CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidandroid-intentbroadcastreceiver
Tom Klino
Tom Klino

Reputation: 2524

Why do I get "unable to start service Intent ... not found" when calling a service from a broadcastReceiver?

I have a service in my app that is used to send http post requests to the server, called Communicator. I usually bind to it from my activities but now I need to call it from a broadcast receiver (because I need to send a request to the server once a minute) so I use startService(intent)

After some debugging, it seems that when the startService(intent) is called I'm getting the following error:

08-04 06:07:10.447: W/ActivityManager(1138): Unable to start service Intent { act=ping_states flg=0x14 cmp=com.example.imhere/.Pinger (has extras) } U=0: not found

This is my class that extends the BroadcastReceiver:

public class Pinger extends BroadcastReceiver{

@Override
public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
    //start the communicator and request to iterate over locations with true 'here state'
    Log.d("tom.debug", "Pinger class is calling to start the service"); //acording to the log, this part of the code is reached
    /*EDIT - THE ISSUE WAS FOUND HERE - See Imtiyaz's answer*/
    context.startService(intent); //so this is probably the reason I'm seeing the error

    }
}

and here is the way I create the intent (according to the question here: How to run a method every X seconds ):

private void startPinging() {
    Date when = new Date(System.currentTimeMillis() + (MINUTE));
    try{
           Intent pingerIntent = new Intent(this.getApplicationContext(), Pinger.class);
           pingerIntent.setAction(getString(R.string.intent_action_ping_states));

           PendingIntent pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(
                this.getApplicationContext(), 
                0,
                pingerIntent,
                PendingIntent.FLAG_CANCEL_CURRENT);

           AlarmManager alarms = (AlarmManager) this.getApplicationContext().getSystemService(
                Context.ALARM_SERVICE);

           alarms.set(AlarmManager.RTC_WAKEUP,
                   when.getTime(),
                   pendingIntent);

           alarmSet = true;

           Log.d("tom.debug", "startPinging: alarmSet is now true");

        } catch(Exception e){
           e.printStackTrace();
        }
}

I assume the manifest file is also relevant:

...
<application
    android:allowBackup="true"
    android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >

    <receiver android:enabled="true"
        android:exported="false"
        android:name="com.example.imhere.Pinger" >
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="@string/intent_action_ping_states" />
        </intent-filter>
    </receiver>

    <service
        android:name="com.example.imhere.Communicator"
        android:enabled="true"
        android:exported="true" >
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="@string/intent_action_ping_states" />
        </intent-filter>
    </service>
    ...
</application>
...

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2990

Answers (1)

Imtiyaz Khalani
Imtiyaz Khalani

Reputation: 2053

You can not directly start a intent like you did.

Try it this way:

@Override
public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
    //start the communicator and request to iterate over locations with true 'here state'
    Log.d("tom.debug", "Pinger class is calling to start the service"); //acording to the log, //this part of the code is reached
    //context.startService(intent); //so this is probably the reason I'm seeing the error

    //if some data you want from this broadcast event then you can do like
    // String tempMessage  = intent.getStringExtra("KEY");
    Intent serviceIntent  = new Intent(context , YOUR_SERVICE.class);
    context.startService(serviceIntent  );

}

Thanks.

Upvotes: 4

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