Question

In the application I’m building, I need to detect the application quitting if and only if the application has been quit when its in the background because the OS is reclaiming memory.

From my own experimentation, the onDestroy is called on EVERY instance. I’ve tried checking for isFinishing but I’m not 100% sure which situations this isolates it to.

@Override
public void onDestroy()
{
    super.onDestroy();
    Log.i("V LIFECYCLE", "onDestroy");
    if (!isFinishing())
    {
        // are we here because the OS shut it down because of low memory?
        ApplicationPreferences pref = new ApplicationPreferences(this);
        // set persistant flag so we know next time that the user
        // initiated the kill either by a direct kill or device restart.
        pref.setThePersistantFlag(true);
        Log.i("DEBUG", "onDestroy - ensuring that the next launch will result in a log out..");
    }
}

Can anyone shed light on my issue here? Thankyou.

Answer 1

Through trial and error I have worked out a solution that works perfectly for anyone thats interested. I have narrowed down the case when the application state is being resumed (onResume) in the case of the OS reclaiming memory.

public boolean wasJustCollectedByTheOS = false; 

@Override
public void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState)
{
    super.onSaveInstanceState(savedInstanceState);
    // this flag will only be present as long as the task isn't physically killed
    // and/or the phone is not restarted.
    savedInstanceState.putLong("semiPersistantFlag", 2L);
}

@Override
public void onRestoreInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onRestoreInstanceState(savedInstanceState);
    long semiPersistantFlag = savedInstanceState.getLong("semiPersistantFlag");
    if (semiPersistantFlag == 2L)
    {
        savedInstanceState.putLong("semiPersistantFlag", 0L);
        this.wasJustCollectedByTheOS = true;   
    }
}

// this gets called immediately after onRestoreInstanceState
@Override
public void onResume() {
    if (this.wasJustCollectedByTheOS){
        this.wasJustCollectedByTheOS = false;
        // here is the case when the resume is after an OS memory collection    
    }
}