What is the proper way to stop a service running as foreground

Question

I am trying to stop a service which is running as foreground service.

The current issue is that when I call stopService() the notification still stays.

So in my solution I have added a receiver which I am registering to inside the onCreate()

Inside the onReceive() method I call stopforeground(true) and it hides the notification. And then stopself() to stop the service.

Inside the onDestroy() I unregistered the receiver.

Is there a more proper way to handle this? because stopService() simply doesn't work.

@Override
public void onDestroy(){
  unregisterReceiver(receiver);
  super.onDestroy();
}

Answer 1

From your activity call startService(intent) and pass it some data that will represent a key to stop the service.

From your service call stopForeground(true) and then stopSelf() right after it.

Answer 2

to start and stop a foreground service from an activity use :

//start
    Intent startIntent = new Intent(MainActivity.this, ForegroundService.class);
    startIntent.setAction(Constants.ACTION.STARTFOREGROUND_ACTION);
    startService(startIntent);
//stop
    Intent stopIntent = new Intent(MainActivity.this, ForegroundService.class);
    stopIntent.setAction(Constants.ACTION.STOPFOREGROUND_ACTION);
    startService(stopIntent);

in your foreground service - use (at least) this code:

@Override
 public int onStartCommand(Intent intent, int flags, int startId) {
    if (intent.getAction().equals(Constants.ACTION.STARTFOREGROUND_ACTION)) {
        Log.i(LOG_TAG, "Received Start Foreground Intent ");
        // your start service code
    }
    else if (intent.getAction().equals( Constants.ACTION.STOPFOREGROUND_ACTION)) {
        Log.i(LOG_TAG, "Received Stop Foreground Intent");
    //your end servce code
        stopForeground(true);
        stopSelf();
    }
    return START_STICKY;
}

Answer 3

In addition to other answers i ended with this snippet using android oreo and laters to stop job services.

Intent intent = new Intent(getApplicationContext(), LocationService.class);
intent.setAction(status);
ContextCompat.startForegroundService(getApplicationContext(), intent);

And in service

@Override
public int onStartCommand(@Nullable Intent intent, int flags, int startId) {
  startForeground(121, notification);
  if (intent.getAction().equals("StopService")) {
    stopForeground(true);
    stopSelf();
  }

startForeground() is mandatory unless app will crash without calling it

The new Context.startForegroundService() method starts a foreground service. The system allows apps to call Context.startForegroundService() even while the app is in the background. However, the app must call that service's startForeground() method within five seconds after the service is created.

https://developer.android.com/about/versions/oreo/android-8.0-changes.html

Answer 4

As stated here: https://developer.android.com/guide/components/services#Stopping

A started service must manage its own lifecycle. That is, the system doesn't stop or destroy the service unless it must recover system memory and the service continues to run after onStartCommand() returns. The service must stop itself by calling stopSelf(), or another component can stop it by calling stopService().

Once requested to stop with stopSelf() or stopService(), the system destroys the service as soon as possible.

So you can call stopService() from the activity that you used to call startService(). I have done that right here:

start_button.setOnClickListener {
        applicationContext.startForegroundService(Intent(this, ServiceTest::class.java))
    }
    stop_button.setOnClickListener {
        applicationContext.stopService(Intent(this, ServiceTest::class.java))
    }

I created two buttons to start and stop the service and it works.