[Bug]: requestPermission Future never resolves, when application goes to background, when "Allow to use location" popup is displayed

[tobolski]

Please check the following before submitting a new issue.

• I have searched the existing issues.
• I have carefully read the documentation and verified I have added the required platform specific configuration.

Please select affected platform(s)

• Android
• iOS
• Linux
• macOS
• Web
• Windows

Steps to reproduce

1. Enable location on device and in application.
2. Execute: final permission = await Geolocator.requestPermission();
3. "Allow to use location" popup should appear:
   
4. Lock the phone.
5. Unlock the phone.

Expected results

• Bring back "Allow to use location" when going back to application.
  OR
• Complete the Future with proper state.

Actual results

1. "Allow to use location" is gone.
2. final permission = await Geolocator.requestPermission(); is waiting forever.
3. Another call to this method results in exception:

Unhandled Exception: A request for location permissions is already running, please wait for it to complete before doing another request.

Code sample

Code sample

final permission = await Geolocator.requestPermission();

Screenshots or video

final permission = await Geolocator.requestPermission();

Version

12.0.0

Flutter Doctor output

Doctor output

[✓] Flutter (Channel stable, 3.19.6, on macOS 14.4.1 23E224 darwin-arm64, locale en-PL)
    • Flutter version 3.19.6 on channel stable at /Users/xxx/git/flutter
    • Upstream repository https://github.com/flutter/flutter.git
    • Framework revision 54e66469a9 (5 weeks ago), 2024-04-17 13:08:03 -0700
    • Engine revision c4cd48e186
    • Dart version 3.3.4
    • DevTools version 2.31.1
[✓] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 34.0.0)
    • Android SDK at /Users/xxx/Library/Android/sdk
    • Platform android-34, build-tools 34.0.0
    • Java binary at: /Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents/jbr/Contents/Home/bin/java
    • Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 17.0.7+0-17.0.7b1000.6-10550314)
    • All Android licenses accepted.
[✓] Xcode - develop for iOS and macOS (Xcode 15.2)
    • Xcode at /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
    • Build 15C500b
    • CocoaPods version 1.15.2
[✓] Chrome - develop for the web
[✓] Android Studio (version 2023.1)
[✓] VS Code (version 1.89.1)
[✓] Connected device (5 available)
[✓] Network resources
    • All expected network resources are available.

• No issues found!

[TimHoogstrate]

Dear @tobolski,

This is a known issue in iOS. I'll label this as an enhancement there are multiple issues regarding this situation.

Kind regards

[guide-linhnv]

Hi @tobolski ,

I've submitted a fix for this issue in PR #1774.

The Problem

When the iOS app goes to background while the permission dialog is displayed (e.g., user locks phone, switches apps), iOS dismisses the dialog without calling the
CLLocationManagerDelegate callback. This causes:

• requestPermission() Future hangs indefinitely
• Subsequent requests fail with "A request for location permissions is already running"

The Solution

The fix monitors UIApplicationDidBecomeActiveNotification to detect when the app returns to foreground. If we're still waiting for a permission response at that point, we
resolve the callback with the current authorization status.

Key implementation details:

• Only affects iOS (wrapped in #if TARGET_OS_IOS)
• 0.3s delay to allow pending system callbacks to process first
• Proper cleanup of observers to prevent memory leaks

For those affected

If you need an immediate fix before this is merged, you can use the forked version:

# pubspec.yaml
dependency_overrides:
  geolocator_apple:
    git:
      url: https://github.com/guide-inc-org/flutter-geolocator.git
      ref: fix/permission-dialog-dismiss-ios
      path: geolocator_apple

Would appreciate any testing feedback from those who have been experiencing this issue!

PR: #1774