In my Android app I have to show a list of available services on the network published by another machine (RPi 3B con Raspbian Stretch) using avahi 0.6.32 (Bonjour/zeroconf daemon for Linux). I obtain the list on Android phone using NsdManager. But, during testing, I'm getting a strange behavior: when I switch WiFi off and back on in the phone, most of the times the services are discovered, then immediately lost and then rediscovered (instead of just discovered once) and all of this in less than a second.
This causes the list of services to briefly appear on screen, then disappear and finally reappear almost immediately, but it's still very noticeable. And it forces the services to be discovered and resolved twice. As I expect to have lots of phones connecting to several services in the same LAN, I want to avoid overloading the network.
I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or it's just the way NsdManager works on Android. To reduce possible sources of problem, I commented out the lines that resolve the services (leaving only the log messages) but the problem persisted (more then half of the times).
How can I solve it?
Sample extract from Logcat:
2019-09-26 04:33:50.262 27300-27420/com.example.myapp D/NsdHelper$initializeDiscoveryListener: Service discovery success: name: MyService-1490247, type: _mytype._tcp., host: null, port: 0, txtRecord:
2019-09-26 04:33:50.879 27300-27420/com.example.myapp D/NsdHelper$initializeDiscoveryListener: Service lost: name: MyService-1490247, type: _mytype._tcp., host: null, port: 0, txtRecord:
2019-09-26 04:33:50.970 27300-27420/com.example.myapp D/NsdHelper$initializeDiscoveryListener: Service discovery success: name: MyService-1490247, type: _mytype._tcp., host: null, port: 0, txtRecord:
I'm testing on a Samsung Note 8 with Android O. I tried with 2 different WiFi routers and the behavior is the same.
I'm using the following NsdHelper class (in Kotlin):
import android.content.Context
import android.net.nsd.NsdManager
import android.net.nsd.NsdServiceInfo
import timber.log.Timber
import java.util.*
import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentLinkedQueue
import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicBoolean
import kotlin.collections.ArrayList
abstract class NsdHelper(val context: Context) {
// Declare DNS-SD related variables for service discovery
val nsdManager: NsdManager? = context.getSystemService(Context.NSD_SERVICE) as NsdManager?
private var discoveryListener: NsdManager.DiscoveryListener? = null
private var resolveListener: NsdManager.ResolveListener? = null
private var resolveListenerBusy = AtomicBoolean(false)
private var pendingNsdServices = ConcurrentLinkedQueue<NsdServiceInfo>()
var resolvedNsdServices: MutableList<NsdServiceInfo> =
Collections.synchronizedList(ArrayList<NsdServiceInfo>())
companion object {
// Type of services to look for
const val NSD_SERVICE_TYPE: String = "_mytype._tcp."
// Services' Names must start with this
const val NSD_SERVICE_NAME: String = "MyService-"
}
// Initialize Listeners
fun initializeNsd() {
// Initialize only resolve listener
initializeResolveListener()
}
// Instantiate DNS-SD discovery listener
// used to discover available Sonata audio servers on the same network
private fun initializeDiscoveryListener() {
Timber.d("Initialize DiscoveryListener")
// Instantiate a new DiscoveryListener
discoveryListener = object : NsdManager.DiscoveryListener {
override fun onDiscoveryStarted(regType: String) {
// Called as soon as service discovery begins.
Timber.d("Service discovery started: $regType")
}
override fun onServiceFound(service: NsdServiceInfo) {
// A service was found! Do something with it
Timber.d("Service discovery success: $service")
if ( service.serviceType == NSD_SERVICE_TYPE &&
service.serviceName.startsWith(NSD_SERVICE_NAME) ) {
// Both service type and service name are the ones we want
// If the resolver is free, resolve the service to get all the details
if (resolveListenerBusy.compareAndSet(false, true)) {
nsdManager?.resolveService(service, resolveListener)
} else {
// Resolver was busy. Add the service to the list of pending services
pendingNsdServices.add(service)
}
} else {
// Not our service. Log message but do nothing else
Timber.d("Not our Service - Name: ${service.serviceName}, Type: ${service.serviceType}")
}
}
override fun onServiceLost(service: NsdServiceInfo) {
Timber.d("Service lost: $service")
// If the lost service was in the queue of pending services, remove it
synchronized(pendingNsdServices) {
val iterator = pendingNsdServices.iterator()
while (iterator.hasNext()) {
if (iterator.next().serviceName == service.serviceName) iterator.remove()
}
}
// If the lost service was in the list of resolved services, remove it
synchronized(resolvedNsdServices) {
val iterator = resolvedNsdServices.iterator()
while (iterator.hasNext()) {
if (iterator.next().serviceName == service.serviceName) iterator.remove()
}
}
// Do the rest of the processing for the lost service
onNsdServiceLost(service)
}
override fun onDiscoveryStopped(serviceType: String) {
Timber.d("Discovery stopped: $serviceType")
}
override fun onStartDiscoveryFailed(serviceType: String, errorCode: Int) {
Timber.e("Start Discovery failed: Error code: $errorCode")
stopDiscovery()
}
override fun onStopDiscoveryFailed(serviceType: String, errorCode: Int) {
Timber.e("Stop Discovery failed: Error code: $errorCode")
nsdManager?.stopServiceDiscovery(this)
}
}
}
// Instantiate DNS-SD resolve listener to get extra information about the service
private fun initializeResolveListener() {
Timber.d("Initialize ResolveListener")
resolveListener = object : NsdManager.ResolveListener {
override fun onServiceResolved(service: NsdServiceInfo) {
Timber.d("Service Resolve Succeeded: $service")
// Register the newly resolved service into our list of resolved services
resolvedNsdServices.add(service)
// Process the newly resolved service
onNsdServiceResolved(service)
// Process the next service waiting to be resolved
resolveNextInQueue()
}
override fun onResolveFailed(serviceInfo: NsdServiceInfo, errorCode: Int) {
// Called when the resolve fails. Use the error code to debug.
Timber.e("Resolve failed: $serviceInfo - Error code: $errorCode")
// Process the next service waiting to be resolved
resolveNextInQueue()
}
}
}
// Start discovering services on the network
fun discoverServices() {
// Cancel any existing discovery request
stopDiscovery()
initializeDiscoveryListener()
// Start looking for available audio channels in the network
nsdManager?.discoverServices(NSD_SERVICE_TYPE, NsdManager.PROTOCOL_DNS_SD, discoveryListener)
}
// Stop DNS-SD service discovery
fun stopDiscovery() {
if (discoveryListener != null) {
Timber.d("stopDiscovery() called")
try {
nsdManager?.stopServiceDiscovery(discoveryListener)
} finally {
}
discoveryListener = null
}
}
// Resolve next NSD service pending resolution
private fun resolveNextInQueue() {
// Get the next NSD service waiting to be resolved from the queue
val nextNsdService = pendingNsdServices.poll()
if (nextNsdService != null) {
// There was one. Send to be resolved.
nsdManager?.resolveService(nextNsdService, resolveListener)
} else {
// There was no pending service. Release the flag
resolveListenerBusy.set(false)
}
}
// Function to be overriden with custom logic for new service resolved
abstract fun onNsdServiceResolved(service: NsdServiceInfo)
// Function to be overriden with custom logic for service lost
abstract fun onNsdServiceLost(service: NsdServiceInfo)
}
On the init block of the View Model, I start the service discovery:
class MyViewModel(application: Application) : AndroidViewModel(application) {
// Get application context
private val myAppContext: Context = getApplication<Application>().applicationContext
// Declare NsdHelper object for service discovery
private val nsdHelper: NsdHelper? = object : NsdHelper(myAppContext) {
override fun onNsdServiceResolved(service: NsdServiceInfo) {
// A new network service is available
// Update list of available services
updateServicesList()
}
override fun onNsdServiceLost(service: NsdServiceInfo) {
// A network service is no longer available
// Update list of available services
updateServicesList()
}
}
// Block that is run when the view model is created
init {
Timber.d("init block called")
// Initialize DNS-SD service discovery
nsdHelper?.initializeNsd()
// Start looking for available audio channels in the network
nsdHelper?.discoverServices()
}
// Called when the view model is destroyed
override fun onCleared() {
Timber.d("onCleared called")
nsdHelper?.stopDiscovery()
super.onCleared()
}
private fun updateServicesList() {
// Put the logic here to show the services on screen
return
}
}
Note: Timber is a logging utility, almost a direct replacement for standard Log commands, but easier to use.