Android Marshmallow, Note on “Screen overlay detected”

Frustrated on this message, when trying to set/revoke some permissions?

And if the ‘official’ solution does not seem to work at first. You might need a tiny extra step…

The official ‘solution’ can be found described many places, e.g. here

To complete the set up of the application permissions, disable the Draw over other apps feature for the enabled application by following these steps:

1. Open Settings
2. Select Apps
3. Tap the Gear icon
4. Select Draw over other apps
5. Select the application that is running in the background
6. Turn Off Permit drawing over other apps
7. Close and reopen the application
8. Set the application permission

Once the application permissions have been set, the Permit drawing over other apps may be re-enabled.

But if that does not work (like for me) you might have to check the system apps too:

Between step 4 and 5, try to also
4b) Select the drop down “Apps with permision” (to reduce the list).
4c) It could be important to press the ellipsis and “Show system” too, as some ‘system’ apps have this right too, and might be running.

It took me a long time before I spotted this (in principle obvious) detail.

If you see a disabled app on the list, this does not mean that you can ignore it!! (see below)

I recommend to write down which app you remove the privileges from, as some might not work well, if it is not set back – I assume that you should be especially careful to set it back for system apps. (I did not though, except for “System UI” and “Telephone” – and I have not encountered any problems… yet)

(e.g. The “Productivity tab” -unsurprisingly- needs the privilege to work)

But for bloat (marked system or not) that can not be disabled, it might be a good thing to maim it a bit, by removing all privileges possible, so it might crash by it self, or at the least not work…

Removing the few removable privileges helped me to NOT have “AT&T Remote Support” re-activating it self shortly after I stopped it – the reason I installed Greenify. Why would ANYONE want to have an open door like that running on what is supposed to be one of the least badly secured android devices, except if they explicitly needed support???

Note

Remember also that in Marshmallow Disabling an app/service, does NOT stop it, you must explicitly stop it too, by clicking Force stop – frankly this seems like a bug to me… If they see this as a feature, then the very least they could do, was to pop up something on disable, telling if it is still running, as this is extremely contra intuitive…

This is why you can not just ignore disabled apps on the list, unless you know they are also stopped…

Note both “Enable” and “Force stop” at the same time in this example

Comment

I really struggle to see how granting or revoking permissions from an app should be affected by or should affect any app overlaying its display. If anyone can find a plausible explanation, then please let me know in the comments below….