The diagnosis is now precise and it is not the installer dialog. Macrobenchmark's rule uninstalls the app and reinstalls it before measuring; an uninstall clears app-ops, so the MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE grant that tools/benchmark-fixture.sh applies is gone by the time the test navigates. appops get reads No operations after a run, the app correctly shows its choose-a-folder fallback, and the volume row the test looks for is not on screen - which is exactly the assertion that fired.
No test can work around it: granting an app-op needs the shell uid, and UiAutomation.executeShellCommand runs as the test app. So the three interaction benchmarks cannot run as macrobenchmark tests on any device where this app needs the grant. PERFORMANCE.md now says that, names the two paths that would give the numbers (a plain instrumented test that avoids the rule, or a benchmark flow that needs no grant), and says what each costs. The cold-start number stands.
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