How to keep application working under screenlock?

Question

I am writing a WP7 application which requires to play music even when screen lock is activated. I have done the following:

PhoneApplicationService.Current.ApplicationIdleDetectionMode = 
                                                IdleDetectionMode.Disabled;

and am also implementing the events as follows :

void RootFrame_Obscured(Object sender, ObscuredEventArgs e)
{
    _playunderLock = true;
}

void RootFrame_Unobscured(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    _playunderLock = false;
}

But my music still stops when the lock button is explicitly pressed!

Am I missing something?? Also when music is playing the default lock screen does not get activated now, even though I haven't called

PhoneApplicationService.Current.UserIdleDetectionMode = 
                                   IdleDetectionMode.Disabled;

Answer 1

This blog post may help: http://andreassaudemont.com/post/1068697622/useridledetectionmode-and-applicationidledetectionmode. If you need the application to keep running while the user isn't interacting with it (such as listening to backgorund music) then you need to disable user idle detection: PhoneApplicationService.Current.UserIdleDetectionMode = IdleDetectionMode.Disabled; but from your description it sounds like you are having the problem when the user locks the screen, which is application idle detection. So, the only thing I can think is that you are setting it too early (sounds odd I know!). In RunKeeper we disable application idle detection(*) in the InitializePhoneApplication method in App.xaml.cs.

(*) NOTE: Disabling idle detection of any type is any action that requires permission from the user, so you'll need to add this into your application, too.