Question

I have a service that gets the location and sends it to a server, also I have an activity that starts and stops the service with a button. When I start up the service all the buttons do not work and after a while the activity force closes giving the option to wait or close. what could be causing the problem?

Answer 1

I did something like that before … I dont post the whole code, jsut the main thing. This wont run, i just want to give you the idea, of what to llok for and how to handle it.
The magic is done in sendUpdatesToUI… I saved myself all the unimportant methods that are overwritten when you implement LocationListener – you know best, which of them you need.

class:

public class ServiceLocator extends Service implements LocationListener 
public static final String BROADCAST_ACTION = "my.app.isgreat";
private final Handler handler = new Handler();
private LocationManager locationManager;
Intent intent;

public void onCreate() {
    locationManager = (LocationManager) getSystemService(LOCATION_SERVICE);
    intent = new Intent(BROADCAST_ACTION);
}

public void onStart(Intent intent, int startId) {
    handler.removeCallbacks(sendUpdatesToUI);
    handler.postDelayed(sendUpdatesToUI, DEBUG_DELAY);

    locationManager.requestLocationUpdates(LocationManager.GPS_PROVIDER,
            DEBUG_DELAY, 3, this);

}

@Override
public void onDestroy() {
    super.onDestroy();
    handler.removeCallbacks(sendUpdatesToUI);
    locationManager.removeUpdates(this);
    locationManager = null;

}

//Here is the second thread, that won'z freeze your UI
//DisplayLogginInfo() sets all the values you wanna send
private Runnable sendUpdatesToUI = new Runnable() {
public void run() {
    DisplayLoggingInfo();
    handler.postDelayed(this, DEBUG_DELAY);
}

};

private void DisplayLoggingInfo() {
    intent.putExtra("long", String.format("%.4f", lastLocation.getLongitude()));
    sendBroadcast(intent);
}

It probably won’t run that way, because I kicked out all the uninteresting stuff, but it should give you an idea, how to programm a locationthread, which won’t freeze your UI.

Have fun