1

This is what I ended up doing. A media uri is perfect for my purposes and you can get it via MediaScannerConnection.

            MediaScannerConnection.scanFile(
                    service.getApplicationContext(),
                    new String[] { file.getAbsolutePath() },
                    null,
                    new MediaScannerConnection.OnScanCompletedListener() {
                        @Override
                        public void onScanCompleted(String path, Uri uri) {
                            Log.d(TAG, "file " + path + " was scanned seccessfully: "
                                    + uri);
                            // Do your stuff here. What I did was to do the scan
                            // right after the download and save the uri to my 
                            // database. So I can open this uri later.
                        }
                    });

Answer 2

FileProvider does not support removable storage. You would need to create your own ContentProvider for that. Or, switch to working with the Storage Access Framework, as I'm not quite certain how you downloaded to removable storage.