Can a Broadcast Receiver receive a Mobile Data CONNECTIVITY_CHANGE notification while WiFi is enabled?

Question

For the many threads, blogs, examples and tutorials on the topic of Broadcast Receivers and mobile data connectivity i have not seen this question asked or answered.

I believe, based on experimenting with one of my Apps, that the answer to this question is a distinct NO, that while WiFi is enabled, a Broadcast Receiver listening for Mobile Data CONNECTIVITY_CHANGE does not receive a broadcast notification when that event occurs. If i am wrong and have missed something please let me know.

My App is a home screen Widget with two classes, ActiveMobileData is the AppWidgetProvider and ConnectivityChangeReceiver is the BroadcastReceiver. The AppWidgetProvider class is my first App which i put together earlier this year mainly from code widely available in a book, on StackOverflow and on various blogs etc. There is no App just the home screen widget. It simply toggles a home screen icon between red and green to indicate the current mobile data state. It has worked perfectly for several months with about 100 users.

I decided to add the BroadcastReceiver to pick up clicks from Settings. This code is also straight forward - it determines the current state of mobile data, and uses a global boolean variable set by AppWidgetProvider to determine if the home screen icon is red or green. Then it simply ensures that the icon color matches the mobile data state.

It all works except when WiFi is enabled it does not get a notification. If there is a way around this limitation i would appreciate hearing about it.

Following is the code for the widget and then for the receiver. I left out some details to keep it somewhat brief. iconEnabled is the shared global boolean variable ...

public class ActiveMobileData extends AppWidgetProvider {
static boolean iconEnabled;
@Override
public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
    if (intent.getAction() != null)
        super.onReceive(context, intent);
    else {
        context.startService(new Intent(context, ToggleService.class));
    }
}
@Override
public void onUpdate(Context context, AppWidgetManager appWidgetManager, int[]appWidgetIds) {
    context.startService(new Intent(context, ToggleService.class));
}
public static class ToggleService extends IntentService {
    public ToggleService() {
        super("ActiveMobileData$ToggleService");
    }
    @Override
    protected void onHandleIntent(Intent intent) {
        ComponentName cn = new ComponentName(this, ActiveMobileData.class);
        AppWidgetManager mgr = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(this);
        mgr.updateAppWidget(cn, buildUpdate(this));
    }
    private RemoteViews buildUpdate(Context context) {
        RemoteViews updateViews = new RemoteViews(context.getPackageName(), R.layout.widget);
        if (!isMobileDataEnabled(getApplicationContext())) {
            updateViews.setImageViewResource(R.id.mobileDataState, R.mipmap.ic_launcher_g);
            enableMobileData(getApplicationContext(), true);
            iconEnabled = true;
        } else {
            updateViews.setImageViewResource(R.id.mobileDataState, R.mipmap.ic_launcher_r);
            enableMobileData(getApplicationContext(), false);
            iconEnabled = false;
        }
        Intent i = new Intent(this, ActiveMobileData.class);
        PendingIntent pi = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context, 0, i, 0);
        updateViews.setOnClickPendingIntent(R.id.mobileDataState, pi);
        return updateViews;
    }
    public boolean isMobileDataEnabled(Context context) {
        // ... the code here is the one that uses Java reflection
    }
    private void enableMobileData(Context context, boolean enabled) {
        // ... the code here is the one that uses Java reflection
    }

  } // public static class ToggleService
} // public class ActiveMobileData

Following is the code for the BroadcastReceiver ...

public class ConnectivityChangeReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
    @Override
    public void onReceive (Context context, Intent intent) {
        handleIntent(context);
    }
    protected void handleIntent(Context context) {
        ComponentName cn = new ComponentName(context, ActiveMobileData.class);
        AppWidgetManager mgr = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(context);
        mgr.updateAppWidget(cn, buildUpdate(context));
    }
    private RemoteViews buildUpdate(Context context) {
        RemoteViews updateViews = new RemoteViews(context.getPackageName(), R.layout.widget);
        if (!ActiveMobileData.iconEnabled && isMobileDataEnabled(context)) {
            ActiveMobileData.iconEnabled = true;
            updateViews.setImageViewResource(R.id.mobileDataState, R.mipmap.ic_launcher_g);
            Intent i = new Intent(context, ActiveMobileData.class);
            PendingIntent pi = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context, 0, i, 0);
            updateViews.setOnClickPendingIntent(R.id.mobileDataState, pi);
        } else
        if (ActiveMobileData.iconEnabled && !isMobileDataEnabled(context)) {
            ActiveMobileData.iconEnabled = false;
            updateViews.setImageViewResource(R.id.mobileDataState, R.mipmap.ic_launcher_r);
            Intent i = new Intent(context, ActiveMobileData.class);
            PendingIntent pi = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context, 0, i, 0);
            updateViews.setOnClickPendingIntent(R.id.mobileDataState, pi);
        }
        return updateViews;
    }
    private boolean isMobileDataEnabled(Context context) {
       // ... Identical code to that in the AppWidgetProvider
    }
} // class ConnectivityChangeReceiver

Can a Broadcast Receiver receive a Mobile Data CONNECTIVITY_CHANGE notification while WiFi is enabled?

Answers (1)

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