[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Nov 17, 7:54 pm, String sterling.ud...@googlemail.com wrote: On Nov 17, 7:43 pm, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: I will probably make this API a no-op, since it violates the principle of one app not being able to break another app +1 Especially with the Running Services UI in 2.0, I'd suggest this is the best solution. String +1 That leaves the system utility but removes the API that can be and is being abused. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Nov 17, 4:05 pm, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: 2.0 includes a UI showing you which -services- are running and the resources they are using. This is what you really care about Don't you care just as much about Activities that have threads running the background? Two more questions about all this: Are you saying that this UI allows the user to see AND force-kill processes and all their alarms and notifications (sorry I haven't looked at this 2.0 feature)? A little doubt about all this - Why worry about Services that run in the background? Yes it uses memory but the system can kill processes if it needs to obtain more memory (and Services should be coded to handle that when it happens). If an App has alarms that cause it to restart then that is the business of the App and should be allowed. If an App is badly written and does that too much the user can make a decision that they don't want the App. It seems like all this follows from the platform without any task killing facility being necessary. What am I missing? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 8:27 AM, jotobjects jotobje...@gmail.com wrote: Don't you care just as much about Activities that have threads running the background? No, the system can freely kill those processes when it needs memory. Thus this isn't the cause of the main problem, the overall system becoming slow because too much stuff is trying to run. If it is running it will be consuming battery, and if this is not what you want you will see this in the battery usage stats as your battery goes down, and thus know what app to blame. There also should be some improvements to the organization of these settings (manage apps and battery use) to make it easier to discover and deal with these apps. Are you saying that this UI allows the user to see AND force-kill processes and all their alarms and notifications (sorry I haven't looked at this 2.0 feature)? I'm not sure which UI you are talking about. The force stop button that has been around since 1.5 does everything we have been talking about: killing processes, unregistering alarms, etc. The new running services UI -only- stops a service, doesn't kill a process or anything else, because that is all that is needed to free up that process to be available to the system. A little doubt about all this - Why worry about Services that run in the background? Yes it uses memory but the system can kill processes if it needs to obtain more memory (and Services should be coded to handle that when it happens). By definition, a service running in the background does NOT want to be killed, because this is telling the system that it is actively doing stuff. Thus if a lot of applications run services like this, we will run out of memory to have any background processes (so each time you switch apps a new process needs to be started), and eventually will start thrashing around in the services processes that all need to be running but there is not enough memory to do so. Thus is the main failure case see in the too many things running causing the system to slow situation that we are all trying to address. If an App has alarms that cause it to restart then that is the business of the App and should be allowed. Unless the user explicitly presses force stop to get the app to stop. Ultimately the user is in charge, not the app. The problem with the task killers is that they put the user in charge not realizing what they are actually doing. If an App is badly written and does that too much the user can make a decision that they don't want the App. It seems like all this follows from the platform without any task killing facility being necessary. What am I missing? Everything above. -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Nov 18, 9:53 am, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 8:27 AM, jotobjects jotobje...@gmail.com wrote: Don't you care just as much about Activities that have threads running the background? No, the system can freely kill those processes when it needs memory. Thus this isn't the cause of the main problem, the overall system becoming slow because too much stuff is trying to run. If the system is slow due to CPU contention then an Activity running in the background would also be part of the problem. If the system is low on memory the System can also kill Services. But I get it that too many Services thrashing has been the bigger problem. The new running services UI -only- stops a service, doesn't kill a process or anything else, because that is all that is needed to free up that process to be available to the system. So applications need to be coded to restart their own Services. It's even possible that the app's Activities are still running threads in the background but the Services have been stopped. Thanks for all the clarification - for the most part confirms what I understood. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 12:18 PM, jotobjects jotobje...@gmail.com wrote: If the system is slow due to CPU contention then an Activity running in the background would also be part of the problem. If the system is low on memory the System can also kill Services. But I get it that too many Services thrashing has been the bigger problem. Again: as of 1.6, this will not happen, because background processes are put in a scheduling class that only allows all processes, together, to get no more than 5% or so of the CPU. The new running services UI -only- stops a service, doesn't kill a process or anything else, because that is all that is needed to free up that process to be available to the system. So applications need to be coded to restart their own Services. It's even possible that the app's Activities are still running threads in the background but the Services have been stopped. If the user has decided that your application's service(s) are not desired, they get to stop them. You should probably consider how to recover from this. Implementing your app so it starts a service at boot and leaves it running forever is much more likely to get you in this situation, because this is the kind of thing that cause the system to start thrashing, and your service is going to be an obvious target for people wanting to stop things. And IMHO this is as it should be. As far as activities running threads -- as always, if your activity creates threads, and then goes in the background, be prepared to have your process killed at any time while they are running. If you have work to do that you want to have a better chance of keeping around, associate it with a service. Then of course the user may decide to stop the service, at which point you will get onDestroy() called. -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 18:53, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: I'm not sure which UI you are talking about. The force stop button that has been around since 1.5 does everything we have been talking about: killing processes, unregistering alarms, etc. The new running services UI -only- stops a service, doesn't kill a process or anything else, because that is all that is needed to free up that process to be available to the system. So now that (I think) I understand what this force stop is really about (completely and definitely stopping an app) : Are there situations where it is done by the system (automatically) ? (ie. in case it is too low on memory). Or can I be sure that when it is the system that kills Services, it never does anything else (such as unregistering alarms) ? And in this case, will such a stopped service be restarted automatically, or only if it took care of such a situation (by ex. with a watchdog alarm which will eventually restart it if stopped). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
2009/11/18 Cédric Berger cedric.berge...@gmail.com So now that (I think) I understand what this force stop is really about (completely and definitely stopping an app) : Are there situations where it is done by the system (automatically) ? (ie. in case it is too low on memory). Nope, definitely never ever. The user must explicitly request this. Or can I be sure that when it is the system that kills Services, it never does anything else (such as unregistering alarms) ? By definition it does everything described: kill all processes, stop all services, unregister all alarms, remove all notifications. And possibly more, too. And in this case, will such a stopped service be restarted automatically, or only if it took care of such a situation (by ex. with a watchdog alarm which will eventually restart it if stopped). No, it is intended for the user to make an app stop. The services with not be restarted; they are stopped. -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 22:45, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: 2009/11/18 Cédric Berger cedric.berge...@gmail.com Are there situations where it is done by the system (automatically) ? (ie. in case it is too low on memory). Nope, definitely never ever. The user must explicitly request this. Or can I be sure that when it is the system that kills Services, it never does anything else (such as unregistering alarms) ? By definition it does everything described: kill all processes, stop all services, unregister all alarms, remove all notifications. And possibly more, too. I meant not when the user requested it, but when the system went really too low on memory : as I understand the system may eventually have to kill some services (even if it is not a full force stop) ? (And if not, what happens when it is really too short on memory ?) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Nov 18, 1:55 pm, Cédric Berger cedric.berge...@gmail.com wrote: I meant not when the user requested it, but when the system went really too low on memory : as I understand the system may eventually have to kill some services (even if it is not a full force stop) ? (And if not, what happens when it is really too short on memory ?) According to the API docs for android.app.Service (under Lifecycle) the System can kill the Process that the Service is running in (and thus the Service of course) on low memory conditions, but Services are given a high priority to not be killed in this way and when it happens the System will later try to restart the service. So that says the System does NOT automatically stop Services per se, only processes. My understanding (might be wrong) from earlier in this thread is that Services can be restarted by alarms or by the system and this pressure of too many Services trying to run is the source of the thrashing that a user can resolve by using the new 2.0 stop-service UI since then the system will NOT try to restart it (but an alarm might still restart the service which might tick off the user who explicity stopped it). Also (I guess) a BroadcastReciever could be agressive about restarting the Service when it receives a broadcast. Interesting to see how all this plays with non-technically savvy users who (we hope) will eventually be the vast predominance of Android users. Are they going to understand what to make of techy lists of applications and services and how much RAM is in use, etc. Or just throw up their hands and blame the system? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
I think it would be nice if the to-be-killed/restarted apps/services get a chance to say what it is doing. It's normal apps/services obligation to provide such information; it's task manager apps obligation to collect them and present to users. Or make it a system service (may be some dialogs) to make sure no apps/ services is killed without judgement. (sounds familiar? ^_^) We still need such an API to be public, just make it more gentle. On Oct 16, 12:07 am, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: If you kill the process, it will not impact the alarms, the same as it won't impact notifications etc. What these programs are doing is using the API that is tended to force stop -everything- about the application: stop all services, cancel all alarms, remove all notifications, etc. This is all working as intended, the apps are just abusing this API to cause things to happen that you probably don't want to have done. On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 3:55 PM, Jason B. jason.ba...@gmail.com wrote: When I use the method above. Even after I kill my app and service with task manager my alarms still trigger. I believe its because the AlarmManager service has been given a pending intent that will relaunch my service which handles the alarms. Both alarmmanager and the pending intent are allocated outside of the activity, so even if the application's virtual memory space is deleted, the pending intent still exists and the alarmmanager is still scheduled. Sorry if I missed the theme of the post. Good luck :) On Oct 15, 11:53 am, String sterling.ud...@googlemail.com wrote: On Oct 15, 4:34 pm, Jason B. jason.ba...@gmail.com wrote: Using that approach works great for my app. That way it doesn't matter if my app ever gets killed. The alarm will trigger in the future and the intent will restart my service I believe the point of this thread is that Task Killer apps will kill all future alarms you had scheduled. String -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
That's not the purpose of this API, which is to allow the user to force stop an application right now, immediately, I don't care what the damn app wants. :} There is a UI in 2.0 for the user to explicitly stop any currently running services. On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 5:15 AM, Bo wang.b.fr...@gmail.com wrote: I think it would be nice if the to-be-killed/restarted apps/services get a chance to say what it is doing. It's normal apps/services obligation to provide such information; it's task manager apps obligation to collect them and present to users. Or make it a system service (may be some dialogs) to make sure no apps/ services is killed without judgement. (sounds familiar? ^_^) We still need such an API to be public, just make it more gentle. On Oct 16, 12:07 am, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: If you kill the process, it will not impact the alarms, the same as it won't impact notifications etc. What these programs are doing is using the API that is tended to force stop -everything- about the application: stop all services, cancel all alarms, remove all notifications, etc. This is all working as intended, the apps are just abusing this API to cause things to happen that you probably don't want to have done. On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 3:55 PM, Jason B. jason.ba...@gmail.com wrote: When I use the method above. Even after I kill my app and service with task manager my alarms still trigger. I believe its because the AlarmManager service has been given a pending intent that will relaunch my service which handles the alarms. Both alarmmanager and the pending intent are allocated outside of the activity, so even if the application's virtual memory space is deleted, the pending intent still exists and the alarmmanager is still scheduled. Sorry if I missed the theme of the post. Good luck :) On Oct 15, 11:53 am, String sterling.ud...@googlemail.com wrote: On Oct 15, 4:34 pm, Jason B. jason.ba...@gmail.com wrote: Using that approach works great for my app. That way it doesn't matter if my app ever gets killed. The alarm will trigger in the future and the intent will restart my service I believe the point of this thread is that Task Killer apps will kill all future alarms you had scheduled. String -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.comandroid-developers%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Oct 13, 8:09 pm, EboMike ebom...@gmail.com wrote: Task killers aside, what about if the OS decides to stop a process because memory is low? Say an app has an alarm set to happen in 2 hours, and the user decides to run Google Maps for a minute. Android might kill said app because memory runs low. Ten minutes later, the user is back on the home screen, but the alarm is gone for good until the user runs the app again. How would something like an alarmclock- style app handle that? -Mike Use Jason's solution. Also if the system kills the Process the system will later restart the Process if it had a Service running but it is up to the service to reset its own state. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 11:36 AM, jotobjects jotobje...@gmail.com wrote: On Oct 15, 3:07 pm, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: What these programs are doing is using the API that is tended to force stop -everything- about the application: stop all services, cancel all alarms, remove all notifications, etc. This is all working as intended, the apps are just abusing this API to cause things to happen that you probably don't want to have done. Does that mean Jason's solution will not work when this happens? Sorry I don't know what Jason's solution is. Is there a planned fix for this so it can't happen or at least requires an explicit dangerous permission? I will probably make this API a no-op, since it violates the principle of one app not being able to break another app, and has quickly become confused. It wouldn't make sense to require a dangerous permission, because nobody would understand what that permission means and we'd still have these apps breaking other apps. -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 11:41 AM, jotobjects jotobje...@gmail.com wrote: Use Jason's solution. Also if the system kills the Process the system will later restart the Process if it had a Service running but it is up to the service to reset its own state. Not when using this API, which kills -everything- about the app. -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Oct 15, 3:07 pm, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: What these programs are doing is using the API that is tended to force stop -everything- about the application: stop all services, cancel all alarms, remove all notifications, etc. This is all working as intended, the apps are just abusing this API to cause things to happen that you probably don't want to have done. Does that mean Jason's solution will not work when this happens? Is there a planned fix for this so it can't happen or at least requires an explicit dangerous permission? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 00:07, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: If you kill the process, it will not impact the alarms, the same as it won't impact notifications etc. What these programs are doing is using the API that is tended to force stop -everything- about the application: stop all services, cancel all alarms, remove all notifications, etc. This is all working as intended, the apps are just abusing this API to cause things to happen that you probably don't want to have done. Wouldn't it be better if task killer, at least by default, just kill all processes instead of using this API that completely kill/remove apps ? (Though I think it would still be helpful to be able to completely kill some applications, just that task killer have to be more explicit in this case, and require the user to clearly ask to) Current situation is not really user friendly. It is really hard to understand which applications are really running, which ones are off but will be waken up by alarms and when, Especially with our restrained device resources, a good task manager is much needed (both to report apps usage, and to be able to control them if needed). (And of course I truly agree that a lot of apps do use resources needlessly -autostart with no useful reason, always running process when they could just be triggered up on some events,...-) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: [android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
2.0 includes a UI showing you which -services- are running and the resources they are using. This is what you really care about, not whatever random processes are being kept around by the system in case it needs them later. (Fwiw, the worst that can happen is a bad app sits there spinning the CPU draining your battery; you'll see this in the battery usage. As of 1.6 it can't get more than 5% or so of the CPU so it won't cause the foreground UI to slow down.) So having a task killer that kills process is really not that useful -- this comes from thinking about the system like a standard desktop, but it is not. For example, the app may have a service running, causing the process to come right back; it may have alarms scheduled, causing the process to come right back; it may be watching for broadcasts, causing it to come right back. That is why the API to force stop an app does what it does. 2009/11/17 Cédric Berger cedric.berge...@gmail.com On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 00:07, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: If you kill the process, it will not impact the alarms, the same as it won't impact notifications etc. What these programs are doing is using the API that is tended to force stop -everything- about the application: stop all services, cancel all alarms, remove all notifications, etc. This is all working as intended, the apps are just abusing this API to cause things to happen that you probably don't want to have done. Wouldn't it be better if task killer, at least by default, just kill all processes instead of using this API that completely kill/remove apps ? (Though I think it would still be helpful to be able to completely kill some applications, just that task killer have to be more explicit in this case, and require the user to clearly ask to) Current situation is not really user friendly. It is really hard to understand which applications are really running, which ones are off but will be waken up by alarms and when, Especially with our restrained device resources, a good task manager is much needed (both to report apps usage, and to be able to control them if needed). (And of course I truly agree that a lot of apps do use resources needlessly -autostart with no useful reason, always running process when they could just be triggered up on some events,...-) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.comandroid-developers%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
Personally I would like to see this API go away. I'm finding we now have to code around task killing applications, which shouldn't be the case. Being a good Android citizen and following the rules, allowing the OS to do the work it was designed to do is the way to go. Users are confused when the app runs in the background claiming it's taking cpu and wasting battery because it shows up in task manager lists. In our case our bg service only watches a particular directory waiting for new files to be added. It's not *running*, it's waiting. Users go off and kill our app then wonder why it doesn't work any more. My two cents. Todd On Oct 13, 8:58 pm, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 9:09 PM, EboMike ebom...@gmail.com wrote: Task killers aside, what about if the OS decides to stop a process because memory is low? It doesn't do what these apps are doing. As I said, what these apps are doing (especially the ones that do this stuff behind the user's back) is abusing an API that is not intended to be used this way. -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Nov 17, 7:43 pm, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: I will probably make this API a no-op, since it violates the principle of one app not being able to break another app +1 Especially with the Running Services UI in 2.0, I'd suggest this is the best solution. String -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
RE : [android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
In fact if you can have more control in 2.0, this will just help to not have all this task killers used so blindlessly by everyone. So removing this API will be become less important. And this one still may be usefull in some cases. Just have to be used more wisely. thanks dianne for the explanation. And indeed memory is generally the main reason I find myself killing apps. If not, not only the phone slows down, but it may start killing other process to reclaim memory,ones I do want to be on ps. sorry if I am top posting, mailing from Android does not offer too much choices :-p Le 18 nov. 2009 04:54, String sterling.ud...@googlemail.com a écrit : On Nov 17, 7:43 pm, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: I will probably make this API a ... +1 Especially with the Running Services UI in 2.0, I'd suggest this is the best solution. String -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers ... -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
Re: RE : [android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
2009/11/17 Cédric Berger cedric.berge...@gmail.com In fact if you can have more control in 2.0, this will just help to not have all this task killers used so blindlessly by everyone. Unfortunately I think that is unlikely -- I can't count the number of places I have seen on the web suggesting to people to install a task killer on their Droid to kill everything in the background. And I even got to listen to a sales representative at a Verizon store go through and install a task killer on a new Droid and show killing everything with it before sending the customer out the door. :( One of the problems is that people have a certain model in their head about how things work from their experience on Windows and other operating systems, which generally doesn't carry over to Android, but gives them an intuition for what is going on that is generally wrong. Plus the fact that its use -can- help if you do the right thing strongly reinforces that. thanks dianne for the explanation. And indeed memory is generally the main reason I find myself killing apps. If not, not only the phone slows down, but it may start killing other process to reclaim memory,ones I do want to be on Yep this is the thing we have been seeing -- at the end of the work on 1.6 we were finding our main performance issue was simply too much stuff trying to run services, which wasn't as much due to 1.6 itself but more a reflection of the growing number of applications that have been doing this in the last year. We were out of time to do much significant in 1.6 at that point, but the experience rolled into the updated Service API and running services UI in 2.0. -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
I know this thread is talking a lot about task management. I think the original post was about making alarms that still occur even if the app is closed. This is how I do it: 1) Use AlarmManager service to schedule PendingIntents in the future (I.e. xx min from now) 2) Creat an intent/PendingIntent pair that starts. Your service when called, and give that to AlarmManager with your polling interval. 3) If you need to save data that your service needs when it is started so it can continue where it left off before it was destroyed, use a preferneces file (see SharedPreferences class) Using that approach works great for my app. That way it doesn't matter if my app ever gets killed. The alarm will trigger in the future and the intent will restart my service, and I just reload my preferences file to restore some data I'm working with. Hope that helps. On Oct 14, 12:58 am, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 9:09 PM, EboMike ebom...@gmail.com wrote: Task killers aside, what about if the OS decides to stop a process because memory is low? It doesn't do what these apps are doing. As I said, what these apps are doing (especially the ones that do this stuff behind the user's back) is abusing an API that is not intended to be used this way. -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Oct 15, 4:34 pm, Jason B. jason.ba...@gmail.com wrote: Using that approach works great for my app. That way it doesn't matter if my app ever gets killed. The alarm will trigger in the future and the intent will restart my service I believe the point of this thread is that Task Killer apps will kill all future alarms you had scheduled. String --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
When I use the method above. Even after I kill my app and service with task manager my alarms still trigger. I believe its because the AlarmManager service has been given a pending intent that will relaunch my service which handles the alarms. Both alarmmanager and the pending intent are allocated outside of the activity, so even if the application's virtual memory space is deleted, the pending intent still exists and the alarmmanager is still scheduled. Sorry if I missed the theme of the post. Good luck :) On Oct 15, 11:53 am, String sterling.ud...@googlemail.com wrote: On Oct 15, 4:34 pm, Jason B. jason.ba...@gmail.com wrote: Using that approach works great for my app. That way it doesn't matter if my app ever gets killed. The alarm will trigger in the future and the intent will restart my service I believe the point of this thread is that Task Killer apps will kill all future alarms you had scheduled. String --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
If you kill the process, it will not impact the alarms, the same as it won't impact notifications etc. What these programs are doing is using the API that is tended to force stop -everything- about the application: stop all services, cancel all alarms, remove all notifications, etc. This is all working as intended, the apps are just abusing this API to cause things to happen that you probably don't want to have done. On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 3:55 PM, Jason B. jason.ba...@gmail.com wrote: When I use the method above. Even after I kill my app and service with task manager my alarms still trigger. I believe its because the AlarmManager service has been given a pending intent that will relaunch my service which handles the alarms. Both alarmmanager and the pending intent are allocated outside of the activity, so even if the application's virtual memory space is deleted, the pending intent still exists and the alarmmanager is still scheduled. Sorry if I missed the theme of the post. Good luck :) On Oct 15, 11:53 am, String sterling.ud...@googlemail.com wrote: On Oct 15, 4:34 pm, Jason B. jason.ba...@gmail.com wrote: Using that approach works great for my app. That way it doesn't matter if my app ever gets killed. The alarm will trigger in the future and the intent will restart my service I believe the point of this thread is that Task Killer apps will kill all future alarms you had scheduled. String -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
:) I am the taskiller developper. If an user choose to kill your app. Your app may not be restarted. Users are using taskiller because too more apps have bad implemention of broadcasters. Too many apps are launching without user action, like uninstalled widgets, because they receive Broadcast and dont verify the effective use of the app. Too many apps are implementing Start on boot when not needed. With taskiller, users are checking that too many apps are loaded on startup and 50% of these apps are not useful at startup(like meeboo,facebook,.. ) Too many apps are not explaining what they do. If your apps are using background service, inform the user that the app will stay in background, and maybe the users will not kill stupidly your app. And the bad news is that others task managers are implementing autokill or Boot killwhich can made many apps crashing (if your app use an intents to another app...if this app is autokilled your app will never worl :( ... On Oct 13, 1:09 am, Lazarus 101 lazarus...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks Dianne for the quick answer. ActuallyTasKilleris not automatically killing apps, but it has a widget that allows users to kill (almost) all apps with one click. Most of the Android users that I know are using something similar toTasKillerso this is a tricky problem, users will blame my app for not doing what it says it does. I saw there is a PACKAGE_RESTARTED broadcast but obviously the restarted package does not receive the notification so there's not much I can do to fix this problem... Having applications that can affect the functionality of every other apps installed on the system is not such a good idea IMHO. A Task Manager is needed but the user should be clearly informed that the apps he choses to kill are not working anymore because that's exactly what he wanted. Also the permission is called restart other application it should be kill other applications, that's why I thought alarms are not affected by this and that services are getting restarted (I saw services being restarted after crashes or after being killed due to lack of memory so I though it's the same behaviour when calling ActivityManager.restartPackage). On Oct 12, 11:22 pm, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: That is intentional. Stopping an application is there for the user to stop everything associated with it -- processes, alarms, services, notifications, etc. They will not be restarted until someone explicitly does so (typically this would be the user re-launching the app and having it do the appropriate thing). It sounds likeTasKilleris abusing this API. The API is there for the user to explicitly stop an app from running without going to the most extreme measure of uninstalling the app. Trying to use it to automatically stop things behind the user's back seems... questionable, and probably not what the user actually wants. On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Lazarus 101 lazarus...@gmail.com wrote: I have an app that does some polling every 2 hours. I set a repeating alarmthat starts a service but I have noticed that if I use some task manager (e.g.TasKiller) to kill my app then the polling will not be performed from that moment on. I know this because I store the time of the last poll, I have also checked the server logs and there are no requests received from the client after I force close my app. Is this the way alarms work or should I look somewhere else for a crash or smth? because if alarms really get canceled then how should we implement the polling? I'm also interested in what happens with a running service if it gets killed from another app (I assume all task managers are using ActivityManager.restartPackage() to kill other apps), does it get restarted? -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Oct 13, 4:50 pm, Nicolas Thibaut nthibau...@gmail.com wrote: And the bad news is that others task managers are implementing autokill or Boot killwhich can made many apps crashing (if your app use an intents to another app...if this app is autokilled your app will never worl :( ... I'm getting complaints from users about my app stalling - it's a clock widget, and people don't like it when the clock stops. My best guess is that these users have autokill apps running, and killing my process disables the alarm that updates my widget. I've been able to create a workaround (with updateperiodmillis), but it seems like something of an arms race at this point. Some apps ARE badly behaved and launch at startup when there's no good reason for them to, leading to the proliferation of task killers, which can then indiscriminately kill processes which the user DOES want running, and the affected developers move on to other workarounds. Perhaps there should be two levels of permission relating to other apps, stop/start processes and stop/start alarms? String --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
Maybe make another API call that allows killing the service, notifications, and etc of an application except for alarms? I think other applications are affected the most by their alarms getting totally wiped out by another application. Too many task killing applications are using this API call. I am sure if a safer call is available, most of them will switch to it. On Oct 12, 4:12 pm, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: *sigh* I knew I shouldn't have made that API public. :} On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 4:09 PM, Lazarus 101 lazarus...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks Dianne for the quick answer. Actually TasKiller is not automatically killing apps, but it has a widget that allows users to kill (almost) all apps with one click. Most of the Android users that I know are using something similar to TasKiller so this is a tricky problem, users will blame my app for not doing what it says it does. I saw there is a PACKAGE_RESTARTED broadcast but obviously the restarted package does not receive the notification so there's not much I can do to fix this problem... Having applications that can affect the functionality of every other apps installed on the system is not such a good idea IMHO. A Task Manager is needed but the user should be clearly informed that the apps he choses to kill are not working anymore because that's exactly what he wanted. Also the permission is called restart other application it should be kill other applications, that's why I thought alarms are not affected by this and that services are getting restarted (I saw services being restarted after crashes or after being killed due to lack of memory so I though it's the same behaviour when calling ActivityManager.restartPackage). On Oct 12, 11:22 pm, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: That is intentional. Stopping an application is there for the user to stop everything associated with it -- processes, alarms, services, notifications, etc. They will not be restarted until someone explicitly does so (typically this would be the user re-launching the app and having it do the appropriate thing). It sounds like TasKiller is abusing this API. The API is there for the user to explicitly stop an app from running without going to the most extreme measure of uninstalling the app. Trying to use it to automatically stop things behind the user's back seems... questionable, and probably not what the user actually wants. On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Lazarus 101 lazarus...@gmail.com wrote: I have an app that does some polling every 2 hours. I set a repeating alarm that starts a service but I have noticed that if I use some task manager (e.g. TasKiller) to kill my app then the polling will not be performed from that moment on. I know this because I store the time of the last poll, I have also checked the server logs and there are no requests received from the client after I force close my app. Is this the way alarms work or should I look somewhere else for a crash or smth? because if alarms really get canceled then how should we implement the polling? I'm also interested in what happens with a running service if it gets killed from another app (I assume all task managers are using ActivityManager.restartPackage() to kill other apps), does it get restarted? -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
Hi Nicolas, I'm using your app on my personal phone, but I kill apps from the Task Bar widget, so I chose carefully which one I want to kill, but most users are using the other widget which only displays the number of apps running and kills all (except system apps and those on ignore list) of them if clicked. Well I guess the only thing I can do is warn my users about this... On Oct 13, 6:50 pm, Nicolas Thibaut nthibau...@gmail.com wrote: :) I am the taskiller developper. If an user choose to kill your app. Your app may not be restarted. Users are using taskiller because too more apps have bad implemention of broadcasters. Too many apps are launching without user action, like uninstalled widgets, because they receive Broadcast and dont verify the effective use of the app. Too many apps are implementing Start on boot when not needed. With taskiller, users are checking that too many apps are loaded on startup and 50% of these apps are not useful at startup(like meeboo,facebook,.. ) Too many apps are not explaining what they do. If your apps are using background service, inform the user that the app will stay in background, and maybe the users will not kill stupidly your app. And the bad news is that others task managers are implementing autokill or Boot killwhich can made many apps crashing (if your app use an intents to another app...if this app is autokilled your app will never worl :( ... On Oct 13, 1:09 am, Lazarus 101 lazarus...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks Dianne for the quick answer. ActuallyTasKilleris not automatically killing apps, but it has a widget that allows users to kill (almost) all apps with one click. Most of the Android users that I know are using something similar toTasKillerso this is a tricky problem, users will blame my app for not doing what it says it does. I saw there is a PACKAGE_RESTARTED broadcast but obviously the restarted package does not receive the notification so there's not much I can do to fix this problem... Having applications that can affect the functionality of every other apps installed on the system is not such a good idea IMHO. A Task Manager is needed but the user should be clearly informed that the apps he choses to kill are not working anymore because that's exactly what he wanted. Also the permission is called restart other application it should be kill other applications, that's why I thought alarms are not affected by this and that services are getting restarted (I saw services being restarted after crashes or after being killed due to lack of memory so I though it's the same behaviour when calling ActivityManager.restartPackage). On Oct 12, 11:22 pm, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: That is intentional. Stopping an application is there for the user to stop everything associated with it -- processes, alarms, services, notifications, etc. They will not be restarted until someone explicitly does so (typically this would be the user re-launching the app and having it do the appropriate thing). It sounds likeTasKilleris abusing this API. The API is there for the user to explicitly stop an app from running without going to the most extreme measure of uninstalling the app. Trying to use it to automatically stop things behind the user's back seems... questionable, and probably not what the user actually wants. On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Lazarus 101 lazarus...@gmail.com wrote: I have an app that does some polling every 2 hours. I set a repeating alarmthat starts a service but I have noticed that if I use some task manager (e.g.TasKiller) to kill my app then the polling will not be performed from that moment on. I know this because I store the time of the last poll, I have also checked the server logs and there are no requests received from the client after I force close my app. Is this the way alarms work or should I look somewhere else for a crash or smth? because if alarms really get canceled then how should we implement the polling? I'm also interested in what happens with a running service if it gets killed from another app (I assume all task managers are using ActivityManager.restartPackage() to kill other apps), does it get restarted? -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
Task killers aside, what about if the OS decides to stop a process because memory is low? Say an app has an alarm set to happen in 2 hours, and the user decides to run Google Maps for a minute. Android might kill said app because memory runs low. Ten minutes later, the user is back on the home screen, but the alarm is gone for good until the user runs the app again. How would something like an alarmclock- style app handle that? -Mike On Oct 12, 1:22 pm, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: That is intentional. Stopping an application is there for the user to stop everything associated with it -- processes, alarms, services, notifications, etc. They will not be restarted until someone explicitly does so (typically this would be the user re-launching the app and having it do the appropriate thing). It sounds like TasKiller is abusing this API. The API is there for the user to explicitly stop an app from running without going to the most extreme measure of uninstalling the app. Trying to use it to automatically stop things behind the user's back seems... questionable, and probably not what the user actually wants. On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Lazarus 101 lazarus...@gmail.com wrote: I have an app that does some polling every 2 hours. I set a repeating alarm that starts a service but I have noticed that if I use some task manager (e.g. TasKiller) to kill my app then the polling will not be performed from that moment on. I know this because I store the time of the last poll, I have also checked the server logs and there are no requests received from the client after I force close my app. Is this the way alarms work or should I look somewhere else for a crash or smth? because if alarms really get canceled then how should we implement the polling? I'm also interested in what happens with a running service if it gets killed from another app (I assume all task managers are using ActivityManager.restartPackage() to kill other apps), does it get restarted? -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 9:09 PM, EboMike ebom...@gmail.com wrote: Task killers aside, what about if the OS decides to stop a process because memory is low? It doesn't do what these apps are doing. As I said, what these apps are doing (especially the ones that do this stuff behind the user's back) is abusing an API that is not intended to be used this way. -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
That is intentional. Stopping an application is there for the user to stop everything associated with it -- processes, alarms, services, notifications, etc. They will not be restarted until someone explicitly does so (typically this would be the user re-launching the app and having it do the appropriate thing). It sounds like TasKiller is abusing this API. The API is there for the user to explicitly stop an app from running without going to the most extreme measure of uninstalling the app. Trying to use it to automatically stop things behind the user's back seems... questionable, and probably not what the user actually wants. On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Lazarus 101 lazarus...@gmail.com wrote: I have an app that does some polling every 2 hours. I set a repeating alarm that starts a service but I have noticed that if I use some task manager (e.g. TasKiller) to kill my app then the polling will not be performed from that moment on. I know this because I store the time of the last poll, I have also checked the server logs and there are no requests received from the client after I force close my app. Is this the way alarms work or should I look somewhere else for a crash or smth? because if alarms really get canceled then how should we implement the polling? I'm also interested in what happens with a running service if it gets killed from another app (I assume all task managers are using ActivityManager.restartPackage() to kill other apps), does it get restarted? -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
Thanks Dianne for the quick answer. Actually TasKiller is not automatically killing apps, but it has a widget that allows users to kill (almost) all apps with one click. Most of the Android users that I know are using something similar to TasKiller so this is a tricky problem, users will blame my app for not doing what it says it does. I saw there is a PACKAGE_RESTARTED broadcast but obviously the restarted package does not receive the notification so there's not much I can do to fix this problem... Having applications that can affect the functionality of every other apps installed on the system is not such a good idea IMHO. A Task Manager is needed but the user should be clearly informed that the apps he choses to kill are not working anymore because that's exactly what he wanted. Also the permission is called restart other application it should be kill other applications, that's why I thought alarms are not affected by this and that services are getting restarted (I saw services being restarted after crashes or after being killed due to lack of memory so I though it's the same behaviour when calling ActivityManager.restartPackage). On Oct 12, 11:22 pm, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: That is intentional. Stopping an application is there for the user to stop everything associated with it -- processes, alarms, services, notifications, etc. They will not be restarted until someone explicitly does so (typically this would be the user re-launching the app and having it do the appropriate thing). It sounds like TasKiller is abusing this API. The API is there for the user to explicitly stop an app from running without going to the most extreme measure of uninstalling the app. Trying to use it to automatically stop things behind the user's back seems... questionable, and probably not what the user actually wants. On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Lazarus 101 lazarus...@gmail.com wrote: I have an app that does some polling every 2 hours. I set a repeating alarm that starts a service but I have noticed that if I use some task manager (e.g. TasKiller) to kill my app then the polling will not be performed from that moment on. I know this because I store the time of the last poll, I have also checked the server logs and there are no requests received from the client after I force close my app. Is this the way alarms work or should I look somewhere else for a crash or smth? because if alarms really get canceled then how should we implement the polling? I'm also interested in what happens with a running service if it gets killed from another app (I assume all task managers are using ActivityManager.restartPackage() to kill other apps), does it get restarted? -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[android-developers] Re: Alarm is canceled if app is stopped
*sigh* I knew I shouldn't have made that API public. :} On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 4:09 PM, Lazarus 101 lazarus...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks Dianne for the quick answer. Actually TasKiller is not automatically killing apps, but it has a widget that allows users to kill (almost) all apps with one click. Most of the Android users that I know are using something similar to TasKiller so this is a tricky problem, users will blame my app for not doing what it says it does. I saw there is a PACKAGE_RESTARTED broadcast but obviously the restarted package does not receive the notification so there's not much I can do to fix this problem... Having applications that can affect the functionality of every other apps installed on the system is not such a good idea IMHO. A Task Manager is needed but the user should be clearly informed that the apps he choses to kill are not working anymore because that's exactly what he wanted. Also the permission is called restart other application it should be kill other applications, that's why I thought alarms are not affected by this and that services are getting restarted (I saw services being restarted after crashes or after being killed due to lack of memory so I though it's the same behaviour when calling ActivityManager.restartPackage). On Oct 12, 11:22 pm, Dianne Hackborn hack...@android.com wrote: That is intentional. Stopping an application is there for the user to stop everything associated with it -- processes, alarms, services, notifications, etc. They will not be restarted until someone explicitly does so (typically this would be the user re-launching the app and having it do the appropriate thing). It sounds like TasKiller is abusing this API. The API is there for the user to explicitly stop an app from running without going to the most extreme measure of uninstalling the app. Trying to use it to automatically stop things behind the user's back seems... questionable, and probably not what the user actually wants. On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Lazarus 101 lazarus...@gmail.com wrote: I have an app that does some polling every 2 hours. I set a repeating alarm that starts a service but I have noticed that if I use some task manager (e.g. TasKiller) to kill my app then the polling will not be performed from that moment on. I know this because I store the time of the last poll, I have also checked the server logs and there are no requests received from the client after I force close my app. Is this the way alarms work or should I look somewhere else for a crash or smth? because if alarms really get canceled then how should we implement the polling? I'm also interested in what happens with a running service if it gets killed from another app (I assume all task managers are using ActivityManager.restartPackage() to kill other apps), does it get restarted? -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer hack...@android.com Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Android Developers group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
