Android Notification Action is not fired (PendingI

Question

I am trying to add an Notification action item in my app which is a music player. When a stream is started a notification should be triggered and an stop button for the stream should be displayed in the notfication. The notification working fine so far, I am having trouble with the stop action item. Here is how it is declared in the service starting the stream:

Intent stopIntent = new Intent(this, MusicPlayerNew.class);
stopIntent.putExtra("STOP", "STOP");
PendingIntent stopPendingIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0,
                stopIntent, PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT, null);
mBuilder.addAction(R.drawable.ic_stat_stop, "Stop", stopPendingIntent);

Now in the onResume()-method of my activity I check with getIntent().getStringExtra() for the "STOP" extra, but the intent I retrieved via getIntent() has no extras set :(

I also tried to check to send an broadcast (i have a broadcast receiver working to communicate from the service to the activity)

Intent stopIntent2 = new Intent(MusicPlayerNew.STOP_MEDIAPLAYER);
PendingIntent stopPendingIntent2 = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(this, 0,
                stopIntent2, PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);
mBuilder.addAction(R.drawable.ic_stat_stop, "Stop", stopPendingIntent2); 

Now this works if the activity is currently in the foreground. If the activity is in the background the stop button does nothing :(

EDIT: I have the BroadcastReceiver in my Activity as a private class

private class DataUpdateReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
        @Override
        public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
..
}}

In the onResume() register my app for this receiver:

intentFilter = new IntentFilter(STOP_MEDIAPLAYER);
registerReceiver(dataUpdateReceiver, intentFilter);

onPause()

unregisterReceiver(dataUpdateReceiver);

Now if I remove the unregistering from the onPause()-method the broadcast is received even if the app/activity is not in the foreground anymore. But is this the right way to do it? I got this register/unregister-stuff from a tutorial on the web i think..

Answer 1

You do not receive the broadcast when it is in the background because you are unregistering in onPause. Move the unregisterReceiver code to onDestroy function. This will be called only when the activity is destroyed. Or you can unregister once the expected event has occurred.

Answer 2

This is very late answer but it may help someone:

You should choose the right kind of Pending intent based on the intent you want to run. Here are some Examples:

For Activity use below:

Intent i = new Intent(this, YourActivity.class);
PendingIntent pi = PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0, i, 0);

For Service use below:

Intent i = new Intent(this, YourService.class);
PendingIntent pi = PendingIntent.getService(this, 0, i, 0);

For Broadcast Receiver use below:

Intent i = new Intent(this, YourReciver.class);
PendingIntent pi = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(this, 0, i, 0);

You may need to change the request code and Flags if required

Answer 3

I ran into this problem today and it was caused by the activity not being registered or added to AndroidManifest.xml. I thought I had it in there but it wasn't. Also, no errors were being logged by trying to invoke the action with its intent.

I figured this out by creating an intent and then calling startAcitivty(intent) without using a notification. It then gave me an error stating the activity was likely missing from the manifest.

If none of the other answers solve your problem then hopefully this will. Usually tricky problems are the result of something simple and silly.