debugging for android

charles proxy

In contrast to iOS, we are not able to debug all app environments for Android. In-market apps will not work with Charles. However, the steps for debugging non in-market apps are similar to iOS.

First, we need to install Charles Proxy on our computer (https://www.charlesproxy.com/download/). Then we have to do a few more things to complete set up:

Install the SSL certificate on our machine.

Enable SSL Proxying (enter * as the host).

Enable Transparent HTTP Proxying (enter 8888 as the port).

Enter * in the host field for Recording Settings to make sure all traffic is being recorded.

wifi settings & certificates

Now we have to set up our Android device to send the traffic to our computer:

On your Android device, open up your WiFi settings and connect to the same network as your PC.

Edit your WiFi connection, choose Advanced Options, then set to Manual proxy and enter the IP of your computer with port 8888 and save.

Go to charlesproxy.com/getssl on your Android device and allow the device on the prompt on your computer.

The certificate should download and from here you will want to open the file on your device then name it and save it.

Android app traffic

Now we can launch the app we want to test and debug. We should immediately see traffic appearing for the app (config, screens, video player calls, etc). If we drill down through the calls we’re interested in we can view the info for the requests and responses. We can also view this info in Charles in two different ways:

Sequence display where you can view the requests in the order that they occur.

Structure display which shows requests sorted by the host name which can be expanded to show folders.