Question

I have Android application that on Service start implement followed code:

...
Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("logcat -v time -s " + arg);
BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(
                new InputStreamReader(process.getInputStream()));
...

As you see I start logcat process to listen on logs.
Unfortunately, the stop service doesn’t stop logcat and after several launches i get:

app_125   4782  144   137124 30584 ffffffff 00000000 S com.wefi.agnt.ui
app_125   4796  4782  1028   592   ffffffff 00000000 S logcat
app_125   4839  4782  1076   640   ffffffff 00000000 S logcat
app_125   4842  4782  952    516   ffffffff 00000000 S logcat
app_125   4845  4782  896    460   ffffffff 00000000 S logcat
app_125   4848  4782  900    464   ffffffff 00000000 S logcat
app_125   4851  4782  876    440   ffffffff 00000000 S logcat
shell     4852  171   788    336   c00cc7e4 afd0c78c S /system/bin/sh
shell     4853  4852  944    332   00000000 afd0b83c R ps
app_123   11189 144   114484 18908 ffffffff 00000000 S com.mspot.android.moviesClub.att  

… list of logcat processes. How can I kill them?

Any ideas

Answer 1

Since you have a handle on the Process instance, you should be able to use process.destroy() when you stop your service. The Logcat processes are running independently of your app, so they will continue running after your app’s Service stops running unless you terminate them.

If you just want to clean up the processes on your device while testing the app, you can run adb shell to get a shell prompt on the device, and then use kill <PID> to terminate a process.

EDIT:

The Process documentation also specifies that you should use ProcessBuilder to set up and run the process:

ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder("logcat", "-v", "time", "-s", arg);
pb.redirectErrorStream(true);
Process process = pb.start();
...