Im developing an app that has to run in the background. It's a location based app, so it runs all the time, the OS doesn't kill it.
It should send some info every 10 secs(just for debugging), I set a timer once its in the background. I set a breakpoint in the function that should be executed every 10 secs, which is never called, but if I pause the app and then continue the timer is called, and then the timer is executed every 10 secs without problems, weird right?
I thought that the timer would be executing anyway when I wasn't debugging, but it isn't, same thing as if I didn't pause the debugging.
My question is WHY?? The timer is set correctly(I assume) since it works after pausing, but it's not.
Any ideas?
The way I set the timer is:
self.timer = [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:10 target:self selector:@selector(doStuff) userInfo:nil repeats:YES];
And in the function I connect to a webservice.
Thanks.
I have a similar app design and was stuck on the same thing. What I found somewhere on the internet is adding this type of statement applicationDidEnterBackground:
UIBackgroundTaskIdentifier locationUpdater =[[UIApplication sharedApplication] beginBackgroundTaskWithExpirationHandler:^{
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] endBackgroundTask:locationUpdater];
locationUpdater=UIBackgroundTaskInvalid;
} ];
This tells the os that you still have things going and not to stop it.
I have my timer attached to this function
//this is a wrapper method to fit the required selector signature
- (void)timeIntervalEnded:(NSTimer*)timer {
[self writeToLog:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"Timer Ended On %@",[NSDate date]]];
[self startReadingLocation];
[timer invalidate];
timer=nil;
}
I set the timer in my my location manager delegate methods.
I feel your pain. I found that these things were super finicky. This is what worked for me. I hope it helps. I have found that there isn't any really restrictions in what you can do in the background.
There might be restrictions on what you can do in the background. Try adding the timer to the run loop before going into the background. Even that might not work; it may be that the only code of yours that can run in the background is the code called by the Core Location methods you've signed up for (e.g. locationManager:didUpdate...
). But my impression is that timers already running before you start to go into the background will continue to run.