Workaround for keeping NotificationListenerService alive

Question

NotificationListenerService gets killed during app updates and sometimes even randomly and it isn't restarted automatically. Further, it can't even be started manually but we have to prompt the user to reboot the device, since the service only seems to be able to be started on device boot.

The following doesn't work (trying to start the service manually):

    startService(new Intent(this, NotificationService.class));

Are there any workarounds for this? I need the service to be constantly running and getting the OnNotificationPosted events.

Hey Aditya, did you find a workaround for this? I thought about requesting the user to disable battery optimization and maybe turn it into a foreground service. I haven't tried it yet. — geecko, Apr 25 '17 at 21:18
Unfortunately, no. I ended up abandoning the feature that required this functionality :/ — Aditya Anand, May 25 '19 at 17:05

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 16 '16 at 14:09

1

This might not solve your problem completely but it might help with the service being killed randomly. I had a similar problem with my own app. Although I worked around the problem in another way, I found out about foreground services.

Apparently, Android kills your notification service to save memory and that explains the seemingly random kills.

To work around this, you can use a foreground service that will not be killed by Android and the service will be running at all times. See Running a Service on Foreground.

answered Feb 16 '16 at 14:09

SoroushA

1,864
1
10
25

The OS is responsible for starting the service. All we can do is add an intent-filter and ask the user to enable 'Notification Access' for our app. We're not supposed to (and we can't) directly start or stop a service that extends [NotificationListenerService](http://developer.android.com/reference/android/service/notification/NotificationListenerService.html). – Aditya Anand Feb 18 '16 at 06:07

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 18 '17 at 09:48

1

Do you try setting START_STICKY?
More information about it: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Service.html#START_STICKY

May be my answer can help you too. Please take a look at https://stackoverflow.com/a/35435065/1554094

edited Jul 18 '17 at 09:48

Vadim Kotov

7,103
8
44
57

answered Feb 16 '16 at 14:31

Alexander

847
6
9

The OS is responsible for starting the service. All we can do is add an intent-filter and ask the user to enable 'Notification Access' for our app. We're not supposed to (and we can't) directly start or stop a service that extends [NotificationListenerService](http://developer.android.com/reference/android/service/notification/NotificationListenerService.html). It's started automatically by Android. Using startService() or stopService() has no effect. – Aditya Anand Feb 18 '16 at 06:08

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 25 '17 at 22:01

Try this code to manually disable & re-enable the service

private void toggleNotificationListenerService() { 
    PackageManager pm = getPackageManager(); 

    pm.setComponentEnabledSetting(new ComponentName(this, your.NotificationListenerServiceImpl.class), PackageManager.COMPONENT_ENABLED_STATE_DISABLED, PackageManager.DONT_KILL_APP);
    pm.setComponentEnabledSetting(new ComponentName(this, your.NotificationListenerServiceImpl.class), PackageManager.COMPONENT_ENABLED_STATE_ENABLED, PackageManager.DONT_KILL_APP);
}

You can catch the broadcast Intent.ACTION_PACKAGE_CHANGED to know when the service gets disabled.

And you can use this code to check if your notification service is enabled.

private static boolean isNotificationListenerServiceEnabled(Context context) { 
     Set<String> packageNames = NotificationManagerCompat.getEnabledListenerPackages(context); 
     if (packageNames.contains(context.getPackageName())) { 
        return true; 
     } 
     return false; 
}

Workaround for keeping NotificationListenerService alive

3 Answers3