Android Foreground Service Restrictions
It would seem that everything should work, but there are also limitations in foreground services
Hi there! I am from the Navigine team. For eight years we have been providing integrated positioning mobile technologies that enable advanced indoor navigation and proximity solutions. In the previous article, we talked about the restrictions associated with scanning Bluetooth, WiFi, and working with background services. These restrictions already seem sufficient, but Android has a special surprise for us. As you might have guessed, these restrictions apply to the foreground service. So let’s talk about the details.
Foreground vs. Background
Let’s assume that we are going to use the foreground service as a replacement for the background service to work in the DOZE mode or when the device screen is off. If you read the previous article, then you already know that starting with the latest versions of android, you will almost not be able to work in the background, if the phone goes into the DOZE mode. And it’s worth noting that even if you force the service to wake up on an alarm clock, this will not always work.
To work in the background, of course, there are few workarounds, and one of them is the foreground service. Here it is worth noting that before the version of Android 8 all tasks after the phone goes into sleep mode are performed without any restrictions. But let’s go on about foreground service.
How to start Foreground service
First, let’s figure out how to create a foreground service correctly so that it works for you. There are many tutorials and code examples on the Internet, but most of them are either incomplete, divided into parts, or have some other shortcomings, so we decided to post the full code to make it easier to create your own service.
This is the simple foreground service with a pinned and not cancellable notification icon in your application status bar. You will just need to call the startForegroundService method of your application context with intent to your service. There are ways to cancel showing the pinned notification icon, but it works on very rare versions, so we won’t go into it.
Foreground service limitations
Everything seems to be going fine and there shouldn’t be any problems since we made such a sacrifice and agreed to a hanging notification. But in the development process on Android, you can’t avoid problems, they arise at every step. And here the problem arises with the fact that there is a huge number of devices that block even foreground services.
Here is the list of the most popular ones, you can find the full list by the link under the screenshot. But even these restrictions can be circumvented, though you will have to ask permission from the user. Here is the piece of code that will allow you to avoid the foreground service not working on some devices and save your time.
Conclusion
As we have said many times, the android continues to complicate the life of developers, but nevertheless there are loopholes that help solve the tasks and achieve the goal. We hope this article will be useful to you and save you some time and help you find the right solution. Feel free to ask your questions.
Author is Navigine’s Android Developer — Il Kadyrov
