Start service in Android

Question

I want to call a service when a certain activity starts. So, here's the Service class:

public class UpdaterServiceManager extends Service {

    private final int UPDATE_INTERVAL = 60 * 1000;
    private Timer timer = new Timer();
    private static final int NOTIFICATION_EX = 1;
    private NotificationManager notificationManager;

    public UpdaterServiceManager() {}

    @Override
    public IBinder onBind(Intent intent) {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public void onCreate() {
        // Code to execute when the service is first created
    }

    @Override
    public void onDestroy() {
        if (timer != null) {
            timer.cancel();
        }
    }

    @Override
    public int onStartCommand(Intent intent, int flags, int startid) {
        notificationManager = (NotificationManager) 
                getSystemService(Context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);
        int icon = android.R.drawable.stat_notify_sync;
        CharSequence tickerText = "Hello";
        long when = System.currentTimeMillis();
        Notification notification = new Notification(icon, tickerText, when);
        Context context = getApplicationContext();
        CharSequence contentTitle = "My notification";
        CharSequence contentText = "Hello World!";
        Intent notificationIntent = new Intent(this, Main.class);
        PendingIntent contentIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0,
                notificationIntent, 0);
        notification.setLatestEventInfo(context, contentTitle, contentText,
                contentIntent);
        notificationManager.notify(NOTIFICATION_EX, notification);
        Toast.makeText(this, "Started!", Toast.LENGTH_LONG);
        timer.scheduleAtFixedRate(new TimerTask() {

            @Override
            public void run() {
                // Check if there are updates here and notify if true
            }
        }, 0, UPDATE_INTERVAL);
        return START_STICKY;
    }

    private void stopService() {
        if (timer != null) timer.cancel();
    }
}

And here is how I call it:

Intent serviceIntent = new Intent();
serviceIntent.setAction("cidadaos.cidade.data.UpdaterServiceManager");
startService(serviceIntent);

The problem is that nothing happens. The above code block is called at the end of the activity's onCreate. I already debugged and no exception is thrown.

Any idea?

Answer 1

Probably you don't have the service in your manifest, or it does not have an <intent-filter> that matches your action. Examining LogCat (via adb logcat, DDMS, or the DDMS perspective in Eclipse) should turn up some warnings that may help.

More likely, you should start the service via:

startService(new Intent(this, UpdaterServiceManager.class));