Android Service Stops When App Is Closed

I am starting a service from my main Android activity as follows:

final Context context = base.getApplicationContext();
final Intent intent = new Intent(context, MyService.class);
startService(intent);

When I close the activity page by swiping it out from the recent apps list, the service stops running and restarts after some time. I can't use persistent services with notifications because of my app requirements. How can I make the service NOT restart or shutdown and just keep on running on app exit?

I'm in the same situation, so far I learned when the app is closed the service get closed also because they are in a one thread, so the service should be on another thread in order fot it not to be closed, look into that and look into keeping the service alive with alarm manager here an example http://www.vogella.com/articles/AndroidServices/article.html this way your service won't be shown in notification.

lastly, after all the research I've done I'm coming to realize that the best choice for a long running service is startForeground(), because it is made for that and the system actually deals with your service well.

make you service like this in your Mainifest

 <service
            android:name=".sys.service.youservice"
            android:exported="true"
        android:process=":ServiceProcess" />

then your service will run on other process named ServiceProcess

if you want make your service never die :

1. onStartCommand() return START_STICKY

2. onDestroy() -> startself

3. create a Deamon service

4. jin -> create a Native Deamon process, you can find some open-source projects on github

5. startForeground() , there is a way to startForeground without Notification ,google it

This may help you. I may be mistaken but it seems to me that this is related with returning START_STICKY in your onStartCommand() method. You can avoid the service from being called again by returning START_NOT_STICKY instead.

Services are quite complicated sometimes.

When you start a service from an activity (or your process), the service is essentially on the same process.

quoting from the developer notes

Most confusion about the Service class actually revolves around what it is not:

A Service is not a separate process. The Service object itself does not imply it is running in its own process; unless otherwise specified, it runs in the same process as the application it is part of.

A Service is not a thread. It is not a means itself to do work off of the main thread (to avoid Application Not Responding errors).

So, what this means is, if the user swipes the app away from the recent tasks it will delete your process(this includes all your activities etc). Now, lets take three scenarios.

First where the service does not have a foreground notification.

In this case your process is killed along with your service.

Second where the service has a foreground notification

In this case the service is not killed and neither is the process

Third scenario If the service does not have a foreground notification, it can still keep running if the app is closed. We can do this by making the service run in a different process. (However, I've heard some people say that it may not work. left to you to try it out yourself)

you can create a service in a separate process by including the below attribute in your manifest.

android:process=":yourService"

or

android:process="yourService" process name must begin with lower case.

quoting from developer notes

If the name assigned to this attribute begins with a colon (':'), a new process, private to the application, is created when it's needed and the service runs in that process. If the process name begins with a lowercase character, the service will run in a global process of that name, provided that it has permission to do so. This allows components in different applications to share a process, reducing resource usage.

this is what I have gathered, if anyone is an expert, please do correct me if I'm wrong :)