Persisting BroadcastReceiver reference

Question

What I want to achieve is to give user a button saying 'Start broadcast receiving' and another one saying 'Stop broadcast receiving'.

I'm registering BroadcastReceiver for "android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED" intent ('Start broadcast receiving' functionality):

incomingSmsReceiver = new IncomingSmsReceiver();
IntentFilter filter = new IntentFilter();
filter.addAction("android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED");
getApplicationContext().registerReceiver(incomingSmsReceiver, filter);

Then I'm using unregisterReceiver() for 'Stop broadcast receiving':

getApplicationContext().unregisterReceiver(incomingSmsReceiver);

As you can see it's using the same reference (private static BroadcastReceiver incomingSmsReceiver;).

The problem is:

This works fine as long as my app's process is not terminated. When user click 'Start receiving broadcast' and after that my app is been killed by Android I'm loosing incomingSmsReceiver reference (when I run my app next time it's set to null by default). There's no way for user to stop receiving broadcast as the reference is lost.

How to persist this reference? And how to make it possible to call getApplicationContext().unregisterReceiver(incomingSmsReceiver); after recreating app's process by Android?

Vikram Bodicherla · Answer 1 · 2011-12-19T08:13:32.470

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AFAIK, you don't need to hold on to the exact same BroadcastReciever reference. Create a new reference in the exact same way in which you would create one normally and pass it to unregisterService.

edited Dec 19 '11 at 08:13

answered Dec 18 '11 at 12:32

Vikram Bodicherla

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But there's nothing to do with Intents in `public abstract void unregisterReceiver (BroadcastReceiver receiver)` method. It only gets a BroadcastReceiver reference. – ncreated Dec 18 '11 at 15:59
@ricewind: Updated the answer! Sorry for the mistakes. – Vikram Bodicherla Dec 19 '11 at 08:12

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:11

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I've found better solution for such problem: Enable and disable a Broadcast Receiver (CommonsWare's answer).

The solution is to register BroadcastReceiver in AndroidManifest file. Then to use PackageManager.setComponentEnabledSetting(...) to enable / disable this component.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:11

Community

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answered Dec 18 '11 at 16:54

ncreated

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Persisting BroadcastReceiver reference

2 Answers2