Stopping an IntentService from an activity
I have an IntentSerivce that runs in the background sometimes and it can be quite a long running process in certain instances. I give an option for the user to quit the application which basically just stops and polling and ignores any GCM push notifications. But if a push notification came in and the IntentService is taking a while to finish doing what it has to (gets information from a server and sends a notification to the user if needed, like a new message arrived or something).
Here is the problem, if the user elects to "Quit" the app while the intentservice is still running they will still get the notification which I do not want. I know that there is the stopSelf() method for the service but I need to stop it in an activity when I know the user "Quit" the application via a menu button. Sending another intent to the service does not work since the intents get queued up and calling context.stopService(intent); in my activity does not work either so how else can I stop it?
Answer
Are you passing a new Intent into stopService(Intent) or the original one used in startService(Intent). Passing the original Intent should stop the service.
Failing that you could use a Handler to pass the service a Message. Have the IntentService implement the Handler.Callback interface and create a new Handler(Handler.Callback) in your Activity, passing your IntentService as callback. Then implement the onHandleMessage() in your IntentService to call stopSelf() and have your Activity pass a message to it when you want it to stop.