Asynchronous thread in Android - android

I want to invoke a web service request every 1 minute. I'm not able to understand what should I use.

If you want to run the service even when the screen is off for a while look at AlarmManager to wake up the phone every 10 minutes plus a service with a wavelock to keep the service running. Bear in mind that the wavelock can drain battery.
Regards

You could use a AsyncTask or a runnable with a sleep and a loop in it.

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How to make android service run every day once

I have a service that runs well but when phone goes to deep sleep , the service stop working .
I want to make use of some android class that makes the service to run everyday
at specific time ,??
i have tried wakelock but it drains the battery very fast for 24/24 cpu on
Any HELP ??
In case this becomes a bigger discussion then our comments. I'll list my answer here.
So your goal is to schedule a job with the alarm manager. Just make yourself a broadcast receiver class and register it on your app's startup. Then you will get code to run on each received notification.
If you need your service to run one time use an IntentService for efficiency instead of regular service.
Also, if you need to make sure it starts automatically then you should register for receiving of phone boot so that you can start your scheduled job again.
The link example:
Schedule a TimerTask at specific time once per day in a service in android
Better solution: you can use any of them alarm manager/jobscheduler/GCMNetworkManager
Create a alarm with looping every 24 hr interval.
That's all you need.
PS: Service will drain your battery.

Android - Send data to the server in every 5 minutes

I have some data in my SQLite database table. When my app starts, I want to send that data to the server every 5 minutes.
When the app is closed, it should stop.
What is the best approach for this?
Should I use Service or IntentService?
Should I use AlarmManager, Handler or any other thing?
I'm aware of my application speed. I don't want to make it slow. What is the effective approach?
If you are only transmitting when the app is in foreground, you can do it with a Handler.
You start the handler in onResume() and cancel it in onPause().
And perform the transmision with an AsyncTask or in a separate thread.
If you need to stransmit in background, you can use a service instead and schedule it with the AlarmManager.
And then start the service from the app's Activity.
I am not sure how IntentService would be used for this.
As you just want to run your process while the app is foreground, then TimerTask or Handler with conjunction to Message or Runable is good. It won't bother much your app's performance. If you ask about the better one from these two I'll say it's Handler. Check the details here in this answer:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/3975337/4128371
But if you want a really good performance then I'll suggest to go with AlarmManager. Otherwise Handler is a good option.
Alarm manager is not precise, an alarm schedule for 5 minutes may be that when the device is sleeping it will be fired at twice or triple the time.
If you want accuracy the device does not have to fall in sleep. ( I know that will shorten battery duration)
If you want to prevent the device to go to sleep you need to launch a foreground Service with a non dismissable Notification. That's the Service has to call startForeground()
While the device is awake both Alarmamanager and Handler + Runnable will be accurate ... I prefer the Handler.

for aggressively repeated alarms, which is better Alarm or Service with Timer task?

I am trying to do an application that shows the user notification with options that user can choose:
Aggressively repeated: like every 3 minutes (does not wake-lock the device)
Highly repeated: every 10 to 15 minutes (does not wake-lock the device)
Repeated: every 1 hour
once a day
so for the first 3 options, (as a Performance and battery life) is it good solution to set up Timer and start a scheduleTimerTask within Service ? or should i set an Alarm from AlarmManager?
Service
Constantly runs in Background , will drain battery
Can be killed by android or user might go to setting and kill it manually
Will be killed if phone is switched off
service was basically meant to do background services like loading and
uploading data on separate thread, for your purpose AlarmManager is
useful and it will not be killed by android and probably will drain
less juice than service
It's better to use an alarm. A service can be killed by the OS.

TimerTask vs AlaramManager, Which one should I use?

I am working on an application which triggers an action (say toast message) every 10 minutes after the screen is ON and stops the action after the screen is OFF.
I have used TimerTask for this purpose.
Shall I start using AlaramManager instead of TimerTask or shall I keep using TimerTask ?
I know the difference between the two but can't figure out which to use.
Cant' agree with the nikis' answer
Timer and AlarmManager are solutions addressed to satisfy different needs.
Timer is still a "task" that means this is a thread of your application that means that some component of your application must be running on device to keep timer alive.
If you set timer for 10 minutes events - you can't be sure if your application will not be disposed by system in some moment. If device will be turned into the sleep mode your timer can be stopped. To prevent behavior like that you have to use PowerLock's and drain battery
AlarmManager is system service (runs outside your application) that means that the pending intent will be sent even if your application is killed after setting the alarm.
Some examples:
You have to blink some "led" on the view every 1 s - use Timer - you need it only when application is in foreground, there are short intervals - no point in using AlarmManager for task like that.
You have run some task once after 10 s - Handler.postDelay(); will be the best solution for that, and the job will be done on main thread (UI).
You have to check every 10 minutes if there is some new content on device that you are supposed to push to the server - use AlarmManager - your application does not need to be alive all the time, just let system to start job you want every 10 minutes - that's all.
In most cases you should definitely use AlarmManager, because (from the docs):
The AlarmManager holds a CPU wake lock as long as the alarm receiver's onReceive() method is executing. This guarantees that the phone will not sleep until you have finished handling the broadcast. Once onReceive() returns, the AlarmManager releases this wake lock. This means that the phone will in some cases sleep as soon as your onReceive() method completes.
Although you don't need to fire any event while screen is off, AlarmManager still saves the battery by grouping alarms, when you use setInexactRepeating (but this is not important for you, because your interval is 10 minutes). And moreover, it can fire an event is app is not running. I vote for AlarmManager, because it's good practice, but considering your conditions, you can leave Timertask.
BTW, you can also use Handler, which I believe will be the best choice.

How does the Android system behave with Threads that sleep for too long?

So in my "Home" activity in my Android app, I have a non-deamon thread that is constantly running in the background that checks a blog for new posts every 30 minutes or so to fire notifications. It works fine when I make the thread sleep just for a few seconds for testing purposes to make sure that it is indeed working in the background, but in the actual phone, when the event is supposed to fire after half an hour, it just doesn't. So my question is, when I do *Thread.sleep(30_MINUTES)* does the android system kill it or something for being an inactive thread for too long? Does android kill sleepy threads?
Why don't you try AlarmManager to fire your polling code every 30 minutes ? Once the polling is done re-schedule if for the next 30 minutes. AlarmManager is much more reliable than making the threads to sleep
OK, so the problem was solved. What was causing the problem was that in Android when you put a Thread to sleep for let's say 30 minutes, when the device goes to sleep (the screen turns off after inactivity on the phone) the CPU goes into a so called "deep sleep state" which causes the thread's counter -that wakes the thread wake up- to pause while the screen is off. This means that when you say Thread.sleep(500000) for example, those 500000 milliseconds are counted only when the phone is awake. The solution is to use AlarmManager and a BroadcastReceiver to run the code periodically.
Here's a simple guide on how to use AlarmManager with a BroadcastReceiver: http://justcallmebrian.com/?p=129
I am not sure what you are doing in your coding but definitely android system does not kill a thread on its own whether sleepy or not doesnt matter.
What exactly is happening during this time? I believe the only situation in which what you're describing (using the technique you describe) would work reliably is if both (a) your activity (or another activity or service that runs in the same process) is the foreground activity for the entire life of the thread and (b) there's a wakelock preventing the CPU from sleeping.
Android may not kill individual threads, but it absolutely can and will kill processes based on the process lifecycle.

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