I have an app with audio playback, but on some devices (mainly Huawei, Samsung, Sony) playback is stopped when the screen goes off.
Note: playback does not stop for some other apps like Spotify, Play Music
I found this answer (for Huawei devices) which suggest to ask user to enable "run in background" permission in battery optimization settings (Battery Manager > Protected Apps) but I would like to avoid asking users to enable it.
Is there some API to enable it programmatically for Huawei, Samsung, Sony or other manufacturers?
Is it possible to detect if app do not have such permission?
EDIT: playback runs in foreground service and app holds wakelock
EDIT 2: I've contacted Huawei support related to this issue. I will share more info once resolved.
Use a service with foreground priority the newer Android OS versions have a doze function to save battery.
If you already use the service in foreground probably there is something wrong with the way you use the service in your code (give more details).
Here a tutorial about Playing music in the background that could help you.
Related
I am creating an Android app (Java code) that has an audio call feature.
I managed to make it work using the webRTC framework.
I wanted to make my audio call behave like WhatsApp and Messenger, where those apps keep the audio call running even if the user stops the app from apps history, or starts using another app.
So, I decided to migrate the webRTC code from an Activity to a Foreground Service.
My Audio Call Activity handles the UI, displaying friend photo, name, call timer ...
So I had to make communication between my Activity and my Foreground Service through binding and sending android.os.Message object.
Everything works fine when using SAMSUNG devices, if I kill the app, I could return to the Call activity by clicking the foreground service's notification, and the audio call keeps working until I hang up.
My problem appeared when i used a Xiaomi device (redmi note7), if i kill the app, the audio call stops, cause my Foreground Service is restarted.
Even after enabling "Autostart" from settings.
I searched in here for a solution but all the answers i found didn't satisfy my need, cause i can't just accept my Service being restarted.
If i want to resume the audio call, i have to re-call the friend again !
So, the question is :
How to prevent Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo ... devices from restarting Foreground Service ?
Which is the case with WhatsAPP, Messenger, Instagram and others.
It's a tricky question since it really depends on the vendor. There is a site which document and rank the vendor according to "how bad" they're handling services and processes. From the site:
...With Android 6 (Marshmallow), Google has introduced Doze mode to the base Android, in an attempt to unify battery saving across the various Android phones. Unfortunately, vendors (e.g. Xiaomi, Huawei, OnePlus or even Samsung..) did not seem to catch that ball and they all have their own battery savers, usually very poorly written, saving battery only superficially with side effects.
The solutions differs from vendor to vendor and from ROM version to another.
For example for Huawei you can overcome the issue in Huawei P20, Huawei P20 Lite, Huawei Mate 10 by Phone settings > Battery > App launch and then set your app to “Manage manually” and make sure everything is turned on. Also for reliable background processes you may need to uninstall PowerGenie (which is a power mgmt. application by Huawei). On the other hand for EMUI 9+ devices you'll have to uninstall PowerGenie via adb
I have an app that listens for notifications via NotificationListenerService. My app survives both the Doze mode and app stand by on almost any phone (if properly set-up e.g. exception or a foreground service).
Then come the Huawei and Xiaomi with their own modifications of Android to "improve battery life". These can mess with background running apps so badly that after a week or two the app must be reinstalled. Even clearing data will not "unfreeze" the app. Even exceptions to their own "optimizations" does not reliably fix this. Only completely disabling all their optimizations e.g. enabling "high performance mode" might fix this. But users do not want to disable these options.
How do you deal with these cases? And how can we stop manufacturers to stop messing with core Android? Not to mention the funny ANRs & crashes in Zygote :(
Then come the Huawei and Xiaomi with their own modifications of Android to "improve battery life".
Yes Xiaomi, Huawei and a few other manufacturers have their own layer of "Battery Saver" or "Security" that kills or restricts background running apps in order to improve security/battery backup, unless user white-lists your app in the relevant device settings.
What i found out about Xiaomi is that they white-list well known apps like Facebook, Whatsapp, etc. But you cannot request Xiaomi to white-list your app.
These can mess with background running apps so badly that after a week or two the app must be reinstalled. Even clearing data will not "unfreeze" the app.
These manufacturer apps simply terminate your app process. So your app should behave in such a way that termination at any moment should not create inconsistent state.
Also, you can always show a popup to user after installation asking him/her to go and white-list your app in battery saver. In Xiaomi, the user will need to select 'Do not restrict background activity' and also enable 'Auto Start' for your app. As far as i know, there is no other solution.
Let me know if you find one ;)
We have a music app (mp3) developed in Xamarin (Native Android App) using MediaPlayer. There will be list of songs that should be played one after the other. After around 10 minutes or so, the player stops. Once the phone is unlocked, the Player starts playing the next track. Seems the Nougat Doze is somehow intervening the Player. If I manually disable Battery Optimization for my app, then there is no issue.
Is there any fix for this problem rather than having each user to manually change the 'Batter Optimization' option. I wonder how other apps like Spotify plays songs continuously without any setting changes. Please help!
Any process that contains a running foreground service will not be considered for Doze mode. This is what apps like Spotify and Google Play Music use. Consider creating a relevant foreground service - it will be shown in the notification screen while the foreground service is running, so a dummy service will stick out.
Another option is to request the REQUEST_IGNORE_BATTERY_OPTIMIZATIONS permission and then launch an ACTION_REQUEST_IGNORE_BATTERY_OPTIMIZATIONS intent, which will take the user to the Battery Optimization screen for your app. This is a less-than-stellar user experience but does not require the creation of a foreground service that you may not otherwise need.
When I use the Spotify Android SDK to play music and Doze kicks in, the music stops playing because the app loses network connectivity. Is there a way to solve this?
The only way I can think of is ask the user to whitelist the app using a ACTION_REQUEST_IGNORE_BATTERY_OPTIMIZATIONS intent. But I read that a lot of developers get their app banned from the play store when doing that.
Running the Spotify instance in a foreground service fixes the problem. See https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/media/mediaplayer.html#foregroundserv
I have an android app which records voice using a service - and a thread inside the service(obviously the app can record while in background..)
The app will be affected by the new Doze app state?
https://developer.android.com/training/monitoring-device-state/doze-standby.html#whitelisting-cases
I don't have a phone with 6.0 yet and the simulator cannot record voice in general...
If your service is running in the foreground (with an associated notification) when the device enters Doze mode, it should not be affected according to a comment by Dianne Hackborn to this post. See a documented experience that seems to prove this behavior here.
On the other hand, tests show, that access to certain sensors like GPS are restricted in Doze mode, so this might also apply to the microphone.
Since Doze mode is poorly documented up to now, unfortunately at this point you probably do not get around running your own tests on a physical device.
Yes, every app can be "killed" by Doze. If your service runs in foreground you can avoid App Standby however. Remember that asking to the user to put the app in the whitelist it's prohibited from Google Terms of services, so you can't do it. If you want to do something like that you need to add a permission to your manifest and with cross fingers hope in the Google review of your app.