this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2026
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How is everyone dealing with Android 17's "Nearby Devices" change? (lemmy.world)
submitted 23 hours ago by pHr34kY@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
62 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

It took me a while to figure out why many of my self-hosted services were intermittently failing to connect on my phone after updating to Android 17. I eventually figured out there's a new ACCESS_LOCAL_NETWORK permission which means the "Nearby devices" permission is now required to access devices on the same network subnet. For an avid self-hoster, this can be quite a bit.

I had my DNS configured so my public-facing server resolved to a local IP address when on my LAN. This meant that my web, immich, xmpp, NTP, jellyfin and DoH servers all resolved to a local IP address on wifi. On Android 17, it all broke without warning. No error messages. No asking for extra permissions. Just silent packet dropping.

I've solved it by configuring my public-facing services to resolve to my external (static) IP address, even when inside the network. I couldn't make any internal services resolve to the external address (SMB, CUPS etc) because they are (obviously) not bound to my WAN interface.

I get why the change was made. A lot of apps were snooping around people's networks to gather intel. A potentially massive privacy violation.

Has anyone else had this issue? Is this the cleanest solution?

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[–] Crackhappy@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

Oooh. I haven't updated it yet. Good to know as I will likely run into the same issue.

[–] Joelk111@lemmy.world 13 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

Why are permissions so damn confusing? I say this as someone who knows why permissions are needed, such as location to find nearby devices. But why must we keep track of "permission X is for thing unrelated to X" in our heads? Now I haven't tried to make a permissions system for the masses, so I guess I can't say too much, but it doesn't seem that difficult to just make the permission name relate to what it does and provide a short synopsis for it.

[–] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

It's because people keep finding ways around them and they evolve in nonsensical ways.

[–] bonn2@lemmy.zip 9 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

I gave permission to Firefox, but honestly most of my services weren't affected because I connect to 99% of them via Tailscale which doesn't seem to trigger the permission. (Yes that was an absolute nightmare to figure out why only one service was failing to connect)

[–] giant_smeeg@feddit.uk 50 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

Luckily grapheneos allows a hybrid approach so allows just the lan subnet permission without the wider nearby devices permission.

[–] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 10 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I'm actually on GrapheneOS.

I've found that you can deny "Network" permissions and permit "Nearby devices". The app becomes LAN-only this way.

[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 5 points 13 hours ago

You're also handling bluetooth and wifi functionality with that permission, fyi.

[–] NarrativeBear@lemmy.world 13 points 20 hours ago

Hey can you let me know where I can find more info on this? I am running GrapheneOS as I was having this exact same issue as OP a few day back.

On my browsers I have network access, but nearby devices was disabled.

I checked my private dns settings and granted nearby devices access to my browsers, which allowed me to hit my local self-hosted services.

Just wondering if there is a better way to achieve the same.

[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 50 points 23 hours ago (3 children)

Haven't been brought to 17 yet thankfully.

My long term solution is to not use android. My short term solution will likely be to use android even less, and be even more pissed at Google.

[–] femtek@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

Solution is to just enable the permission on apps that need it.

[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 22 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

The solution is to avoid google going forward, for many reasons.

[–] femtek@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 19 hours ago (4 children)

That's why I use graphene but the permission is still there in base android.

[–] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 3 points 15 hours ago

I'm actually using GrapheneOS.

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[–] superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

How is this added permission not a good thing? Surely adding a local network only permission is a positive, you can allow apps internet permission and decline them access to your local services.

[–] curbstickle@anarchist.nexus 10 points 18 hours ago

The permission structure sucks.

Its a silent drop (no errors are returned), webview breaks connected to WiFi even without a local resource being requested, it lives inside nearby_devices so giving permission there includes this (and gives a broader spectrum of access such as Bluetooth and WiFi).

Its just shuffling the problem around.

Also, fuck Google.

[–] JetpackJackson@feddit.org 11 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Linux phone?

[–] Colloidal@programming.dev 8 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Flip phone

[–] BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world 8 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Telephone

[–] LostCarcosan@lemmy.today 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Bananaphone

[–] LeighWeighTacoma@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Ring ring ring ring ring banana phooooone

It's cellular, modular, intellective, oddular!

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 20 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (2 children)

Why not just grant the permission to the apps?

Relatedly, I think this is why Google Home and casting to Chromecast have stopped working reliably on my phone. Anyone figure those out? I've already tried granting permissions. Or it may be something GrapheneOS is doing.

[–] deadcream@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 hours ago

IIRC you can't grant the permission if the app doesn't explicitly declare it in its manifest. I doubt most devs would care unless access to local network is required for app's functionality on typical user's setup (e.g. if it's a companion app for some device).

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[–] noxypaws@pawb.social 8 points 19 hours ago

confused me when I suddenly had to give Firefox this permission to access websites on my LAN

More ways to control what can access what is a welcome change for me

(I'm on GrapheneOS but yeah, Android 17 based now)

[–] NarrativeBear@lemmy.world 14 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

Ran into this issue a few days ago, exactly the same way you described.

I am on GrapheneOS and figured it was something to do with a a setting where it's blocking network access for my specific browser app. After reading your post I see it's a android 17 feature.

Checked all the settings in my browsers related to DNS at first and was stumped for a bit, until I flipped on the nearby device setting and everything worked.

I also looked into the DNS settings under Network & Internet > Private DNS. Make sure your phone is using your local networks DNS server. Just make sure to understand the implications of changing this (especially when you disconnect from you're home networks DNS). Also making sure your home DNS is not defaulting to your ISP DNS.

Two websites that help me sanity check myself

  • Dnscheck.tools
  • dnsleaktest.com
[–] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago

I self-host a DoH/DoT server and my local DHCP advertises it to local clients. It's kinda cool because android phones on my wifi will use DoT when private DNS is set to "automatic".

Private DNS sort-of broke while I was tinkering with internal/external IP addresses for nearby devices. It wouldn't always connect when I specified my external IP (despite being available externally). I made it IPv6-only too. It wouldn't be the first time something couldn't handle it.

[–] oha@lemmy.pobierz.net 5 points 18 hours ago

Haven't noticed it yet because my services are on a different network than my clients

[–] Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz 3 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 21 minutes ago)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, automates assignment of IPs when connecting to a network
DNS Domain Name Service/System
ISP Internet Service Provider
NAT Network Address Translation
PiHole Network-wide ad-blocker (DNS sinkhole)
XMPP Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol ('Jabber') for open instant messaging

[Thread #115 for this comm, first seen 27th Sep 2026, 20:10] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 7 points 21 hours ago

Thanks for the heads up. This would have been a nasty surprise followed by unknown duration of hair pulling.

[–] RickyRigatoni@piefed.zip 6 points 21 hours ago

My phone is still on 14 so uuuhhh I'm fine I guess?

[–] SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 7 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I had this issue in firefox. And only firefox. Was pulling my hair for hours. Wish I had been warned.

Anyway I just gave firefox the permission and the issue was resolved. Native apps seem unaffected. Which makes me think maybe this is an opt in setting right now?

[–] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

I think Firefox also gave me the first clue that something was up.

Native apps all have a backwards-compatible setting so it's allowed by default. That will surely get dropped when Google bumps the minimum Android target API so newly published apps need to explicitly configure it.

I actually went through my apps list and disabled nearby devices for all the apps that don't need it. It's a good security measure. I just don't like how it was rolled out.

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