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androidserviceui-threadbackground-threadserviceconnection

Android NonUI Thread making application "not respond"

I am editing the code of an android app that is making GPS calls in a service. LocationListener. It also uses ServiceConnection

In some views the device decides that my application is taking too long to respond, and that the user can either "Force Close" or "Wait". Before this popup appears, the application is still usable by the user, they can scroll, slide, press buttons etc.

I am only assuming this is related to the GPS service as it is running whenever this problem happens.

I heard that this problem has to do with a thread running on the UIthread, instead of a background thread. But I was sure that services run asynchronously in the background thread.

Insight appreciated

Solution

  • Using a service does not necessarily spawn a new thread, the service call runs on it's caller thread. From the android API Service doc at: "Note that services, like other application objects, run in the main thread of their hosting process..".

    You can specify the service to run on a different process but best practice is to spawn a new thread in the service.

    More on android service at: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Service.html