Starting a service via Alarm does not work

Question

I have the following broadcast reciever that gets called when the phone boots up (Bootreciever.java) and I'm trying to start a service that runs intermittently using a repeating alarm.

public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {

    Toast.makeText(context,"Inside onRecieve() :D" , Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
    Log.d(getClass().getName(), "Inside onRecieve() :D");


    AlarmManager am = (AlarmManager) context
            .getSystemService(Context.ALARM_SERVICE);


    Intent i = new Intent(context, MyService.class);

    PendingIntent pi = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context, 0, i, 0);

    am.setRepeating(AlarmManager.ELAPSED_REALTIME_WAKEUP,
            SystemClock.elapsedRealtime() + 3000, 1000, pi);

}

Basically, I'm setting a repeating alarm to trigger 3 seconds and on every second after that. The bootup complete broadcast is received just fine - but the service does not start. MyService.java looks like this:

public class MyService extends Service {

    @Override
    public IBinder onBind(Intent arg0) {
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public int onStartCommand(Intent intent, int flags, int startId) {

        Toast.makeText(this, "Hello from MyService!", Toast.LENGTH_LONG);

        Log.d(getClass().getName(), "Hello from MyService!");

        stopSelf();

        return super.onStartCommand(intent, flags, startId);
    }

What am I doing wrong when starting the service?

Logcat does not tell me anything and I have the service defined in my manifest. On its own this service works when called using startService() but seem to fail when used within a PendingIntent.

Answer 1

Instead of PendingIntent.getBroadcast() use PendingIntent.getService()

Answer 2

I think you should check your duration because android gets a bit picky with alarms that trigger too often. In order to start a service the best way is to set the alarm to broadcast the intent to a broacast receiver and then get it to start your services.

Example 1 the receiver:

import android.content.BroadcastReceiver;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.util.Log;

public class QoutesReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {

    @Override
    public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
        // log instruction
        Log.d("SomeService", "Receiving Broadcast, starting service");
        // start the qoute service

        Intent newService = new Intent(context, SomeService.class);
        context.startService(newService);
    }

}

Example 2 the Function that sets the alarm (this example runs every 2 mins):

public void setAlarm(Context context) {


        // Get the current time
        Calendar currTime = Calendar.getInstance();

        // Get the intent (start the receiver) 
        Intent startReceiver = new Intent(context, MyReceiver.class);

        PendingIntent pendReceiver = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context, 0,
                startReceiver, PendingIntent.FLAG_CANCEL_CURRENT);

        // call the Alarm service
        AlarmManager alarms = (AlarmManager) context
                .getSystemService(Context.ALARM_SERVICE);
        //Setup the alarm

        alarms.setRepeating(AlarmManager.RTC_WAKEUP,
                currTime.getTimeInMillis() + (2 * 60 * 1000), 2 * 60 * 1000,
                pendReceiver);
    }