Question

Can anyone help. I have built a service that executes with the BOOT_COMPLETED intent, hence my service is started when the device is booted.
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In my onStartCommand i am registering the service with the AlarmManger to execute every 15 minutes.

This works but i notice that my service is never stopped hence when onStartCommand finished – it never stops, the onDestroy is NEVER called.

I need to return an integer from onStartCommand which i believe controls the life time..

What integer should i return?

What am i doing wrong?

Thank in advance

EDIT

Currently the serive returns super.onStartCommand(……

which is by default. So what is being returned here?

And if i remove it should i not call (rather than return) to super.onStartCommand on the first line on my onStartCommand in my class?

Answer 1

The SDK document of Service lifecycle say that

The service will at this point continue running until Context.stopService() or stopSelf() is called

For the return value of onStartCommand (Intent intent, int flags, int startId), the document says that

The return value indicates what semantics the system should use for the service’s current started state. It may be one of the constants associated with the START_CONTINUATION_MASK bits.

and

public static final int START_CONTINUATION_MASK
Since: API Level 5

Bits returned by onStartCommand(Intent, int, int) describing how to continue the service if it is killed. May be START_STICKY, START_NOT_STICKY, START_REDELIVER_INTENT, or START_STICKY_COMPATIBILITY.

So, if you want to stop your service, you should call Context.stopService() or Service.stopSelf().