In android 4.4, swiping app out of recent tasks permanently kills application with its service . Any idea why?

Question

Unlike previous versions, in 4.4, swiping app out of recent tasks permanently kills app along with its service(like force-stop) even though it's running background services. It shows 0 processes 1 service but service also doesn't work. Ideally it shouldn't kill background service, and it doesn't in versions prior to 4.3. Any idea why is it happening in 4.4?

Answer 1

Got it. Its a bug in 4.4. I tried this and it worked perfectly fine(its a dirty workout though).

Just override this method -:

public void onTaskRemoved(Intent rootIntent) {
    Log.e("FLAGX : ", ServiceInfo.FLAG_STOP_WITH_TASK + "");
    Intent restartServiceIntent = new Intent(getApplicationContext(),
            this.getClass());
    restartServiceIntent.setPackage(getPackageName());

    PendingIntent restartServicePendingIntent = PendingIntent.getService(
            getApplicationContext(), 1, restartServiceIntent,
            PendingIntent.FLAG_ONE_SHOT);
    AlarmManager alarmService = (AlarmManager) getApplicationContext()
            .getSystemService(Context.ALARM_SERVICE);
    alarmService.set(AlarmManager.ELAPSED_REALTIME,
            SystemClock.elapsedRealtime() + 1000,
            restartServicePendingIntent);

    super.onTaskRemoved(rootIntent);
}

Answer 2

From this issue Foreground service killed when receiving broadcast after acitivty swiped away in task list

Here is the solution

In the foreground service:

@Override
public void onTaskRemoved( Intent rootIntent ) {
   Intent intent = new Intent( this, DummyActivity.class );
   intent.addFlags( Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK );
   startActivity( intent );
}

In the manifest:

<activity
android:name=".DummyActivity"
android:theme="@android:style/Theme.NoDisplay"
android:enabled="true"
android:allowTaskReparenting="true"
android:noHistory="true"
android:excludeFromRecents="true"
android:alwaysRetainTaskState="false"
android:stateNotNeeded="true"
android:clearTaskOnLaunch="true"
android:finishOnTaskLaunch="true"
/> 

In DummyActivity.java:

public class DummyActivity extends Activity {
    @Override
    public void onCreate( Bundle icicle ) {
        super.onCreate( icicle );
        finish();
    }
}