maybe I just never tested the case where both apps were installed at the same time?
I would presume this is the case. You cannot have two apps with providers supporting the same authority installed at the same time.
But now the app crashes shortly after launch with SecurityException:
My guess is that you changed your manifest, but you did not change the Uri
that you are using to access the provider. Hence, your com.bar
app is still trying to talk to the com.foo
provider, and that provider is not exported.
how can I keep this different while keeping synergy with the base code?
Either this is the same app, or it is not.
If it is the same app, your first step is to switch back to the original package name. The only way you could have gotten Failure [INSTALL_FAILED_CONFLICTING_PROVIDER]
is because you changed the package name and did not change the provider's authority. Changing the package name means that, from the standpoint of everyone outside of you and your team, it is a completely different app. Once you have switched back to the original package name (and rolled back to the original provider authority), everything should be fine, except that you won't be able to have the release version and the development version on the same device at the same time.
If you do indeed plan to have this app have a separate package name (so existing users of the existing app cannot upgrade to this new app), you will need to change the authority string in all relevant places. I presume that you can do this using a string resource, where you have different versions of the string resource. Or, if this is a free-vs.-paid app scenario, move to doing your builds using Gradle for Android, and set up separate free
and paid
product flavors, which can patch up your package name and authority data as part of the builds, without having to tweak the source code.