Android 9 (Pie), Context.startForegroundService() did not then call Service.startForeground(): ServiceRecord

Question

First of all, I looked at these;

• Context.startForegroundService() did not then call Service.startForeground()
• Context.startForegroundService() did not

Answer 1

The Android Service component is a bit tricky to get working properly, especially on later Android versions where the OS adds additional restrictions. As mentioned in other answers, when starting your Service, use ContextCompat.startForegroundService(). Next, in Service.onStartCommand(), call startForeground() immediately. Store the Notification you want to show as a member field and use that unless it is null. Example:

private var notification:Notification? = null
override fun onStartCommand(intent: Intent?, flags: Int, startId: Int): Int {
    if (notification == null) {
        notification = createDefaultNotification()
    }
    startForeground(NOTIFICATION_ID, notification)

    // Do any additional setup and work herre

    return START_STICKY
}

Always return START_STICKY in your Service. Anything else is probably the wrong thing, especially if you're doing a audio player of any kind. In fact, if you're doing an audio player, you shouldn't implement your own Service but use MediaBrowserServiceCompat (from AndroidX) instead.

I also recommend the blog posts I wrote on this: https://hellsoft.se/how-to-service-on-android-part-3-1e24113152cd