Service Intent must be explicit: Intent

android service broadcastreceiver
duk3r picture duk3r · Jan 8, 2015 · Viewed 66k times · Source

I have an app some time now in which I call a service through a broadcast receiver (MyStartupIntentReceiver). The code in the broadcast receiver in order to call the service is:

public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
    Intent serviceIntent = new Intent();
    serviceIntent.setAction("com.duk3r.eortologio2.MyService");
    context.startService(serviceIntent);
}

The problem is that in Android 5.0 Lollipop I get the following error (in previous versions of Android, everything works ok):

Unable to start receiver com.duk3r.eortologio2.MyStartupIntentReceiver: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Service Intent must be explicit: Intent { act=com.duk3r.eortologio2.MyService }

What do I have to change in order for the service to be declared as explicit and start normally? Tried some answers in other similar threads but although i got rid of the message, the service wouldn't start.

Answer

tyczj picture tyczj · Jan 8, 2015

any intent you make to a service, activity etc. in your app should always follow this format

Intent serviceIntent = new Intent(context,MyService.class);
context.startService(serviceIntent);

or 

Intent bi = new Intent("com.android.vending.billing.InAppBillingService.BIND");
bi.setPackage("com.android.vending");

implicit intents (what you have in your code currently) are considered a security risk

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