Android Question Possible memory issue

[gadgetmonster]

Hi

In my app I use the content chooser to allow the user to pick an image from the gallery but there seems to be a problem which may be down to memory. I have managed to replicate this issue on a sony xperia e1 and have had it reported also on a Samsung Galaxy s duo 2.

What seems to happen is when the user selects a photo and returns back to the app, activity_create is called with firsttime set to true.

I created a small test app which simply uses contentchooser to pick and then display a photo. Now, If I run some apps on my phone and then run my test app it has the same problem. Sometimes it works but sometimes it calls activity_create with firsttime = true.

My first thought was to persist my apps data by writing it to a file so that if I came back to my app and the activity had been destroyed, I could recover and show the data. However, I wouldn't know what image the user had selected as the activity had been re-started.

I have attached my test app in case I have done something wrong.

Anybody have any ideas?

 

[thedesolatesoul]

What you are seeing is a real problem. Your whole process has been cycled out.
Can you see what Intent you receive in Activity.GetStartingIntent?
Does the ContentChooser event fire?

 

[gadgetmonster]

Hi TDS,

The content chooser fires every time. A mate of mid vaguely remembers there being a flag you can set which tells the OS not to remove your process from memory and top remove others first. Don't remember seeing this but thought id ask incase someone is aware of it.

Not sure how to use getstartingintent. Tried having a look at what Activity.getstartingintent.action contained but it was blank.

 

[thedesolatesoul]

So if you do persist your data (which you should), and the process gets recreated, and content chooser fires again (so you get the image selected), then you can re-create the previous state?

 

[gadgetmonster]

The problem is not persisting data the user has entered rather the photo they selected. When contentchooser is done it calls the event cc_result. However, if my process is cycled out then this will never get called and user will not see the photo they selected.

 

[Erel]

You will need to create a service and call Service.StartForeground before the user leaves your app. This way it will not be killed while in the background.

 

[gadgetmonster]

Hi Erel, So are you saying that if an app has an associated service running then the OS will not kill the app?

 

[thedesolatesoul]

ok, now i understand what you are saying.
who knows it might still be killed, but imho, using a service is a really long way of going about it

 

[gadgetmonster]

I have tried the Service option and it does indeed work. The downside is that it displays a notification with icon and the text 'App is Running, Touch for more information or to stop'

 

[Erel]

Call Service.StopForeground when your app resumes.