What are the retry strategy/ mechanism for WorkManager's OneTimeWorkRequest

Question

I have the following one-time worker.

// Create a Constraints that defines when the task should run
Constraints constraints = new Constraints.Builder()
        .setRequiredNetworkType(NetworkType.UNMETERED)
        .setRequiresBatteryNotLow(true)
        // Many other constraints are available, see the
        // Constraints.Builder reference
        .build();

OneTimeWorkRequest oneTimeWorkRequest =
        new OneTimeWorkRequest.Builder(SyncWorker.class)
                .setConstraints(constraints)
                .addTag(SyncWorker.TAG)
                .build();

According to https://developer.android.com/topic/libraries/architecture/workmanager

// (Returning RETRY tells WorkManager to try this task again
// later; FAILURE says not to try again.)

I was wondering, if SyncWorker keep returning RETRY, what is the retry strategy of WorkManager? For instance, what is the maximum retry count for WorkManager? The documentation isn't clear on this.

Answer 1

The default is BackoffPolicy.EXPONENTIAL. We only retry when you ask us to RETRY by returning WorkerResult.RETRY or when constraints that were required for your Worker are now unmet. So for e.g. if you required a NETWORK constraint, and now the device lost its active Network connection - then the Worker will be stopped and be automatically retried (when the constraints are met).

For more information look at the docs.