Broadcast receiver not receiving extras

Issue

Upon initialization, my viewmodel creates an alarm. It is set to ring 10 seconds after the application is launched. The alarm manager receives a pendingIntent. The pendingIntent receives an intent. The intent is a broadcast receiver. The intent contains extras which bring me to my problem. Below is the relevant code for my viewmodel:

MainActivityViewModel.kt

    init {
        val intent =
            Intent(app, TimetableAlarmReceiver::class.java).also {
                val alarmMessage =
                    "message"

                it.putExtra("message", alarmMessage)
                Timber.i("The extra message is $alarmMessage")

                it.putExtra("dayOfWeek", getTodayEnumDay())
                Timber.i("The extra dayOfWeek is ${getTodayEnumDay()}")
            }
        Timber.i("The intent is $intent")

        val pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(
            app,
            0,
            intent,
            PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT
        )
        val alarmManager = app.getSystemService(Context.ALARM_SERVICE) as AlarmManager

        alarmManager.setExact(
            AlarmManager.RTC_WAKEUP,
            System.currentTimeMillis().plus(10000L),
            pendingIntent
        )
    }

The broadcast receiver does not detect any extras:

TimetableAlarmReceiver.kt

    override fun onReceive(context: Context, intent: Intent?) {
        Timber.i("The receiver has been called")
        val notificationManager = ContextCompat.getSystemService(
            context,
            NotificationManager::class.java
        ) as NotificationManager

        if(intent!=null){
            Timber.i("The extras are:${intent.extras}")
            val message = intent.getStringExtra("message")
            Timber.i("The extra message is $message")
            val dayOfWeek = intent.getSerializableExtra("dayOfWeek") as DayOfWeek?
            Timber.i("The extra dayOfWeek is $dayOfWeek")
        }

The irony of the logs:

MainActivityViewModel.kt Logs

2021-04-14 17:42:38.684 5492-5492/com.example.android.mycampusapp I/MainActivityViewModel: The extra message is message
2021-04-14 17:42:38.687 5492-5492/com.example.android.mycampusapp I/MainActivityViewModel: The extra dayOfWeek is WEDNESDAY
2021-04-14 17:42:38.687 5492-5492/com.example.android.mycampusapp I/MainActivityViewModel: The intent is Intent { cmp=com.example.android.mycampusapp/.timetable.receiver.TimetableAlarmReceiver (has extras) }

TimetableAlarmReceiver.kt logs:

2021-04-14 17:53:38.884 5814-5814/com.example.android.mycampusapp I/TimetableAlarmReceiver: The receiver has been called
2021-04-14 17:53:38.885 5814-5814/com.example.android.mycampusapp I/TimetableAlarmReceiver: The extras are:Bundle[EMPTY_PARCEL]
2021-04-14 17:53:38.886 5814-5814/com.example.android.mycampusapp I/TimetableAlarmReceiver: The extra message is null
2021-04-14 17:53:38.886 5814-5814/com.example.android.mycampusapp I/TimetableAlarmReceiver: The extra dayOfWeek is null

I have tried a variety of solutions here on stack overflow that involve a receiver that has been called successfully. A bunch of them involve changing the pending intent flag, but that is not helpful here. I am using the correct flag PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT. In any case, changing the flag to Intent.FILL_IN_DATA or PendingIntent.FLAG_CANCEL_CURRENT doesn't work.

Solution

Ah. You can't put custom serializable objects as "extras" in an Intent that you send to AlarmManager. You can only put know types in there. If you need a custom type then you will need to serialize the custom object into a byte array and add that to your Intent as an "extra".

Answered By - David Wasser