Debugging a service

Question

I have written a service with a remote interface and installed it on my PC's Eclipse AVD. I have a client test harness which starts and invokes methods in the service. Initially I had the service installed by a control class and activity, which I have now removed, so that the manifest for the service looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="com.myname.gridservice"
android:versionCode="1"
android:versionName="1.0">
<application
    android:icon="@drawable/icon"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:debuggable="true">
    <service
        android:enabled="true"
        android:debuggable="true"
        android:name="OverlayService">
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="com.myname.OverlayService.SERVICE"/>
            <action android:name="com.myname.gridservice.IRemoteInterface" />
        </intent-filter>
    </service>
 </application>  
</manifest>   

so there's no activity tag.

When I launch it from the debug icon in Eclipse, the console tells me that it's installing the apk (which it is), but it does not appear as a debug thread and breakpoints aren't triggered, although the service's behaviour is OK as far as the client sees it. If I wrap the service tag in an activity tag which has an associated class and launch that, then I can debug it.

Is it possible to debug the service without wrapping it in an activity?

Answer 1

Here's what you can do in four steps:

First: In the first interesting method of your service (I used on create):

/* (non-Javadoc)    
 * @see android.app.Service#onCreate()
 */
@Override
public void onCreate() {
    super.onCreate();
    //whatever else you have to to here...
    android.os.Debug.waitForDebugger();  // this line is key
}

Second: Set break points anywhere after the waitForDebugger command.

Third: Launch app via debug button in your IDE (Eclipse/Android Studio/...). (You should probably have removed the main launch activity from the manifest by now)

Last: Launch adb and run the command to start a service:

• cd $PLATFORM_TOOLS
• adb shell
• am startservice -n com.google.android.apps.gtalkservice/com.google.android.gtalkservice.service.GTalkService