Android + App engine: user.getUserID() is null in endpoint

Question

I have an Android application with GAE server. I tried to authenticate the user as described on developers.google.com, I added the user parameter to the endpoint methods etc

Answer 1

I guess there is no good solution for it right now. I store e-mail as a normal property and remove it from default fetch group, I use long as a primary key (generated by AppEngine) and I query the entity by the e-mail property. I don't like my solution, I'll accept ( and implement :) ) a better one if anyone can provide.

Answer 2

I asked the same question a while ago and got an answer. See link:

Function User.getUserId() in Cloud endpoint api returns null for a user object that is not null

The cause is a bug on appengine.

Answer 3

This is a known issue which has been filed with google, I've attached the issue link below.

There are two workarounds (1) save the user and read back from the store, if it refers to a valid account the user id will be populated (this sucks because you pay the saving / loading / deletion cost for each API access that is authenticated even if it is tiny, and obviously some performance cost) and (2) you could use the google+ ID but that is NOT the same as the user id.

This is extremely frustrating and there is currently no ETA as they are working on some fundamental issues with the auth design as far as I understand.

Please, vote for that issue by starring it. You can find all the information here

https://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/detail?can=2&start=0&num=100&q=&colspec=ID%20Type%20Component%20Status%20Stars%20Summary%20Language%20Priority%20Owner%20Log&groupby=&sort=&id=8848

And here is the current formally approved workaround [(1) above], which you can also find in the link above, but for ease it's here: How can I determine a user_id based on an email address in App Engine?

For workaround (2) mentioned above, you can look at the first link, and go to post #39.