Problem connecting to Google Drive when participating in "Advanced Protection Program"

If you’re enrolled in the Advanced Protection Program and haven’t used Cryptomator for Android or iOS before enrolling, you can not access your files located in Google Drive:

You can still sign into apps and services with Google. If they request access to your Gmail or Drive data, access will be denied.

Cryptomator for Android indicates a general error and in the log you find

  • Caused by: com.google.android.gms.auth.GoogleAuthException: ServiceDisabled
  • Caused by: com.google.android.gms.auth.a: ServiceDisabled.

If you run into this problem, follow these steps:

  1. Unenroll from the Advanced Protection Program
  2. Access the cloud using Cryptomator (Android or iOS)
  3. Enroll again the Advanced Protection Program

Cryptomator will keep working since it is already enrolled.

We will try to provide a better workaround (if at all possible) in the future but this is how it works at the moment.

Many thanks to a kind user for reporting the source of this problem and providing this workaround, you’re awesome!

2 Likes

Hi,

after reading this I decided to buy the Android app and give it a try. Unfortunately, unenrolling the Advanced Protection Program, using Cryptomator and enrolling again does not work for me. The moment I enroll again, I lose access to Google drive and cannot open previously added vaults.

Any suggestions? All my data is on Google drive and without access, the Android app is useless for me.

BR
Thaurcam

Hey and welcome in the community :slightly_smiling_face:!

Thanks for your feedback, we’ll look into it and search for other solutions.
Maybe they changed the way they handled existing grants, because I was able to reproduce that at the time.

Thanks for your help. After using the desktop app for more than a year now, I’m looking forward to use this great software also on my Chromebook.

Hey guys,

do you have any news regarding this topic or another workaround?

Thanks for your help!

Thaurcam

I’m running into the same issue with a education account with advance protection enabled. (but works fine on desktop using Google File Stream).

Please let me know if you see a viable pathforward.

Hey and welcome to the Cryptomator Community,

Is it the same for you?

Google File Stream works because google apps are on the “allowed list” even in advance protection contrary to third party apps like Cryptomator.

Unfortunately, I do not currently know of any other workaround.

Hey!

I may have found a potential solution. First of all: I am an IT admin and not a programmer. :slight_smile:

I use ShareX, a screenshot tool that offers a lot of features, including connections to various cloud providers. Here is the thing: I was able to successfully link ShareX to my Google Drive, and that was with an Advanced Protection Program activated.

When you open the authorization page from the program, a verification code is displayed at the very end, which you enter into ShareX in turn, and boom: It’s connected.

The tool is writing all important auth-stuff locally inside the “UploadersConfig.json” file (C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\ShareX).

I took some screenshots, to show you the steps on Windows:

https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1gn18saWKzO186w8njDc4U3inJTvEDd-X

ShareX Github:

Maybe the same thing can be implemented in Cryptomators Android app?

Greets,

fommio

By the way, I am very surprised that this kind of authentication method for a third party exists. This is against the Advanced Protection Program philosophy, isn’t it?

This work around does not work.

There must be some solutions, because when I turned on Advanced Protection Program, it cut off all the third apps. When I tried to add them back, I found Notability, Goodnotes and WhatsApp can still back up to Google Drive, while a plug in on my WordPress can’t. I believe Google must have a white list for third apps.