How can we prevent a Service from being killed by OS?

android android-service
Rahul picture Rahul · Mar 14, 2012 · Viewed 63.4k times · Source

I am using Service in my application and it needs to run until my application is uninstalled, but the problem is it gets killed by OS.

How can we prevent it from being killed by OS? Or if it gets killed can we restart that service again through programmatically?

Answer

Dheeraj Vepakomma picture Dheeraj Vepakomma · Mar 14, 2012

You may run the service in the foreground using startForeground().

A foreground service is a service that's considered to be something the user is actively aware of and thus not a candidate for the system to kill when low on memory.

But bear in mind that a foreground service must provide a notification for the status bar (read here), and that the notification cannot be dismissed unless the service is either stopped or removed from the foreground.

Note: This still does not absolutely guarantee that the service won't be killed under extremely low memory conditions. It only makes it less likely to be killed.

Related questions

How to check if a service is running on Android?

How do I check if a background service is running? I want an Android activity that toggles the state of the service -- it lets me turn it on if it is off and off if it is on.

Read More
getApplication() vs. getApplicationContext()

I couldn't find a satisfying answer to this, so here we go: what's the deal with Activity/Service.getApplication() and Context.getApplicationContext()? In our application, both return the same object. In an ActivityTestCase however, mocking the application will make getApplication() …

Read More
Service vs IntentService in the Android platform

I am seeking an example of something that can be done with an IntentService that cannot be done with a Service (and vice-versa)? I also believe that an IntentService runs in a different thread and a Service does not. So, …

Read More