firebase-android-sdk: "firebase_messaging_auto_init_enabled" flag does not work

Step 1: Describe your environment

• Android device: Samsung S9
• Android OS version: 8.0.0
• Google Play Services version: 17.4.55
• Play Services Base SDK version: 16.1.0
• Firebase Core version: 16.0.7
• Firebase Messaging version: 17.4.0

Step 2: Describe the problem:

As mentioned in the docs to prevent auto-initialization of FCM tokens we may add

<meta-data android:name="firebase_messaging_auto_init_enabled" android:value="false"/>
<meta-data android:name="firebase_analytics_collection_enabled" android:value="false" />

in AndroidManifest.xml. Bt this does not seem to work as token is still being generated automatically when the app starts. This issue (https://github.com/firebase/quickstart-android/issues/467) already exist but it was closed. It strange because it wasn’t solved

Steps to reproduce:

1. Add this to manifest.xml
2. Run the App

Observed Results:

• Token would still generate without even initializing the firebase messaging again at runtime.

Expected Results:

• Token wouldn’t generate before the call FirebaseMessaging.getInstance().setAutoInitEnabled(true);