Android: How to safely unbind a service

Question

I have a service which is binded to application context like this:

getApplicationContext().bindService(
                    new Intent(this, ServiceUI.class         


        

Answer 1

Why do we get this error?

When you try to unregister a service which is not registered.

What are some common examples?

• Binding and Unbinding a service with different Context.
• calling unBind(mserviceConnection) more than bind(...)

First point is self explanatory. Lets explore the second source of error more deeply. Debug your bind() and unbind() calls. If you see calls in these order then your application will end up getting the IllegalArgumentException.

How can we avoid this?
There are two ways you should consider to bind and unbind a service in Activity. Android docs recommend that

• If you want to interact with a service only when the Activity is visible then

bindService() in onStart() and unbindService() in onStop()

Your Activity {

    @Override
    public void onStart(){
       super.onStart();
       bindService(intent, mConnection , Context.BIND_AUTO_CREATE);
    }

    @Override
    public void onStop(){
       super.onStop();
       unbindService(mConnection);
    }

} 

• If you want to interact with a service even an Activity is in Background then

bindService() in onCreate() and unbindService() in onDestroy()

Your Activity {

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bindle sis){
       super.onCreate(sis);
        ....
        bindService(intent, mConnection , Context.BIND_AUTO_CREATE);
    }

    @Override
    public void onDestroy() {
        super.onDestroy();
        unbindService(mConnection);
    }         

}