RemoteView global variable becomes null when the service class crashes

Question

I am working on a custom notification where I am using RemoteViews for customizing the notification layout. Everything works fine except the problem I am facing when the Service class gets crashes and called again by itself, my global value created for the RemoteView becomes null. So eventually it is throwing NullPointerException.

Service class crash scenario:

While starting an activity from the notification through PendingIntent and when the user swipes the activity from the recent task, my app is getting crashed. For this purpose I have applied some sort of logics as follows:

(i) Changed the return type of onStartCommand method in a Service class from START_STICKY to START_STICKY_COMPATIBILITY(Using this because previous intent called after when service restarts)

(ii) Checked null condition of intent as follows:

//If the intent is null, do not execute the switch statement. If it is not null perform the action.

  if (intent==null)
          return 0;

My Requirement:

I have a music player with play and pause and I need to handle the play/pause case based on the PendintIntent assigned for the view.

Code using for the PendingIntent on clicking the view:

Intent intent = new Intent(context, ServiceExample.class);
intent.setAction(CLICK_PLAY_PAUSE);
PendingIntent musicPlayPauseClickIntent = PendingIntent.getService(context, 0,intent, 0);
mRemoteViewsMusics.setOnClickPendingIntent(R.id.img_play_pause, musicPlayPauseClickIntent);

Code using for opening an activity on click of the thumbnail in the notifications:

 Intent openAcivityIntent = new Intent(context, toClass);
 openAcivityIntent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
 PendingIntent.getActivity(context,0,openAcivityIntent,
                PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);

Code using for Handling the click events in the Service class.

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

      case CLICK_PLAY_PAUSE:

       //NOTE: Getting `NullPointerException` on mRemoteViewsMusics

        mRemoteViewsMusics.setImageViewResource(R.id.img_play_pause,
        R.drawable.ic_noti_pause_circle);
        mMediaPlayer.start();
        break;

        return START_STICKY_COMPATIBILITY; 

      case TYPE_MUSIC:

        showMusicNotification();
        break;




    }

Code for creating a RemoteViews:

public void showMusicNotification(){

    private RemoteViews mRemoteViewsMusics;

     mRemoteViewsMusics = new RemoteViews(getPackageName(),
                    R.layout.music_notification);

}

Note: Whenever the onStartCommand() is called, based on the notification type I am updating the type of notification. The type is based on the Intent flags which is assigned while starting the Service.

I have been stuck up with this issue for more than a week. Please help me to rectify the issues. Any sort of tips or suggestions would be helpful for me. Thanks in advance.

I'd say, in general, it's a bad idea to depend on static state over the long term since Android processes can come and go pretty much at any time (and this is by design). Also, you haven't shown how you are creating mRemoteViewMusics. — Doug Stevenson, Mar 01 '16 at 21:09
Hi @DougStevenson Yeah even i know it is a bad idea. But i didnt find any other solutions to handle the click events. — Chandru, Mar 01 '16 at 21:16
You're still not showing how you're creating and assigning mRemoteViewMusics. — Doug Stevenson, Mar 01 '16 at 23:01

RemoteView global variable becomes null when the service class crashes

0 Answers0