How to force an IntentService to stop immediately with a cancel button from an Activity?

Question

I have an IntentService that is started from an Activity and I would like to be able to stop the service immediately from the activity with a \"cancel\" button in the activi

Answer 1

I've used a BroadcastReceiver inside the service that simply puts a stop boolean to true. Example:

private boolean stop=false;

public class StopReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {

   public static final String ACTION_STOP = "stop";

   @Override
   public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
       stop = true;
   }
}


@Override
protected void onHandleIntent(Intent intent) {
    IntentFilter filter = new IntentFilter(StopReceiver.ACTION_STOP);
    filter.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_DEFAULT);
    StopReceiver receiver = new StopReceiver();
    registerReceiver(receiver, filter);

    // Do stuff ....

    //In the work you are doing
    if(stop==true){
        unregisterReceiver(receiver);
        stopSelf();
    }
}

Then, from the activity call:

//STOP SERVICE
Intent sIntent = new Intent();
sIntent.setAction(StopReceiver.ACTION_STOP);
sendBroadcast(sIntent);

To stop the service.

PD: I use a boolean because In my case I stop the service while in a loop but you can probably call unregisterReceiver and stopSelf in onReceive.

PD2: Don't forget to call unregisterReceiver if the service finishes it's work normally or you'll get a leaked IntentReceiver error.

Answer 2

Here is some sample code to start/stop Service

To start,

Intent GPSService = new Intent(context, TrackGPS.class);
context.startService(GPSService);

To stop,

context.stopService(GPSService);

Answer 3

Here is the trick, make use of a volatile static variable and check continue condition in some of lines in your service that service continue should be checked:

class MyService extends IntentService {
    public static volatile boolean shouldContinue = true;
    public MyService() {
        super("My Service");
    }

    @Override
    protected void onHandleIntent(Intent intent) {
        doStuff();
    }

    private void doStuff() {
        // do something 

        // check the condition
        if (shouldContinue == false) {
            stopSelf();
            return;
        }

       // continue doing something

       // check the condition
       if (shouldContinue == false) {
           stopSelf();
           return;
       }

       // put those checks wherever you need
   }
}

and in your activity do this to stop your service,

 MyService.shouldContinue = false;