android services and activity lifecycle?

Issue

I am having problem with my android IntentService. When I first open the application, the service gets started by intent from the profile activity and data is fetched from this service. If I switch to other activity and then back service is still running and that is ok.

However if you press back, so that activity is finished and put in the background, the service is still working as the application is in background but If I get it back to foreground service stops. I do not know why. Bellow is my code, please help.

I have read activity life cycle couple of times and still do not get it why this is happening.

What is weird is that Service receive data one more time before it stops when MainActivity is brought back to running state. Service is not crashing.

Service

public class SomeService extends IntentService
{
    public static final String extra = "someData";

    public SomeService()
    {
        super(SomeService.class.getSimpleName());
    }

    @Override
    protected void onHandleIntent(Intent intent)
    {
        Log.e("SomeService", "starting service");

        while (true)
        {
            SomeData data = Api.getNewSocketData();

            //Broadcast data when received to update the view
            Intent broadcastData = new Intent();
            broadcastData.setAction(dataBroadcastReceiver.ACTION_DATA_RECEIVED);
            broadcastData.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_DEFAULT);
            broadcastData.putExtra(extra, " ");
            sendBroadcast(broadcastData);

            Log.e("SomeService", "received from socket");
        }

    }


}

Receiver

public class dataBroadcastReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver
{
    public final static String ACTION_DATA_RECEIVED = "net.bitstamp.intent.action.ACTION_SOMEDATA_RECEIVED";

    @Override
    public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent)
    {

        Log.e("receiver", "data received");
    }
}

Main Activity

@Override
public void onPause()
{
    super.onPause();

    unregisterReceiver(dataBroadcastReceiver);
}

@Override
public void onResume()
{
    super.onResume();

    IntentFilter intentFilter = new IntentFilter(dataBroadcastReceiver.ACTION_DATA_RECEIVED);
    intentFilter.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_DEFAULT);
    dataBroadcastReceiver = new dataBroadcastReceiver();
    registerReceiver(dataBroadcastReceiver, intentFilter);

    Intent someService = new Intent(this, SomeService.class);
    startService(someService);

}

I really need help on this. Thanks

Solution

You don't want to the up the IntentService in an infinite loop. It will block all other incoming requests. From the documentation:

All requests are handled on a single worker thread -- they may take as long as necessary (and will not block the application's main loop), but only one request will be processed at a time.

Your Service is likely still happily running along, it just isn't processing your new request because your old one is still being handled in the infinite loop.

Answered By - Larry Schiefer